Trump, Waco, Abortion, The Handmaid's Tale
Trump, Waco, Abortion Rights in Idaho, The Handmaid's Tale
American Democracy:
1. Why Trump’s Choice of Waco Mattered (Big Time)
Over the last three decades, extremists have invoked the FBI's raid on the Branch Davidian compound to justify violence against the government. (MSNBC)
The siege had lasted 51 days. It started when federal agents tried to serve a summons to David Koresh, Branch Davidian cult leader. That attempt ended with four federal agents and six Branch Davidian members dead. The effort to end the standoff resulted in 76 Davidians, including Koresh, 25 children, and two pregnant women, being burned to death.
Congressional inquiries found that Koresh had placed fuel caches in three places at the compound, all but inviting a firestorm. Yet the siege was so flawed that then-AG Janet Reno was forced to acknowledge that clouding the issue that that tagents who laid siege to the compound used tear gas, which may have sparked the conflagration, the fuel for which had been laid by David Koresh himself.
So, what is Trump doing at Waco?
Answer: Inciting a war. Or, as MSNBC put it:
Over the past three decades, extremists have invoked the FBI's raid on the Branch Davidian compound to justify violence against the government.
Trump’s message, in the vernacular: “You can commit treason for me, go to war for me, take down the government for me.” Trump is facing the Stormy Daniels perp walk and no fewer than 19 other very serious criminal suits starting with E. Jean Carroll’s rape case and five proceedings brought by relatives of those killed in the January 6 insurrection.
Far and away, it is the analysis by former U.S. District Attorney and MSNBC analyst Joyce Vance that lays out Trump’s dangerous path best:
Waco has become a touchstone for far-right anti-government, Christian-nationalist white supremacists who likely know little about the Branch Davidians and their motivations. And here is Trump, holding a rally on their sacred ground to launch his 2024 campaign right in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the siege. Going to Waco sends a clear message to anti-government groups, and it should send one to the rest of us as well. It’s too important to miss. Trump is willing to embrace far-right extremism, and everything it brings along with it, to restore himself to power.
Is this self-destructive? No. Vance quotes Mary Trump:
It’s clear to me that the decision to hold Donald’s next rally in Waco, TX, during the 30th anniversary of the FBI siege of the Branch Davidian compound is entirely intentional. I doubt it was Donald’s idea—more likely Stephen Miller or somebody of his ilk made the connection. I think this is a signal that they don’t have to hide anything anymore. Much like David Koresh and his followers, Donald and his followers are an apocalyptic, anti-government cult. And they’re coming for us.
The pattern has been established over decades—Donald pushes the envelope, his transgressions are overlooked, he pushes the envelope further. This week, after he manipulated the entirety of the American media to do his bidding, Donald took to social media to warn of widespread violence if the rule of law were upheld and he was finally, at long last, indicted. He used vile racist and anti-Semitic tropes and charged images to threaten the life of the New York District Attorney who dares hold him accountable—according to the law. Openly declaring war on the government he hopes once again to lead by appealing to the most violent, self-destructive instincts of those who continue to enable him is the next logical step.
All this is published on the hope that forewarned is forearmed.
Post-rally Update: Trump threatened more violence, called prosecutor Alvin Bragg a (expletive deleted), made disparaging remarks about Stormy Daniels’ looks, targeted Ron DeSantis, showed a film of convicted January 6 insurrectionists singing the national anthem, repeated his lies about the election, accused the Supreme Court of being too spineless to back his false claims he won the elections, denied knowing it was the 30th anniversary of Waco, promised to destroy the “deep state” and painted himself as the victim of politically-motivated malicious litigation. Yawn.
For the ultimate discussion on Trump and Waco, please read the long-form article by Joyce Vance on Substack at https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-waco-rally-reveals-danger-death-destruction-posts-rcna76394
2. The Roots of Trumpism, Part II: Rural Conservatism
by Rupert L. Chapman III, Ph.D.
For the people of the rural hinterlands, the expectation of life is continuity, while for the urban populations, the expectation is change.
…. This truth—about the difference in expectations between rural and urban populations—has been much remarked upon from the beginning. It can be seen in the origin story of Enkidu, his taming by a courtesan from Uruk, and his first encounter with Gilgamesh in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It has been intensely studied by anthropologists and sociologists. What these studies have repeatedly shown is the life of the small farmer is not merely an arduous one, it is a precarious one. The hazards are many. Leaving aside the threats pertaining to the life of humans, there are diseases which strike farm animals and crops. The weather is never perfect, and in most climates can be disastrous—too much or too little rain, too short a growing season, hail, wind, and so on. When the crop has been harvested, and the portions destined for the next season’s seed, for animal feed through the winter, and for food for the family have been set aside, whatever is left can be sent to the market, where it is subject to the price fluctuations due to shifts in demand. Any worn-out equipment must be repaired or replaced, as must clothing. And, of course, in any hierarchical (state) society, something will go in taxes.
Farming populations, wherever they live, are adapted to their situation and have means for hedging against each of these potential disasters or even multiples of them at once. These adaptations are honed over generations and shape the behaviour and society of the population concerned. They will be different for each population, as the risks differ both in nature and intensity. The means of dealing with them will also vary, from the mundane and purely practical/pragmatic, to the ideological, to religious rites and festivals, to offerings and sacrifices to deities (or, in earlier, unstratified societies, to local spirits).
Anything which changes any of the aspects of this way of life is seen as a threat to all of it. This can be an aid agency attempting to introduce changes to a fallow cycle with artificial fertilizer to maintain the productivity of the soil, new breeds of farm animals or plants, new methods of cultivation and harvest, or changes in ideology. The way the population has lived “time out of mind” has enabled its people to survive, and any changes to that way of life are seen as a threat not simply to that way of life but to the very survival of the population. Read it all.
3. Sandpoint, Idaho County Hospital Ends Labor and Childbirth Services over Draconian Abortion Laws
The death of Roe v. Wade triggered some of the most draconian laws to date in the war against women’s choice. In Sandpoint, Idaho, the largest city in sparsely-populated Bonner County — population just shy of 9,000 — there’s just one hospital, Bonner General.
Because of the state’s new abortion laws, doctors are fleeing both the county and the state. Bonner General is threatened with crippling lawsuits. Idaho doctors face prison time if a labor goes wrong and results in the death of a newborn. Bonner General had no choice: it will end all labor and childbirth services in mid-May.
Bonner General’s official statement reads:
[In] Idaho’s legal and political climate, highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care. Consequences for Idaho Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fines.
The upshot is that many women may be forced to travel more than an hour to find a hospital that will help them deliver their children—or that they may find themselves forced to give birth at home or in a car with no trained assistance. In such cases, both maternal and newborn deaths skyrocket.
Apropos of this discussion, we bring you our …
PolitiSage Banned Book of the Week:
The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
When Canadian writer Margaret Atwood penned her 1985 dystopian novel of women utterly controlled and sexually appropriated by the Christofascist bullies of fictional Gilead, she thought it would never happen in real life. But what happened in real life is that Spain and Portugal banned the book entirely. Hundreds of hand-wringing school boards have sought and often succeeded in attempts to ban it—on the excuses that it contains profanity and violence and depicts sex. Hell, The Odyssey contains curses, violence, and sex, and they don’t ban that!
So, maybe what causes red-county freakout is that Atwood presciently paints what an entirely possible—and in some places frighteningly present—Christofascist religious police state looks like.
Newsweek notes that at the beginning of Banned Books Week 2022, Pen America listed 1,648 titles (and there may have been more) that were banned around the U.S. — and the list did not include titles repeated in multiple states. According to the report, books were banned in 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students in 32 states.
Meanwhile, Atwood produced a fireproof copy of The Handmaid’s Tale that was auctioned off by Sotheby’s for $130,000.00. Proceeds went to Pen America, which protects open journalism and free speech.
Here, in a one-minute film, Margaret tests her book for fire-resistance.
Earth Perspectives
Created by CEO Félix Pharand-Deschênes of the nonprofit science communication organization Globaia, this graphic shows the 875,325,599 cubic miles of water in the world—which includes all the ground water and all the water in clouds, water lakes, ice lakes, and rivers. There are 13,007.2734689 trillion pounds of air in our atmosphere. The air has been gathered up into a perfect sphere at sea-level density.
Now this seems like a lot of air and water, but these amounts are fatally small. The gray Earth in the background is to scale—and it weighs 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds. So, although the quantities of air and water seem gargantuan, given the mass of the earth, they classify as mere whiffs of air and drops of water in a bucket.
The pollution of the air, now weighed down with both carbon and methane, is potentially an existential problem. The IPCC report released this month states:
Without increased and urgent mitigation ambition in the coming years, leading to a sharp decline in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, global warming will surpass 1.5°C in the following decades, leading to irreversible loss of the most fragile ecosystems, and crisis after crisis for the most vulnerable people and societies.
And according to The World Counts, a severe water shortage will affect the entire planet by 2040 “if we keep doing what we're doing today."
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