Down the Trump Rabbit Hole - 22 October 2020

 [Sent 22 October 2020 to my wife and our three daughters]

Good morning.  So Election Day 2020 is just a few days ahead.  You may recall I began sending you e-mail messages the morning after Election Day 2016.  Since then, the relentless/shocking/disturbing/frightening consequences of that election have far exceeded the grim projections I anticipated in those initial reflections four years ago.  Whether responding to pivotal events, symbolic dates, or the need for self-examination pauses to refresh core values – that initial e-mail message has stretched into a series of e-mail messages I eventually described as Down the Trump Rabbit Hole.  I have taken the liberty to attach a copy of all of these messages collected into a single document.

Several weeks ago, I focused my elective reading on the post-Civil War Reconstruction era (1863-77), asking/fearing – Is the United States today at a similar point of truly revolutionary intentions being undermined/defeated by failure to sustain a critical mass sufficient to withstand/overcome deeply rooted resistance to the radical (i.e., to the root) change necessary to achieve an inclusive, compassionate, and respectful society?  I keep telling myself “No”, but this history haunts me.  I recommend Reconstruction: A Concise History (Guelzo), Reconstruction: Voices from America’s First Great Struggle for Racial Equality (Simpson, ed.), and The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (Lane). 

These two markers still stand in Colfax, LA, celebrating ‘the end of carpetbag misrule in the South’ and memorializing by name the three ‘heroes’ who were killed ‘fighting for white supremacy’.  This savage massacre 13 April 1873 collapsed efforts to reconstruct society as envisioned in the 13^th (1865), 14^th (1868), and 15^th (1870) constitutional amendments.  Federal prosecutors successfully tried many of the white mob, only to have the Supreme Court argue the prosecutors exceeded their authority and reverse the guilty verdicts in United States v. Cruikshank.  With Congress and federal courts sidelined, ‘reconstruction’ ironically U-turned into the recovery of as much as possible of pre-Civil War injustices, resulting in nearly a century of entrenched Jim Crow segregation.  The dehumanizing legacy endures.  The Rehnquist Supreme Court referenced Cruikshank in the 2000 United States v. Morrison decision that the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was unconstitutional.  And then there is the ‘white supremacy’ rallying energized by and inseparable from the Trump presidency.

So who are we today?  You may be familiar with a Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem I discovered a few years ago while informing myself about the White Rose non-violent Nazi resistance group of university students most frequently remembered through the published narratives of University of Munich students Hans Scholl and his younger sister Sophie.  On 22 February 1943, Hans scratched the poem – long cherished by his family -- on the wall of his prison cell before being taken to his show trial and sent the same day to the Nazi guillotine.  Sophie and their friend Christoph Probst met the same fate that day.  Others followed in the days ahead.  Here is my best translation/interpretation effort re the Goethe poem --

Cowardly thoughts,
Nervous wavering,
Fainthearted trembling,
Anxious lamenting
Does not turn around sorrow,
Does not make you free.

Defy (stand firm against) all power (force),
Never yield (bend/bow),
Show yourself strong,
Summon the arms of the gods.

Be well. Be safe. Be encouraged. Much love!

Doug/Dad