{"id":797934,"date":"2019-07-24T12:01:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T18:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369116"},"modified":"2019-07-24T12:01:57","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T18:01:57","slug":"opinion-mike-littwin-you-have-to-wonder-if-this-is-the-last-time-the-house-will-sit-in-judgment-of-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-mike-littwin-you-have-to-wonder-if-this-is-the-last-time-the-house-will-sit-in-judgment-of-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Mike Littwin: You have to wonder if this is the last time the House will sit in judgment of Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Mike Littwin<\/strong>
The Colorado Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The one thing we don\u2019t need to debate in America is whether Donald Trump is a racist. He makes racist statements. He makes racist policy. He tweets racist tweets. He dog-whistles racist dog whistles. If dog whistling doesn\u2019t quite get the job done, he tweets that four lefty congresswomen of color should go back to whatever \u2014 paraphrasing here \u2014 shithole country they came from, knowing or not knowing, it\u2019s hard to know which, that three of the targeted women were born in America and the other arrived as a child refugee. <\/p>\n

None of this is new. Trump began his presidency by trying to ban all visitors and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries. His journey to the presidency began by becoming the nation\u2019s most prominent birther. Back in the day, he called for the Central Park Five to be executed. Upon their exoneration, he still believes they\u2019re guilty.<\/p>\n

Why does he believe they\u2019re guilty? Ask yourself what a racist is. Try to come up with a way to explain why Trump doesn\u2019t qualify. Remember Paul Ryan\u2019s \u201ctextbook definition of racism\u201d quote? Trump has written a new textbook. The Atlantic published an \u201coral history\u201d<\/a> of Trumpist racism, which could serve as a foreword to that book.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the worst of it. The worst of it is the GOP enablers who stand silent \u2014 most Republican lawmakers \u2014 or even defend him. They\u2019re silenced out of fear of those who make up the Trump base, few of whom, let\u2019s say, fit the long-past ideal of the Party of Lincoln. Or they\u2019re silenced out of fear of Trump himself, who, as we know, holds a grudge.<\/p>\n

As the House prepared to vote to condemn Trump\u2019s racist tweets, Trump was tweeting that the Squad \u2014 as progressive Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are called \u2014 were \u201canti-USA\u201d and \u201cpro-terror,\u201d also vile and disgusting for good measure. They\u2019re not anti-American; they\u2019re anti-Trump, which, to Trump, is much the same thing.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on the House floor, where they were debating the bill, Republicans halted discussion to hold a vote as to whether Nancy Pelosi could describe Trump\u2019s racist tweets as \u201cracist\u201d because that wouldn\u2019t be, well, civil. It was an extraordinary moment in House history. And let\u2019s just say it got a lot less civil after that. The word \u201cshithole\u201d would later be heard on the House floor. The chair was briefly abandoned. Pelosi won because who would argue civility in defending Donald Trump?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely that Trump decided to demonize the Squad because they had been feuding with Pelosi. But he inadvertently helped Dems to make up \u2014 Pelosi called them \u201cour sisters\u201d \u2014 while four Republicans and one independent<\/a> \u2014 that would be Justin Amash, who just quit the party \u2014 voted along with every Democrat to condemn the tweets. One of the Republicans is retiring. The others are in swing districts. Trump would be fine watching them lose, of course. We remember his snide public farewell to sometimes-critic Mike Coffman after the midterms.<\/p>\n

And so that\u2019s why it took Cory Gardner, who is up for re-election next year, three days to figure out what to say about a president he has already endorsed for re-election \u2014 a president who lost Colorado by five points in 2016 and who, according to the polls, is even less popular in the state today.<\/p>\n

Finally, Gardner told KOA NewsRadio: \u201cI disagree with the president. I wouldn\u2019t have sent those tweets. I think he shouldn\u2019t have done it \u2026I think we have to focus on things like bringing this country together and moving this country forward. Highlight disagreements, highlight the fact that we have better ideas \u2013 or you have better ideas \u2013 but I wouldn\u2019t have sent that tweet. I just disagree with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he didn\u2019t say was that the tweets were racist or un-American or that no president in our lifetime would have said anything like that or that George Wallace would have been proud.<\/p>\n

And yet, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was asked whether Trump\u2019s tweets were racist, he denied it. He said the go-back-where-you-came-from tweets were about \u201cideology,\u201d saying, \u201cThis is about freedom vs. socialism.\u201d He said it with a straight face.<\/p>\n

Bill Kristol, the conservative never-Trumper, tweeted in reply. \u201c\u2018This is about freedom vs. socialism.\u2019 LOL. By the way, has Trump ever told Bernie Sanders\u2014an actual socialist running for his job\u2014to go back where he came from?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders would be \u2014 double-checking to be sure \u2014 white. As Pelosi said on the subject of Trump and racism, his Make America Great Again slogan actually means: Make America White Again, a charge which Trump called racist. That\u2019s straight out of the Trump playbook \u2014 calling someone racist for calling you out for being a racist.<\/p>\n

Mitch McConnell, who also says Trump is not a racist, took days before embracing both-sidesism, saying that we all need to turn down the rhetoric. No, we don\u2019t. We need to call Trump out again and again. McConnell was asked whether he\u2019d think it racist if someone demanded that his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who was born in Taiwan, go home to her own country. He dodged the question, twice, because what else could he do \u2014 tell the truth?<\/p>\n

We need to call out Trump repeatedly because we need to be sure what 2020 is about. Let me quote George Will \u2014 yes, George Will \u2014 on how two-plus years of Trump have already undermined so much of democracy as we understand it in America.<\/p>\n

In a New York Times Book Review podcast<\/a>, Will said, \u201cI believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse \u2026 you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream. I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon\u2019s surreptitious burglaries did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worse than Nixon? Absolutely. Can\u2019t unring the bell? God help us.<\/p>\n

Did anyone else get the sense that, as impeachment talk among Democrats grows ever more fevered, that it wouldn\u2019t be surprising \u2014 I\u2019ll cite the Bard here \u2014 if what just passed was prologue?<\/p>\n

If Trump hadn\u2019t sent his tweets and doubled down on them and tripled down on them, we would be discussing the Trumpian cruelty at the border, the people locked in cages, the children who have been traumatized, all to show toughness to his base (no toothbrushes for those whiny kids) and to scare away would-be refugees who look to America as a beacon.<\/p>\n

The photo of Mike Pence at the border facility \u2014 seemingly unbothered by the stench or by the notion that in America we can\u2019t find a bed for those we lock in cages \u2014 seemed to undercut any beacon-like qualities. The photo of the father and his toddler lying face down in the Rio Grande, the little girl\u2019s head tucked in her father\u2019s shirt, her arm holding onto his neck, made the same point. Sure, life may be tough in your violence-torn country, but that\u2019s your problem \u2014 not ours.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how Americans will respond to Trump\u2019s latest adventure in dividing the country or by the House vote to condemn it, but I do have an idea that we will be defined as a country by the response. In 2016, Trump became president running a racist, Mexicans-are-rapists, Muslims-cheered-9\/11 campaign. He seems intent on trying the same tactic.<\/p>\n

My guess is that something like 43% of the country will approve whatever Trump does, something like 53% won\u2019t, schoolboy taunts will continue, lies will still be the coin of the realm, bells will not be unrung and somehow the coming election will remain a tossup.<\/p>\n

Mike Littwin writes the biweekly column \u201cFair and Unbalanced\u201d for The Colorado Independent. He previously worked at The Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun. Contact him at<\/em> mike@coloradoindependent.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike LittwinThe Colorado Independent The one thing we don\u2019t need to debate in America is whether Donald Trump is a racist. He makes racist statements. He makes racist policy. He tweets racist tweets. He dog-whistles racist dog whistles. If dog whistling doesn\u2019t quite get the job done, he tweets that four lefty congresswomen of color […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 09:07:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}