The other night I was on television discussing Donald Trump’s most recent rally rant-athon. He made news suggesting that were he to regain the White House, he just might pardon those insurrectionist marauders who violently attacked the US Capitol in service to him. To all those QAnoners, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Confederate flag-wavers, Christian nationalists, and real estate agents who rioted for him, he was saying, yes, you are my people, my brownshirts. Very fine people, indeed.

But another statement Trump had uttered at the rally had intrigued me more. Referring to the ongoing investigations of him in New York and Georgia, he had bellowed, “If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or corrupt, we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had.” On air, I cited this remark and pointed out that the three lead investigators or prosecutors pursuing Trump—Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg—are each Black. Why was Trump calling them racist? He was telling his troops that these Black people were targeting him because he is white. That is, with the investigations of his possible tax fraud in New York and his caught-on-tape attempt to pressure Georgia elections officials to overturn the election results, he is the victim of racist vendettas. And, Trump said, if the net tightens around him, he wants his people to rise up against these “racists” in protests larger than the January 6 demonstration.

I concluded, “He is essentially—it’s going to sound hyperbolic to some viewers out there—calling for a race war. That’s what’s happening here.”

Host Ayman Mohyeldin interjected, “I don’t think it’s hyperbolic at all.” And fellow guest Christina Greer, a Fordham professor, agreed with him: “For those of us who have been listening and paying attention to Donald Trump, he’s been calling for a race war since the beginning—ever since he came down that gold-plated escalator and said Mexicans are rapists. He’s been trying to tell white people out loud that the immigrants, the Blacks are stealing our country.” I know that on cable television a sharp take often commands the most attention, but I was a bit reluctant to accuse the former guy of inciting a race war. But with Trump calling on his supporters, which includes white folks who have demonstrated a tendency toward violence, to direct their ire against three Black law enforcement officials and claiming the investigations of him are motivated by racial animus, his intent is clear: to trigger racially-motivated conflict. Moreover, by declaring he might pardon the January 6 seditionists, Trump was signaling to his loyalists that those who commit future acts of violence for him could expect to be similarly forgiven. That’s incentive.

Trump has made many racist remarks over many decades. But he has dialed up the racism in recent weeks and intensified his efforts to fuel white grievance and paranoia. On January 15, at a rally in Arizona, he claimed that white people were being denied Covid vaccinations and treatment due to their race: “The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating...white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you’re white you don’t get the vaccine or if you’re white you don’t get therapeutics.” As FactCheck.org put it, “No one is being denied access to vaccines...[T]here is no evidence that white people are being denied COVID-19 therapeutics, either.”

This was a foul statement designed to inflame racial resentment. His more recent comment adds gas to the fire. Trump is defining his lies-driven restoration crusade as a white-versus-Black battle. Not only was the election rigged against him by unidentified Democrats and other sinister operators, but he is now up against a racist plot mounted by Black people to destroy him.

Meanwhile, his fellow cultists have pumped up the race-baiting on another front: President Joe Biden’s promise to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court with a Black woman. Several senators have accused Biden of setting a racial quota (as if the court did not have a racial requirement—no Black people—for most of its existence). Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) dismissed Biden’s decision as misguided affirmative action: “The irony is that the Supreme Court is at the very time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota." Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) slammed Biden’s commitment to selecting a Black woman for the job as “offensive” and “an insult to Black women.” (Uh, how many Black women feel insulted by this?) But Cruz’s audience is not Black women. We know who he’s talking to when he says, “Black women are, what, 6 percent of the US population? He’s saying to 94 percent of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you.’” Cruz was addressing angry white people and endeavoring to feed their rage. Given that most SCOTUS picks come from among the 179 federal appellate judges—that’s 0.00005 percent of Americans—all presidents tend to say, when it comes to this job, 99.99995 percent of you are out of luck.

Not surprisingly, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) took the cake, ran out of the bakery without paying, jumped on a rocket ship, and headed to the moon. “No. 1,” he said, “I want a nominee who knows a law book from a J. Crew catalog. No. 2, I want a nominee who’s not going to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday to try to advance a ‘woke agenda.’” This was screaming the quiet part out loud. Kennedy revealed what he thinks of accomplished Black female jurists. They are nothing but bubbleheaded woke activists. Kennedy doesn’t bother with a dog whistle. He just says it: Black women are inferior. And did any of his Senate Republican colleagues complain? I didn’t see it. As for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, he didn’t denigrate the yet-to-be-picked nominee, but he had his own moment. Regarding Biden’s SCOTUS nominee, a reporter asked him, “How many Black women do you have on staff and how are they informing your decision?” McConnell answered: “I haven’t checked. We don’t have a racial quota in my office.” It’s not having a racial quota to know if there is a Black woman on your staff. It sounded as if McConnell were saying the only way he would have a Black woman on his Senate payroll would be through affirmative action. (Only two weeks ago, McConnell referred to “African American voters” as being distinct from “Americans.”)

With these comments, the Republicans are telegraphing that no matter who Biden selects they will use this nomination to encourage and exploit racism. White people, they are already saying, this justice is not for you, and this nomination is one more sign that the Democrats care more about the Blacks than you. The Republicans, with the Ds in control of the Senate and no filibuster permitted for Supreme Court appointments, probably can’t block a nominee. But they certainly can use this occasion to decry affirmative action and broadcast a racist message.

That’s fully in sync with Dear Leader and his agenda. Trump is ready to unleash his (white) thugs against his Black pursuers. (After Trump’s rally, Fani Willis contacted the FBI and requested a risk assessment of the Fulton County courthouse, noting that security concerns were “escalated” by Trump’s comments.) He has racialized his campaign to overturn the election, and he has increased the potential for more 1/6-like clashes by championing the domestic terrorists who attacked the Capitol and riling up his followers. Trump is promoting racial conflict with a possibility of violence. What should we call that?

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

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Dumbass Comment of the Week

It’s a throwback this week. Remember Michele Bachmann? She was a far-right House member from Minnesota, serving from 2007 to 2015, who spewed conspiracy theories and hate-fueled rhetoric long before Marjorie Taylor Greene dreamed of stomping through the halls of Congress. A not-too-sharp conservative culture warrior, she exclaimed that gay marriage was the “biggest issue” facing the country for the past 30 years. She asked the media to investigate members of Congress to determine “are they pro-America or anti-America.'' As a climate change denier, she claimed, “There isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.” And remember the crazy eyes? In September 2020, she asserted that “transgender Black Marxists” were “seeking the overthrow of the United States and the dissolution of the traditional family." This week appearing on Fox, she hailed Sarah Palin. For what? For dining out in a restaurant after testing positive for Covid. “Sarah Palin is to be commended because she is trying to act like a normal human being in the greatest city in America, New York City. She’s going out to eat at a wonderful little boutique Italian restaurant.” Really? Normal—or courteous—human beings do not go to restaurants when they know they are carrying a highly infectious virus that can be lethal for some. Especially when room service is available. Celebrating Palin’s defiance of responsibility was a bizarre twist in the right-wing war against Covid common sense. Bachmann certainly hasn’t lost her touch.

For the winner, let’s turn to a slightly more serious player. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who once ran a hospital company that committed massive Medicare fraud, visited the Everglades recently, after the Biden administration announced that the bipartisan infrastructure bill it passed would provide $1.1 billion to restore and protect the iconic landscape and increase its resilience to the consequences of climate change. This is an important project for Floridians and all Americans. And Scott wanted people to know he had helped make this happen. While touring the Herbert Hoover Dike, he declared that he was “proud that Senator Rubio and I were able to help secure an unprecedented $1 billion for Everglades restoration, the largest single amount ever allocated by the federal government." A slight problem: Neither Scott nor Rubio voted for the law that made this money available. As PolitiFact pointed out, “That makes Scott part of another growing political tradition: lawmakers claiming credit for things made possible by legislation they opposed.” Did he think no one would vet his fraudulent statement? Well, look at what he has gotten away with in the past.

The Mailbag

The Mailbag was against stuffed this week. A reminder: Include your full name. And it may not always be true that brevity is the soul of wit, but it will help get your email published. There were a lot of good but very long emails. I appreciate the time and thought put into them, and I read each one. But it certainly is easier to include the more compact notes. Please keep that in mind. If the mail stays at a high level, I might have to spin off the Mailbag into its own issue. Thoughts on that?

There was a strong response to my request for help in understanding Michael Flynn’s craziness. Several readers sent in psychiatric diagnoses. Others discussed the psychological impact of working in the shadowy world of intelligence. But I know plenty of people in that field who don’t become QAnonish conspiracists who suggest military coups to overturn election results they do not fancy. Some readers raised questions about his younger brother, Lt. General Charles Flynn, who was Army deputy chief of staff for operations on January 6, 2021. He was recently in the news when a fellow officer accused him of having lied about what happened that day regarding the delayed deployment of National Guard troops. (The Pentagon denied Flynn had lied.)

Tom Feran sent in this possible explanation for Flynn’s nuttery:

My guess on Flynn would be to follow Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer. And to me that would be revenge after being fired by Obama. In that case he is right in step with Trump, whose motivation for most everything leading up to the White House (and beyond) has been to get revenge for Obama’s public, hilarious humiliation of Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Andrew Edelstein had a cinematic observation:

Your portrayal of Flynn reminds me of nothing so much as General Jack D. Ripper, the nut job commander in Doctor Strangelove. Played by Sterling Hayden with a completely straight face (people remember George C. Scott, who overacted shamelessly as the other general), you could tell he really believed that communists were taking our “precious bodily fluids.” That movie also reminds us of what can happen when lunatics are given control of nuclear codes.

Alfred Higgins went deep:

His lifelong career with the military, itself a cult of machismo personalities, his attainment of general staff rank, and his specialization in psychological operations all suggest that he has always been an authoritarian opportunist with an inadequacy complex, driven by enormous ego. Furthermore, Flynn has an enormous grievance with President Obama for his dismissal of Flynn from command as well as with the Justice Department for his subsequent Indictment/conviction. In conjunction with a predisposition for joining cults of power/personality, these characteristics can explain why an individual seemingly owning one of life’s great success stories would discard reality and democracy in order to throw his lot in with Trump’s delusions of grandiosity. None of this dismisses your other theories. It actually binds them together, as they are not themselves mutually exclusive.

Again, it should be noted not everyone drawn to work in the national security world shares these personality traits. But it seems a good bet that psychological impulses have pushed Flynn toward his authoritarian-loving battiness.

Thomas Cleaver wrote:

A good friend of mine (who I think you likely know also, but who doesn't want his "name traded on"—so I don't mention it) who was in the military hierarchy at a point where one can "become knowledgeable" about things like how Flynn became crazy opined to me that it was his experience, having been around intel, that there are people who—for many possible reasons—have a predilection to believe "things aren't what they seem.” If they get into work like this (which would be attractive to them), it will at some point "trigger" them into full-on nuttiness. That mindset can make them effective up to a certain level but going beyond it can become that "trigger."

I have no idea who our mutual acquaintance is, but, yes, a degree of careful paranoia is necessary in the intelligence world. All the more reason for a strong anchor for anyone who travels through what has been called a wilderness of mirrors. The disturbing case of CIA officer James Jesus Angleton is an important cautionary tale.

My report on the Tennessee country school board that booted Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, the Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel, from the eighth-grade curriculum sparked outrage and contemplation. Elsie Harris seconded my hope that this dustup would prompt students in Tennessee and elsewhere to read the book:

Dead on right. As a teen in the 50-60’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned. So my sister-in- law got the book from a friend, read it and gave it to my sister and I. Seems all the kid’s I knew had read it as well. Hope this happens with Maus.

My pal Jenny Apostol had this thoughtful comment:

This is great/horrifying to read. Thanks for the transcription and detail—indeed worse than the outraging headline. The only thing I disagree about is the characterization that this school board is stuck in another era, which impugns people of the past who clearly—many of them—possessed sufficient judgement to take scary sexy pop lyrics and knowledge about the tragedies of history or conditions they observed in stride. The snowflake era—whereby people on right or left find text or history objectionable (this Holocaust is making fascists feel bad about themselves) or triggering is entirely outside of context of any era. I actually have a 40-year-old friend who grew up very isolated within a separatist Christian sect, and she learned about the Holocaust in college, which she attended in her 30s. She is as smart as anyone yet feels diminished. I agree with you how poorly served these children will be, denied experience and judgement and a whole range of knowledge fueled by curiosity.

Margaret Garigan made a connection that I had missed:

It was striking to me that in your January 29th issue, the entire Maus story was compelling proof of something you mentioned later in your [Mailbag] response to Margo Waring. You said, “In 2020, Forbes reported, ‘According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old—about 130 million people—lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.’” Given that you had just described a county school board meeting in which members displayed stunning ignorance about topics including (but not limited to) American standards’ lyrics, the Holocaust, curriculum development, and what eighth-graders are like, it seems to me you showed us just how that statistic looks in action. Only people whose reading proficiency stopped developing around the sixth grade could have made the decision the McMinn County school board made.

Several readers voiced a sentiment Lew Woodard shared:

I wonder if it ever occurred to these clowns that eighth-graders are likely engaging in sex, alcohol, and drugs at some level and that reading a Pulitzer Prize-winning book is not really an issue...Think they might be embarrassed that their idiocy has launched the book into bestseller status? This mess may indeed turn out to be a good lesson in the long run.

Reader Leanna Landsmann put it succinctly: “I would like to see the playlists on the eighth-graders’ smart phones. I’m confident that there are no foul words. They won’t hear the word ‘bitch.’”

In a similar vein, there were strong feelings about measures implemented in Florida and Virginia to prevent the teaching or discussion of matters that might make someone “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin,” as in the case of the new law in the Sunshine State. I had referred to these initiatives—which targeted critical race theory and other conversations about race, identity, and history—as the snowflake-ization of the right.

Laurence Margolis wrote:

The current laws designed to limit what is taught in schools and related penalties is very disturbing. Can’t they be challenged in court based on the First Amendment and/or being unconstitutional due to their vagueness? Exactly what does being uncomfortable mean? It is unfortunate that parents wish to keep their own children ignorant about the actual history of their own country. This type of movement fits right in with the Republicans wanting to take the country back to the 50s where being different was frowned upon. I believe the “Big Lie” needs to be expanded beyond the lies about the 2020 election being stolen to the reality the Republicans are trying to create.

Patricia Jaeger asked this:

Couldn't someone argue that not discussing real history in the classroom, thereby ignoring it, makes [people] psychologically distressed and workplace behavior (discrimination, antisemitism, misogyny, Islamaphobia, transphobia, etc.) that is not discussed makes some feel discomfort?

That’s a good question. But we know why Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis (in Florida) and Glenn Youngkin (in Virginia) are fixated on only one shade of discomfort.

Jerry Brown wondered why there has not been much public attention paid to the humanitarian crisis underway in Afghanistan, where children are starving:

PBS appears to be the only ones concerned about this crisis. How can this administration withhold funds that could help alleviate some of the death and misery? I voted for Biden thinking that he was, at least, a compassionate being—unlike his predecessor. I just can't understand why this is not a priority.

The UN recently said that 23 million Afghans—half the population—are in dire need of assistance. The Biden administration last month announced it would send $308 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. But it has frozen $9.4 billion in Afghan government funds, which presumably could be used to alleviate the crisis. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and a few other House progressives have been pushing to release this money. There has been some coverage of the crisis, but I think we know why this is not a top-of-list concern in the United States. We don’t really care that much about people overseas. And, no doubt, politics plays a role now. The Republicans were only interested in Afghanistan when they could use it as ammo against Biden, blasting him for the chaotic withdrawal last summer. And my hunch is that Democrats don’t want to talk too much about Afghanistan because it might remind voters of a low point in Biden’s first year as president. My family recently donated to CARE to support its work in Afghanistan.

Erika Starrs wrote:

Hello David, I was scrolling through your newsletter and had decided that I couldn’t really justify another subscription when I came upon your story (and accompanying lovely photo) of Moxie falling through the ice. As I read about the scary incident, and your description of Moxie as a “substandard” poodle, I was hit by a wave of sadness as a realized it is four years to the day since my own cream-colored “substandard,” Dexter, passed away from a blood infection at only six-years-old. I am relieved that your story had a happy ending, and wish you many more years of romping through the woods with your beautiful example of one of the world’s best dog breeds. You are a fantastic writer, and, yes, I am going to subscribe. Poodle people, unite!

Erika, my condolences regarding Dexter. I am partial to standard poodles. They tend to be athletic and bright, empathetic and intuitive, confident and playful. Who wouldn’t want all that in a companion? I’ll tell Moxie she is responsible for at least one new subscription this week. She will be pleased. Speaking of which...

MoxieCam™

Whenever I ask Moxie why she likes to chew on sticks so much, she never answers.

Read Recent Issues of This Land

February 1, 2022: Please tell me: Why is Michael Flynn crazy?; an impressive film about Nicolas Cage and his pig; Wajahat Ali’s impressive memoir about growing up Muslim and nonwhite in America; and more.

January 29, 2022: The inside story of the banning of Maus—it’s dumber than you think; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; and MoxieCam™; and more.

January 25, 2022: The snowflake-ization of the right; would you buy cryptocurrency from this man (Steve Bannon)?; Belfast, a feel-good movie about a civil war; Elvis Costello’s delightful and cynical new album; and more.

January 22, 2022: Readers speak out: How to save the republic from Republicans; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

January 19, 2022: Why the Democrats must yield to Manchin to keep the Trump cult from gaining power; gushing about The French Dispatch; a true-crime podcast with political and international significance; and more.

January 15, 2022: We’re all tired of Trump’s crazy, but it’s dangerous to ignore; Dumbass Comment of the Week (US Senate edition); the Mailbag; (a harrowing) MoxieCam™; and more.

January 11, 2022: My interview with Jamie Raskin about his son’s suicide, January 6, and the second Trump impeachment; Aaron Sorkin’s one big mistake in Being the Ricardos; Slow Burn’s look back at the LA riots; and more.

January 8, 2022: It’s time for Merrick Garland to reveal if the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

January 4, 2022: The lesson of January 6: Tragedy does not yield national unity; Ayman Mohyeldin’s impressive American Radical podcast; and more.