Header

Also.Also.Also: Trump & Crew Charged With Felony Racketeering in Fourth Indictment

feature image photo by Drew Angerer / Staff via Getty Images

It’s so hot outside I could scream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saw This, Thought of You

Big Trump Indictment Volume Four news: Trump and 18 Allies Charged With Racketeering in Most Sweeping Indictment Yet. The charges come from Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act), most commonly used to target organized crime groups. The indictment — Trump’s fourth — comprises 41 counts and goes after a lot of top Trump allies, including Rudy Giuliani. Trump faces 13 criminal counts in the indictment.

Some more updates on the Maui wildfires:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Slow Factory 🌍 (@theslowfactory)

Women Farmers Were Discriminated Against. Now They’re Owed Compensation.

Outdoor Workers Are Climate Victims.

Queer as in F*ck You

A ‘Frozen War’ in Europe Threatens Sex, Abortion and LGBTQ Rights.

New Study Finds 47% of LGBTQ People Experience Medical Gaslighting.

Baylor University Is No Longer Required to Protect Queer Students From Sexual Harassment.

If you’re in or around Philly, here’s a new art exhibition to check out: ‘They Don’t Come with Rules’: David Antonio Cruz Celebrates Queer Chosen Families.

Jenn Shapland on the Need for “Thin Skin.”Jenn Shapland, the award-winning author of My Autobiography of Carson McCullers has a new book out today called Thin Skin. Stay tuned for an exclusive excerpt from the book later today and a review by Stef Rubino tomorrow.

Political Snacks

Meet the Woman Who Disrupted DeSantis’ Iowa State Fair Visit.

As well as a headline I love: Ron DeSantis Did Not Have a Good Weekend.

One More Thing

Poetry: Three Poems by Chen Chen. I’m obsessed with all three of these poems, and now you can be, too.

Also.Also.Also: Oh Trump Got Indicted

Today was sunny, I think I’m finally getting over my cold (I can breathe out of both nostrils! And take a deep breath in without feeling like my chest is going to cave! But I will miss the Robitussin daydreams!), I went for a walk outside, and more important than any of those things… today is the day that Donald Trump got indicted.

Queer as in F*ck You

“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender…”

Grand Jury Indicts Donald Trump in New York, First Time a Former President Is Charged Criminally. The precise charges are not yet known, but the case is focused on a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign.

I’d like to tell you a story about a Cheeto. One lonely, small, insignificant Cheeto. When I asked our office today what photo could we use today, pretty quickly we all felt that Cheetos was the only appropriate choice. But which one? I had suggested a bowl of Cheetos perhaps? Something that was immediately recognizable. But no. That was not small enough.

A single. Tiny. Cheeto.

And may this indictment be the first of many. (An Update: Donald Trump is expected to turn himself in and face arraignment on Tuesday, according to one of his lawyers. What a fucking day.)

These Photos Explore Queer Latine Youth Culture in LA

The DEA’s New Telehealth Rules Are Bad News for Trans People on Testosterone. “The new rules may make it harder to prescribe controlled substances via telehealth.”

The Affordable Care Act’s Biggest Gender-Based Protections Are Under Threat. “The Texas-based case examines the ACA’s guarantee that preventive medicine be fully covered. It could affect coverage of PrEP, breastfeeding counseling, STI screening and contraception.”

Speaking of those previous two news items, there’s a 24 hour TikTok-a-thon that’s being hosted by trans creators to raise money for trans healthcare, and I cannot imagine a better way to put your money where your mouth is this Trans Day of Visibility.

Saw This, Thought of You

1st Over-The-Counter Opioid Overdose Treatment Gets FDA Approval. “Drug overdoses are currently the leading cause of accidental deaths in the U.S., with a majority involving opioids.”

“If you’re one of the heavy bleeders, women who have fibroids or are premenopausal, the state will not provide you any extra items. You must purchase them. We aren’t paid to work in Texas. And nothing is free in prison.” (This one has been staying with me all day.) Prisons Use Menstruation as a Form of Punishment

For my Yellowjackets hive, buzz buzz buzz: Tawny Cypress Is a True Jersey Girl

Political Snacks

Democrats Reintroduce Federal Trans Bill of Rights as GOP Tries to Advance Restrictions. “The reintroduced Trans Bill of Rights declares that the federal government has a duty to protect trans and nonbinary people.”

“Trans in Trumpland” Depicts the Past, Present and Future of Trans Lives

There is a point in the docu-series Trans in Trumpland where I’m forced to pause the film so I can cry. The mother of Ash, a trans high schooler who is the subject of the first episode, briefly interrupts a board game among the youth and says, “I made some veggie soup, and then I have plain pasta, Mitchell and Rowan, possibly…” It’s her soft-spoken dinner invitation to her son’s friends. In her voice and her eyes, I hear the temporary relief of seeing your child experience joy and friendship — a change from the everyday battles of raising a trans child in North Carolina.

I see my own mother in her eyes. I see the familiar apprehension of wondering if your child would live through the week. North Carolina has been an epicenter of trans rights battles for the past few years. In 2016, House Bill 2 made national news after being passed by state lawmakers, effectively determining that LGBTQ people aren’t protected from discrimination under state laws. It also restricted which restrooms trans people could use, and reversed any existing city ordinances that protected LGBTQ people. A year later, the law was partially repealed. As of last month, cities in North Carolina have begun passing nondiscrimination laws, affirming the rights of their LGBTQ communities.

A young masculine white person wears a tae kwon do outfit.

The legislative back-and-forth confused many people. What the docu-series illustrates more powerfully than is represented in the news cycle is how an individual person’s life is changed. Even when a law doesn’t pass, or is repealed, it stokes fear among targeted populations. In Trans in Trumpland, Ash may go without water for the entire school day so he won’t have to risk going to the bathroom at all. “Because I’m scared of using the bathroom, I’ll often go weeks without drinking water at school,” he says. “I’m often so dehydrated that it makes it really hard to focus.”

The docu-series takes us through four red states: North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, and Idaho. All four states voted Trump into office in 2016. They attempted to do the same in 2020. The series not only documents how Trump’s blatant anti-trans sentiments hurt trans communities; it illustrates the culture that is foundational to Trumpland.

Every person in the series had suffered at the hands of a transphobic culture, the very culture that allowed Trump to win a presidential election. That culture lives on, even without Trump working in the Oval Office.

But rather than simply presenting the culture of violence, the series’ creator Tony Zosherafatain delivered a resounding celebration of the relationships that sustain trans lives.

What Trump and his kin represent: exclusion, a reductive mindset, the few over the many, one-percenters, fear, binaries, and repression. Everything having to do with “making America great” was doing away with difference, serving a smaller and smaller elite, and having people believe there wasn’t enough resources to go around. As if trans people’s very existence was a threat to someone else.

Trans in Trumpland is a vision of a healed, unified United States: where differences add richness to our lives, where it’s about ‘we’ instead of ‘me,’ where there is such abundance in resources and community care that we generously spend our lives in the service of others.

Interdependence is the foundational message of the series. While two of the featured people in the series are filmed as the precious children of doting mothers, a third is a mother herself — Evonne Kaho is a trans mother to those who had been rejected from the families they were born into.

A Black trans woman with short black hair laughs.

The emphasis on relationship-building as the key to trans livelihood is further emphasized by Zosherafatain’s choice to be the narrator and host of the series. He is in front of the camera, hugging the subjects, driving them in his car, sharing photos of his childhood self pre-transition. We witness trans people in conversation with one another. Some of the seemingly mundane moments become especially powerful, because they’re moments you wouldn’t witness in mainstream tokenizing portrayals.

As a trans viewer, I am validated by the impression that this was made by and for trans people. But the most powerful films can engage a specific issue while maintaining a universal audience. Trans in Trumpland does just that by depicting the space between trans individuals, the connective tissue, the conversations, the legacies carried forward. The docu-series highlights the thing that makes all of us human: the fact that we need love and care from one another.

Trumpland is a territory that all of us inhabit, whether we’d like to or not. And it is our collective responsibility to use whatever unique power we have to uproot the seeds of harmful ideologies. Because as the docu-series powerfully displays, we are all connected: every person, every community, every generation.

Trans in Trumpland is a much-needed reminder that trans people are the past, present, and future. That our lives are not a matter of political discourse but rather a matter of human dignity. That we are not only deserving of protection under the law — we represent the best parts of society. We create families where we have none, house one another when we’re shut out, give the love that we didn’t receive.

We are in a new wave of visionary trans filmmaking, with documentaries like Disclosure, feature films like Lingua Franca, and TV shows like Veneno. Remarkably, Trans in Trumpland is no exception.

Trans in Trumpland will be available on February 25th to U.S. and Canadian audiences on Topic through Topic.com and Topic channels through AppleTV & iOS, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Android, and Amazon Prime video channels.

Support Independent Queer Media

We’re raising funds to make it through the end of July. 99% of the people who read this site don’t support. Will you be one of the ones who do? Joining A+ is one of the best ways to support Autostraddle — plus you get access to bonus content while keeping the site 99% free for everyone. Will you join today?

Support Autostraddle

Join A+

Also.Also.Also: White Supremacist Violence and Insurrection

Right. So.

I absolutely could not bring myself to do our “traditional” twice-a-week link roundup. Instead, today we are going to talk about white power and white supremacy.

Yesterday Really Happened.

At 3:40am on Thursday, Congress certified Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory despite the terrorist attack that happened yesterday.

Visualizing a Riot: Where Yesterday’s Attacks on the Capitol Played Out

“Not long after Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, warned his Republican colleagues that their efforts to overturn an American election would send its democracy into a ‘death spiral,’ fear surged through the Senate chamber.” Inside the Capitol, the Sound of the Mob Came First

“With a little distance, January 6 could begin to seem like a bad dream or hallucination—or just another eye-roll-inducing weird moment in a weird presidency. It was not. It was an attempted coup, incited, encouraged, and condoned by the president of the United States. Don’t forget it.” Don’t Let Them Pretend This Didn’t Happen

On Insurrection and White Supremacist Violence.

“Yesterday was yet another example of whiteness’ thievery. Instead of celebrating the Georgia Senate wins of Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff — victories fueled by the leadership of Black women — our day was discombobulated by legitimate fear. Disrupted by frustration. Whiteness stole my yesterday. I’m determined to not let it steal my today.”

Whiteness Stole From Us Again by Christina Tapper for Zora

“Calls from white, liberal celebrities like Katy Perry to reach out to Trump supporters instead of holding them accountable for voting for white supremacy and the news of a potential Trump book deal are only a couple of examples of the many cultural layers that sustain white supremacy in the United States. Clearly white supremacy will not go away after a single election, and there is still a monumental amount of work to do. It’s time to begin that work.“

It’s Not Over: America’s Future of White Supremacist Violence by Nicole Froio for Bitch Media

“I think a lot about the urgency around empathy and building bridges in 2016; the discussions about how white people could reach out to Trump supporters in our family or social groups, and use our relationships to help them understand the harm of that decision. I think there’s merit and worth in talking about that interpersonal layer of things; I have to admit it also felt very distant and silly this summer when the National Guard was shooting at people on the porches of their own homes in broad daylight in my city. I am feeling the same way today watching well-intentioned white folks discuss how the lack of police brutality at the capitol yesterday is an illustration of white privilege. It’s not that that’s incorrect, exactly, but it’s that it’s not the conversation we need to have in this moment; the conversation we are all a part of, whether we wish to be or not, is one about power. The assault on the capitol is an action of white power, not white privilege. The people who enacted and enabled it do have the privilege of experiencing the world differently on an internal level as well as preferable treatment in the outside world; beyond that, however, they have the power to harm and to do so without consequences, and will continue to use it.”

The Quiet Parts Get Louder and Louder by Rachel Kincaid for Autostraddle.

I realize I will sound biased, but I read a lot of articles for today’s link roundup and please believe me when I tell you that Rachel — by correctly naming White Power and not merely white privilege — should be, without any doubt, your read of the day.

In conclusion, less than 48 hours ago, thanks to the leadership of women of color organizers, and Black women leadership in particular, Georgia’s elections changed the course of that state’s history and brought back the smallest ring of hope that maybe we could finally get some movement in our government towards at least protecting — if not not bettering — our communities. No one is talking about it anymore because yesterday a bunch of mainly white people, completely sold and terrified at the prospect of losing their grasp on power, stormed the US Capitol to act in violence. And I realize that this might feel like a small point to end on, but maybe also it’s the entire point.

Within the span of 48 hours we saw what soaring heights sustained collective organizing, lead by Black people and other people of color, can accomplish even when it seems impossible. And then we saw white people retaliate with ferocious violence — nearly fully protected by the state — because their feelings were hurt. And that eclipsed everything else. It always does.

The Quiet Parts Get Louder and Louder

A close friend told me recently that she’d had a conversation with a Trump-supporting relative who asked her if she thought now, with four years behind us, that she had overreacted a bit in 2016; if she agreed now that things hadn’t been basically fine. She was, of course, horrified; she said “It’s been so much worse than even I imagined.” It made me think of my own response four years ago; like my friend, I also don’t think I really feel much differently about any of it now, but I also don’t feel the need to revisit it. I think if I had gone back in time and told that person that in four years and change she’d be conferring with her coworkers about how best to cover the neo-Nazi occupation of the nation’s capitol while also getting her work done for the day, it would have leveled her; let alone the fact that it would be happening in the midst of an ongoing national disaster with no point of comparison that had meant the majority of that team had lost a family member, day job, or their health. Now, though, in the present, we did, in fact, finish our work for the day; we checked in on whether everyone felt okay to have our scheduled meetings as normal, and we did, because this actually is pretty normal.

The other reason I don’t feel interested in revisiting my (and others’) election musings is that with the benefit of hindsight and the work of many activists & organizers of color to bring left-leaning white people like me somewhat up to speed, the election and Trump himself kind of fades into the broader background music of our shared life. As many people have correctly pointed out, the armed insurrection by a bunch of maskless white people in costume is a very logical progression of our entire national character. I’m thinking of the Bundy occupation of Malheur; the pre-Trump years of Tea Partiers camped out on the White House grounds with AR-15s; Charlottesville; farther back than that, the domestic terrorism of sundown towns and the Tulsa massacre. In contrast, of course: the brutal assaults of water protectors at Standing Rock; the police harassment and FBI visits organizers reported for advancing causes as basic as Black lives mattering; the unspeakable cruelty of imprisoning migrant people in conditions we wouldn’t keep animals in after tearing them apart from their families during a deadly pandemic that spreads in close quarters. All of these things have been allowed to continue, entirely unchecked. Everyone has called their representatives; everyone has used ResistBot and donated to ActBlue; everyone has voted, even when it meant waiting for eight hours in line and risking COVID exposure. Still, there’s no real end in sight.

It’s now 24 hours since the live broadcast broad daylight assault on the capitol began; virtually none of the people who perpetrated it have been arrested, including people who posted photo and video evidence of themselves unmasked. Twitter and Facebook have gravely announced that they will… limit the President’s social media. Several Democrats have written strongly worded memos expressing outrage at Trump, and called on Pence to deal with him, something Pence has never historically demonstrated an interest in or capability for. A few Republicans have demonstrated statements of disapproval, and taken the step of admitting that Biden won the election. The oil company Chevron has tweeted its stance. The reality is that this is largely going to be the extent of the consequences for this event, much like it was every time before this, and before that and before Trump was ever in office. It’s entirely possible something like this, or several things like it, will happen again in the future; like so much else, it has been allowed, and will likely continue.

I think a lot about the urgency around empathy and building bridges in 2016; the discussions about how white people could reach out to Trump supporters in our family or social groups, and use our relationships to help them understand the harm of that decision. I think there’s merit and worth in talking about that interpersonal layer of things; I have to admit it also felt very distant and silly this summer when the National Guard was shooting at people on the porches of their own homes in broad daylight in my city. I am feeling the same way today watching well-intentioned white folks discuss how the lack of police brutality at the capitol yesterday is an illustration of white privilege. It’s not that that’s incorrect, exactly, but it’s that it’s not the conversation we need to have in this moment; the conversation we are all a part of, whether we wish to be or not, is one about power. The assault on the capitol is an action of white power, not white privilege. The people who enacted and enabled it do have the privilege of experiencing the world differently on an internal level as well as preferable treatment in the outside world; beyond that, however, they have the power to harm and to do so without consequences, and will continue to use it.

I think again about my friend and her Trump-supporting relative; they had both seen the same administration and the same fallout; it wasn’t a matter of information or education. I think also about Philando Castile, who was killed despite his license to carry, and Dylann Roof, who was taken in safely after murdering nine people. I think, as many of us did yesterday in our own ways, about how Minneapolis police had militarized cops up on the roof of the Holiday gas station an hour after they killed Dolal Idd outside it and had raided his family’s home before they even learned of their relative’s death while I watched unmasked white insurrectionists peacefully leave the Capitol to head home to their families. All of these things are quite simply part of the story about power in the US; who has it, who is denied it, and what people will do to keep power in their own hands.

The reality is that if information, context, statements, or even seeing the consequence of one’s own actions and harm done to others was something that would change attitudes and actions, it would have happened by now. We all watched the ruling party let hundreds of thousands of Americans die from COVID because it was better for a bottom line, and then we watched those same people still win virtually every single vote they received four years ago, including from people whose families they had killed and laid off. Unfortunately even the enactment of new legislation and policy has its limits; we’ve had dozens of high-profile examples, from Trump to the insurrectionists, that demonstrate how even strong laws are only enforced in an inverse relationship to the power of the person breaking them. It’s not that questions of political education, legislation, outreach, empathy, analysis or policy (especially, increasingly, around conspiracy theory agitation) are irrelevant or dumb; it’s that those ideas are only useful when we apply them in a context of shifting power, rather than shifting understanding or beliefs and hoping power follows suit. Critically, this is a form of power that isn’t granted by institutions or law, and can’t be revoked by them; this is why we see so many unscathed by the supposedly vicious MeToo movement; why police clearly breaking the law to murder civilians invariably go unpunished; why so much of the modern fascist movement has gotten so far despite public denouncement. It’s granted by the cultural divine right of white supremacy and its attendant ideologies like racialized capitalism, and the functionally meaningful extra-legal power structures it’s embedded in our communities can’t be meaningfully addressed by any individuals or their policies until that’s dismantled.

Acknowledging that power is the defining framework of our moment is scary, because many of the deeply held values and practices of (white) American culture revolve around refusing to name or describe infrastructures of power. It’s also the only way forward, because a willingness to recognize and name where power is consolidated is the only way we can begin to redistribute it more appropriately. My most meaningful political education was this summer, when Minneapolis city government told us they couldn’t charge the four cops who participated in killing George Floyd even if they wanted to; three days later after the occupation of the police precinct, they suddenly could, because the people of the city had recognized and acted on the power of their collective direct action. The Republicans who actively killed their constituents through police brutality and intentionally bungled pandemic response didn’t lose any of their supporters, but many of them did lose their elections, if by a hair; organizers fought tooth and nail to connect disenfranchised people to resources, infrastructure, information and agency so they could at access the limited power of the ballot box.

So many of us feel that so much is being laid bare right now, in ways that can feel overwhelming; the quiet parts being spoken louder and louder every day. If we pay attention, there is also so much about our own capability being revealed each day, and the power of our communities; the structures we were taught we could look to for stability are not as strong as they’re supposed to be, but we are also not as helpless as we were told, either. Every day is prompting us to ask what fresh hell is possible, but in the space after that question, there are other, quieter ones: what are we capable of? What do we now know we can do, despite our fears and exhaustion? What have we learned about ourselves and our communities that changes what we believe is possible? I have been so surprised by and grateful for the answers to those questions this past year; I suspect there is even more space for those possibilities in this one.

Extra! Extra!: Some of the Changes We Can Already See as the Trump Era Drags On

In this week’s Extra! Extra! we continue following America’s election 2020 saga, the havoc the Trump administration continues to wreak in its final two months and a few encouraging outcomes from the 2020 election. We also have some States-side updates on the COVID-19 pandemic and other situations unfolding around the world.

But first, in honor of Trans Day of Remembrance, we want to point you to a few articles that both remember trans lives lost and celebrate those still with us. From our very own Xoài Phạm we have an interview with Mattee Jim. Over at The 19th a celebration of Gloria Allen and a new documentary about her Mama Gloria. And finally, a review of a new documentary, Born to Be, about New York’s first health care center for trans and non-binary people.

+ What Mattee Jim, Navajo Trans Elder, Teaches Us About Remembering

+ As transgender people mark deadliest year on record, one elder fights for the living

+ ‘A story that hadn’t been told’: inside a groundbreaking trans surgery center

Election 2020, or Republicans Rig [Another] Election in America

Lindsey Graham’s Alleged Attempt to Toss Georgia Ballots Is Felony Election Fraud

Natalie: The last four years have been exhausting…and the days since the election have been especially so…as the president undermines the legitimacy of the election. And while I understand the impulse to just sit back, reserve your energy, save your outrage and wait 62 days until this long nightmare is over…don’t brush off what’s happening right before our eyes.

They’re trying to steal an election, brazenly, because they know there is no one who will hold them to account.

Trump Targets Michigan in His Ploy to Subvert the Election

Natalie: The president’s legal team, in their ongoing effort to prove voter fraud in Michigan, submitted an affidavit to the federal courts that used data taken from counties in Minnesota. The folly added to the Trump campaign’s 2-23 record (as it stands right now) in post-election litigation. They’re trying to steal an election and, without the Russians to help them, they’re not even good at that.

And while it’s easy to just sit back and laugh, these attempts to erode our democracy have a deterotative impact. This isn’t a tantrum. This isn’t something we ought to dismiss, even if the messengers the Trump campaign sends — Graham, Giuliani, whomever — are bumbling idiots who couldn’t talk their way out of a paper bag. This is an assault on our democracy and should be treated as such.

How fake news aimed at Latinos thrives on social media

Himani: There’s the obvious attempts to steal an election, like what the administration and their Republican allies are doing in Georgia and Michigan, which Natalie discusses above.

And then there’s stuff like this, which fundamentally undermines democracy from behind the scenes. That misinformation is spread through social media isn’t new. But this article is instructive in how it ties the surprising increase in support for Trump among Latinx voters to misinformation campaigns on social media. It’s also incredibly disheartening, as interviews with people who study misinformation on social media discuss how there’s little that can be done to address what gets spread, particularly in messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram or WeChat.

This has implications beyond this election, of course. The article also discusses how down-ballot candidates have also suffered from misinformation campaigns against them that spread on social media and caused people like House Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell from Florida to lose her re-election.

Natalie: What really struck me about this piece is how reminiscent it was of the 2016 disinformation campaign that targeted black voters. I think it’s paramount both that Democrats start to think of ways to combat disinformation campaigns and also — and, of course, separate from any political considerations — the media reassesses itself. Disinformation has promulgated in part because of distrust in the media and without rebuilding that trust, it’s hard to imagine any effort to combat disinformation really taking hold.

North Carolina’s First Black Female Chief Justice May Lose Her Seat to Aggrieved White Colleague

Natalie: Aside from the presidential race, this race was the one I was most personally invested in: Cheri Beasley has been a fierce champion for justice in North Carolina and I’d be heartbroken to see her lose…especially to Paul Newby. Only 409 votes separate the two competitors though and Beasley’s requested a recount which is currently underway…fingers crossed for her success…

(Though if she isn’t successful, she should be at the very top of President-Elect Joe Biden’s list of potential federal judicial nominees.)

Meanwhile, the Trump Era Drags On

Natalie: I feel like a broken record on this but, again: Trump and Mitch McConnell’s work to reshape the federal judiciary will continue to do harm to our communities long after they are vanquished from public office. This decision by two justices appointed by the current president is bad and, if it holds, things could get much worse.

Otto v. City of Boca Raton, Florida creates a split on conversion therapy between the circuits and, thus makes, it ripe for the Supreme Court to step in — though they’ve declined to step in previously — and mitigate the dispute. And then it could get much worse…like this, from Slate’s SCOTUS reporter, Mark Joseph Stern:

The Supreme Court will hear a new attack on unions. The implications are profound.

Himani: In what will likely be another devastating blow to worker’s rights, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that argues that private companies don’t have to allow people onto their premises. This logic could be used to prevent union organizers from entering facilities and also… government safety regulators. As Natalie observed above, the consequences of Trump and McConnell’s court packing will be felt for decades to come.

Trump withdrawal plan could tip Afghanistan towards more violence

Himani: The situation in Afghanistan has been devastating ever since W. Bush stated the “War on Terror.” That goes without saying. And removing so suddenly… that too will come at a deadly cost. I strongly oppose military intervention because America enters and exits countries with only its own interests in mind. This is exactly how the war on terror began in 2001 and morphed into the Iraq War in 2003. But exiting the region with no strategy so you can get a political win at home for saying you withdrew troops for a war your political party started in the first place? The lives of the people on the ground never factor into America’s calculations in these moments. It is truly devastating.

Natalie: Trump’s goal is to ignite as many fires as possible and then blame Biden for not putting them out fast enough…and his efforts in Afghanistan are no different.

How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps

Rachel: This is not a super intellectual or well informed response, but I just cannot get over how awful this is! The logical implications about why the US government — and not just the government, but specifically the MILITARY — would want this much detailed info about private citizens are extremely alarming, and it’s important to note that the apps being employed here specifically target Muslims, which is not a coincidence:

The news highlights the opaque location data industry and the fact that the U.S. military, which has infamously used other location data to target drone strikes, is purchasing access to sensitive data. Many of the users of apps involved in the data supply chain are Muslim, which is notable considering that the United States has waged a decades-long war on predominantly Muslim terror groups in the Middle East, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have died during military intervention in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Motherboard does not know of any specific operations in which this type of app-based location data has been used by the U.S. military.

The surveillance of Muslim citizens in the US is older than some of the folks reading this article, and the most recent layers of it deploying the “opaque location data industry” is just so horrific.

White House killed deal to pay for mental health care for migrant families separated at border

Natalie: The administration has failed to live up to American ideals. They turned the American immigration system into a weapon to uphold white supremacy. They have kept people in cages, forced them to sleep on mylar blankets and stolen their children. Mental health services are the absolute least they could do, and they can’t even be bothered to do that.

Change Happens, Albeit Slowly and Uncertainly

Census ‘Anomalies’ Could Thwart Trump’s Bid To Alter Next Electoral College

Himani: Let’s hope this pans out. Trump wants to exclude undocumented people from being counted through the allocations but a panel of judges shut that down (until the issue gets to the Supreme Court, of course). The first round of data was due to the White House at the end of December. Trump would then pass the data along to Congress after making alterations to his liking (which, again, would be illegal under the current ruling, but I’m not sure that’s ever stopped this administration before). The Bureau has said it can’t meet the December deadline because of standard data issues. For the time being, the Bureau has declined to commit to a timeline for sharing the results of the Census.

As Biden Names Advisers, Climate Activists Push Back on Fossil Fuel Influence

Himani: This article provides a detailed look at where the Biden administration’s cabinet selections and other top leaders stand on addressing climate change. It’s a mixed bag. There are folks who have clear ties to the fossil fuel industry and others who want to tackle climate change as the existential threat that it is. One environmental activist describes, Collin Rees, describes how talks with the transition team are going:

“They’re absolutely willing to talk to us and understand that we’re an important part of the base that got him elected. We’ve certainly felt like we’ve been able to have that conversation, but it’s Joe Biden; he’s a lifelong politician. He is very much seeking other input as well, so we are under no illusions that everything we’re saying is being listened to, but we definitely want to continue that dialogue and continue to push them.”

The other thing that makes this article a valuable read is it lays out how different agencies within the federal government interact with each other and the power they hold over each other. For instance, it lays bare just how much power members of the Office of Management and Budget have in determining what the other agencies can do. As Candance Bernd writes, “The Office proved a powerful administrative gatekeeper during the Obama administration, blocking or delaying agency rules that could have furthered the administration’s climate goals.”

Activists continue to push the administration. Recently a Ugandan climate activist, Vanessa Nakate, wrote to the president-elect and vice president-elect urging them to take climate change seriously. And she wants the Global South to be part of these conversations. As Nakate says in her interview:

“Well, there is no climate justice if it isn’t global, and if it doesn’t include everyone. If it is only going to be justice in the Global North, then it isn’t justice at all, because it erases the voices of the activists speaking up, and it also erases the suffering of the millions of people who have to sleep hungry, who have to walk long distances to have access to water, whose kids have to drop out of school because they can’t take care of them. So that really needs to be understood that we are not talking about a future disaster. We are talking about a present catastrophe that needs to be addressed now.”

Natalie: Himani’s done a good job of examining these specific appointments, but can I just say something about forthcoming Biden appointments in general? If you are looking for a new slate of progressive leadership at any Cabinet position: be prepared for a lot of disappointment.

I say that notsomuch as an indictment of Biden — however warranted that might be — but as a recognition of how many of the systems that exist within the federal government have been eroded (or worse, eliminated) over the last four years. The first six months to a year of the Biden presidency will be about rebuilding the basic foundation of our systems…and that’s going to require people who know how intimately how the system worked. I expect a lot of Obama-Biden redux…and anyone who isn’t is setting themselves up to be disappointed.

New Democratic sheriffs in Georgia and South Carolina have vowed to cut ties with ICE

Himani: Probably one of the best things to come out of the election.

COVID-19 Update

What Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine results mean for ending the pandemic

Himani: Another cause for cautious optimism, I suppose? Science and research is a slow process with a lot of advances and setbacks. This article breaks down some of what is promising and what remains unknown about Moderna’s vaccine. But at the end of it, we’re all still in a holding pattern.

Fauci warns that White House transition delays could slow vaccine rollout

Our Healthcare System Is Completely Unprepared for Long COVID

Natalie: Heather’s been warning us about this for months now.

Social distancing is a luxury many can’t afford. Vermont actually did something about it.

Rachel: At the risk of repeating the obvious, as someone from the East Coast of the US who’s lived in the Midwest for almost a decade now, it’s no surprise to me that we’re seeing case counts skyrocket here while they’re merely on the rise in my home state. (In Massachusetts, new cases are now approaching or equal to what they were in April; in Minnesota, they’re orders of magnitude higher than they ever were at the start of the pandemic.) A lot of the “big government” or “socialist” policies that states like MA and VT were frequently derided for in my youth are the reason for that, the other side of the coin of the fact that countries led by neo-fascist leaders like Trump, Johnson and Bolsonaro have been devastated by th pandemic. Policy that’s collectivist and oriented toward resource redistribution as a basic right rather than a morality test doesn’t just benefit the most vulnerable; it makes the entire society more resilient. Anyways, obviously there are population and demographic differences as well, but Minnesota has had at least 3,138 confirmed COVID deaths; Vermont has had 61.

Congress is forcing cities to defund the police, firefighters, and schools

Lawsuit claims Tyson Foods managers bet money on employees getting COVID-19

Natalie: This is absolutely repugnant. I hope that this lawsuit is successful and those workers find justice…but also? Those managers should go to jail for public endangerment.

And Other Happenings Around the World

Both sides in Ethiopian conflict are killing civilians, refugees say

Himani: Recently, we shared news on the ominous conflict unfolding in Ethiopia. Mere weeks later, the conflict has exploded incredibly violently with survivors describing attacks that amount to ethnic cleansing. There’s a lot that is unknown about the situation right now. As the article describes, both the central government under Prime Minister Abiy’s direction as well as the regional government in Tigray appear culpable in the horrible violence that is unfolding.

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy lawmakers quit en masse. One explains why.

Himani: Earlier this year, China passed another national security law targeting the pro-democracy protests. Recently, it also removed pro-democracy members who had been elected to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. In response, the remaining pro-democracy members have stepped down from their position. This interview with one of the former members of the Legislative Council offers insight into the motivations behind the decision to step down and the grim reality of day to day life on the island under their latest security law.

Bobi Wine protests: death toll rises in Uganda’s worst unrest in years

Extra! Extra!: As the Dust Settles, Here’s What We’ve Learned So Far in the 2020 Election

Last week I was full of the nervous anxiety you feel when you know something big is about to happen, and you’re just counting down the clock. This week I’ve been full of the nervous anxiety of indefinite waiting. And yet, in that time, so much has happened in the world. In this week’s Extra! Extra! we share some reflections on the 2020 election and news on events from Vienna to Poland to Ethiopia to the Philippines to New Zealand to Chile.

Election 2020 Updates

If Trump Tries to Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here’s What Happens

Natalie: It seems clear, between the expanding margins in the remaining states and the president’s tweets this morning, that this is the path that the Trump campaign will take next. They will move out of state court and into federal courts, in part hoping to lean less on the facts — after all, there are none to buttress their claims of fraud — and more on exacting political favors from those judges he put in their seats.

What’ll be interesting to me is seeing in which states the Trump campaign calls for recounts in. Aside from being highly unlikely to flip the results of an election, they’re also an expensive gambit — the Wisconsin recount will cost the campaign $3M, for example — and the campaign was threadbare before the election. It’ll be interesting to see if some strategy starts to coalesce around which states to challenge or if we’ll just continue to see the campaign throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Some Reflections on What We Know So Far

This Is America

Natalie: These last few days have been a lot for many of us. Even if the numbers remain what they are — that is, Joe Biden winning the presidency by an unprecedented amount and flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia (!!) in the process — the sting of these last few days will still linger. As she is wont to do, Roxane Gay really gets to the heart of the matter here.

There is part of the country that sees “equity as oppression,” that believes “in democracy that serves their interests,” and Biden has to govern in that…we have to live in that and I don’t really know how.

Looks Like Black Voters Were Correct to Be Pragmatic

Natalie: Joe Biden was not my choice in the Democratic primary…he was not my second choice or my third or even my fourth…but I understood — particularly as a black woman from the South — about why folks were coalescing around him. There was a pragmatism at the root of it all…but Julia Craven makes an argument about policy that I don’t think really stands up, when compared to exit polls from the primary. State after state revealed that black voters embraced the policy ideas of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren but ultimately voted for Biden because they, ultimately, didn’t have as much faith in white voters to support those ideas in the campaign.

Himani: Natalie, you once said to me, “Black people know white people better than they know themselves.” I was reminded of the truth of that statement when I read this op-ed from Julia Craven. I’m also reminded of this Tumblr post that was shared with me earlier this week. As theteej writes after seeing countless white people grieving that there wasn’t a Big Blue Wave on November 3: “But what they were really grieving was their own innocence. Their naïve assumption that they could be the heroes in a story, in a history of violence that was expressly built for them, even if they wanted to deny it.”

As of writing this, Vox has already called the election for Biden, but the Associated Press hasn’t yet. I went to bed last night looking at a less than 2,500 vote margin in Georgia thinking, “the fucked up part is that, were it not for the rampant voter suppression in Georgia, we wouldn’t be waiting” and woke up this morning to see that the razor thin margin had shifted the other way. Regardless of what happens in Pennsylvania, Georgia is looking like our last hope for Democrats to regain control in the Senate. And the person we have to thank for that is Stacey Abrams. A Black woman who was shafted by the system (of course she was) but continued to put in the work anyways (of course she did) because she knows how to play the long game: that none of what any of us on the left want to see happen is possible without restoring the franchise to Black voters. Because the racially targeted voter suppression that is rampant in this country is one of the main reasons why this system is, as theteej writes “expressly built for them [white people]” and why as, Craven writes, Black voters don’t have the same luxuries of choice going into the voting booth that white voters do.

Many Places Hard Hit By COVID-19 Leaned More Toward Trump In 2020 Than 2016

Rachel: This is unfortunately just a confirmation of things we already knew, in a few ways. First of all, that among his supporters, Trump’s reaction to the pandemic or lack thereof is unfortunately not going to make a dent; if evidence or even threats to their personal health were going to make a difference, they would have a long time ago. If anything, Trump’s underlying rhetoric around the virus – any reference to the impact your choices have on others is an attempt to control you, truly strong/powerful people don’t have consequences for their actions, science is usually a hoax – has reified their belief systems. More important than that, though, it brings me back to the ‘voting against their own interests’ discourse we’ve seen applied to white voters, especially working-class white voters, who have continued to vote Republican and vote Trump even when it meant losing things they desperately needed, like jobs, healthcare, or stimulus money. I need pundits and white laypeople to finally let go of the narrative that this is a baffling choice to “vote against their own interests” and look at the situation objectively to acknowledge what’s happening: white people are rational actors, not helpless confused children; they can see the facts as well as anyone else and their choices indicate that they consider their priorities to be harming Black & brown folks and maintaining their place in a racial hierarchy, and they are in fact voting in that interest. Reckoning with the fact that many, many people in the US have prioritized racism as a value over their own lives and that of their families in a pandemic is intense, for sure, but there is no space left to realistically consider anything else, and in thinking about Trump folks from here on this is the framework we all have to acknowledge (even when it comes to our own friends and family, white folks).

Mississippians Overwhelmingly Voted Down a Jim Crow–Era Election Provision

Himani: This truly seems like an unprecedented turning point in Mississippi. I honestly didn’t even know about this century-old, incredibly disenfranchising policy that, basically, rigged elections in the favor of White people. I’m (cautiously) optimistic that in the elections to come we’re going to see even greater changes and movement towards racial equality in Mississippi.

Native voters are indeed something else

Record number of Native American women elected to Congress

Rachel: There will be so much talk about electoral demographics and analysis of breakdowns in racial voting blocs in the days to come, and certainly, we should talk about it! I do want to make sure that it doesn’t get lost, as Native issues so often do, that Native voters had both remarkably high turnouts and remarkably high returns for Biden this election, incredible when you also factor in how poorly resourced and suppressed our government keeps most Indigenous communities. Native communities have been under attack from the Trump administration for so long, and have been hit so hard by COVID with no relief or resources in sight; it’s worth noting in the larger election narrative how hard they showed up to oppose Trump, especially in many battleground states like Wisconsin, where more than 60 percent of eligible voters in Menominee County registered this year, and Arizona, where Native Americans are 5.6 percent of eligible voters and went overwhelmingly for Biden. Related, while Democrats as a whole haven’t won significant and in some cases have lost House seats, we’re seeing a record number of Native women elected (although, to be clear, not all the Native women elected here are Dems); Cherokee, Ho-Chunk, Laguna Pueblo, Chickasaw, Navajo, Native Hawaiian, Tohono O’odham and Ponca members are all represented.

Natalie: This is such great news. Of course, I’m thrilled to see the Native American caucus gain new membership and seeing Sharice Davids win re-election. The Navajo Times adds some specifics: “Apache, Navajo and Coconino counties, the three that overlap the Navajo Nation, went solidly for Joe Biden, with…a 97 percent turnout for Biden compared to 51 percent statewide.” That’s really unprecedented and I hope Rachel’s right that it means that Native issues will be elevated in the Biden/Harris White House.

Environmental Havoc as U.S. (#1 Contributor to Emissions) Leaves Paris Agreement

U.S. Officially Leaving Paris Climate Agreement

Super Typhoon Goni leaves devastation across the Philippines

Eta Is Now A ‘Major Hurricane’ As It Barrels Towards Central American Coast

7.0 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes In Aegean Sea; At Least 14 Dead In Turkey And Greece

Natalie: Earlier this week, the United States formally exited the Paris Climate Agreement. The nation that is responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions has absconded on its responsibility to do something about it. And while a change in the White House will help, no doubt about that, I wonder how much losses in Maine, Iowa and (probably) North Carolina will cost us in the fight against climate change. Sure, we might be able to win the Senate seats in Georgia in the New Year or be able to gain ground in the midterms (2022) but particularly on climate change, immediate action is absolutely crucial.

The Super Typhoon, Eta, the earthquake…they’re all stark reminders that we can’t keep waiting to do something.

And We (All) Really Need to Do So Much Better

Cars too dangerous and dirty for rich countries are being sold to poor ones

Himani: This is one of the most infuriating things I’ve read in awhile (yes, even in the midst of all this bull shit that Trump is pulling). All these Western and developed countries selling off cars with poor emissions and low safety to developing countries so that they can say they’re meeting their climate benchmarks…? I’m almost at a loss for words on this… It feels like yet another version of the U.S. selling ridiculous amounts of non-recyclable plastic to Asian countries so that Americans feel good about all of the waste they’re creating in the world. The “reduce” part of the equation seems to be eluding us. The only real answer to climate change is to reduce consumption, not shift it somewhere else “out of sight, out of mind” as they say.

The State of Government Around the World: The Grim

Ethiopia Edges Toward Civil War As Federal Government Orders Attack On Tigray Region

Himani: Things have not been looking so great in Ethiopia for months now. In addition to this news about the potential for war in the northern region of the country, there was a massacre in a central region (Oromia) over the weekend that left over 50 people dead, although some reports suggest that is a gross underestimate. There is a long history of ethnic tensions in East Africa that I can’t provide any meaningful insight on because I just don’t know a whole lot about it. This latest issue in Tigray, though, is at least partly a response to the federal government’s putting off the 2020 elections until a vaccine is available for COVID-19 or (in other words) indefinitely.

Israel Uses Cover Of U.S. Election To Destroy Palestinian Homes, Critics Say

As India drifts into autocracy, nonviolent protest is the most powerful resistance

Natalie: Given that nonviolent resistance has its origins in India, this does not surprise.

Himani: That is incredibly true, and I also think about the fact that the RSS, the ruling BJP party’s paramilitary sibling, was established pretty much the same time that Gandhi was promoting nonviolent resistance. That modern India’s acceleration towards authoritarianism has its roots in the same independence movement that gave birth to nonviolent resistance. What we’re seeing in India is how susceptible democracy can be to corruption, that some people wield difference as a weapon because winning is the only thing that matters. What we’re seeing is yet another reminder of how precarious democracy really is.

Four people ‘killed in cold blood’ in Vienna during night of terror

Muslims worldwide are protesting French President Macron’s crackdown on Islam

Himani: The violence in Vienna is horrifying, as well as some of the brutal murders that have happened in France recently. But I do worry that Westerners respond to situations like this in ways that only further create the environment for resentment and (in some cases) extremism. Macron’s hypocritical leaning into “religious freedoms” at the expense of granting French Muslims the respect and autonomy that other religions get in France has, understandably, angered Muslims the world over. As far as I know, there’s no connection between what’s happened in Vienna and what’s unfolding in France, and I’m not trying to claim there is one. But I do worry that the Viennese response will mirror what’s happening in France, which will only serve to further alienate Muslim communities in Europe.

The State of Government Around the World: The Hopeful

‘You have to be daring’: groundbreaking leader of Canada’s Greens ready to seize her moment

Why New Zealand rejected populist ideas other nations have embraced

Rachel: This article was fascinating to me, and I’d love to hear other thoughts on it; the dek at least on social media seems to argue that the reason NZ/Aotearoa hasn’t been fertile ground for far-right extremists is that Murdoch-owned media enterprises, like Fox, aren’t as present there. Reading through the article, though, that thesis seems less specifically argued; it notes that several politicians and public figures have tried to brand political campaigns as far-right Q-Anon-inspired crusaders, and all have flopped pretty embarrassingly. It’s true that it doesn’t seem FOX or a similar surrogate is a big presence in NZ, but it also doesn’t really account for how big a factor social media and especially YouTube and Facebook are in these movements, especially QAnon; at this point extremist media doesn’t recognize borders, and so it feels to me that the story is more complicated. The other point of note is that the overall rate of satisfaction with government in NZ is very high compared to other nations and has remained so for decades, whereas in the US it’s consistently dropping; maybe overall satisfaction and stability just make the population less vulnerable to radicalization. However, several Scandinavian nations also have responsive governments with high rates of satisfaction, and white nationalist movements still have a foothold there, too (although I’m not versed enough in their electoral landscape to know how far-right politicians are faring). Would love to hear from folks abroad about this!

Poland delays abortion ban as nationwide protests continue

Natalie: The pushback on this abortion ban has been one of the most inspiring things to watch over the last few weeks…and, of course, I can’t help but wonder if/when an attempt to undo Roe comes to pass in the United States, if we’ll be as bold or as brave.

Chileans want a more equal society. They’re about to rewrite their constitution to have it.

Himani: In what has turned out to be an incredibly difficult and depressing year, this is probably the most uplifting news I’ve read. When the protests broke out a year ago, many writers pointed out how Chile was the living example of what happens when you take free market economics to its endpoint, and it was atrocious: A seemingly meagre four cent fare increase had such serious consequences for so many people because of the decades-long income inequality. As I followed the protests in Chile, I really could never imagine that it would end in rewriting the constitution that had made those free-market principles the rule of law. There’s so much difficult work ahead for Chileans and not much time to do it in, but this truly feels like a bright moment in this otherwise grim year.

Rachel: I can’t agree enough with Himani; this has been incredibly heartening and centering to watch. I’ve noted a couple times in this column how meaningful it has been to me to watch ideology, organizing and protest tactics be communicated between nations and communities, from Palestine to Hong Kong to Chile to the US; I’m so happy for the Chilean people about this development and it helps me sustain hope that this kind of change is possible elsewhere, too.

What Does It Mean to Have a “Civil Debate” with a Man Who Put Children in Cages?

Until this year, my nephews’ annual birthday celebration included a trip to the local kids’ museum downtown. I’d take the day off work, pack lunches and a good selection of snacks and we’d catch a city bus downtown — they were fascinated by city buses when they were younger, school buses, however, not so much. We’d get to the museum and the boys would spend four or five hours moving from station to station, enjoying themselves so much that they barely wanted to stop for food or drink.

We added another tradition to those annual trips to the kids’ museum a few years ago: as soon as we arrive at the museum, we take pictures. They’re so used to me snapping pictures of them, they don’t bother to ask why I’m doing it. They don’t realize that it’s my way of making sure that I can identify every stitch of clothes that they’re wearing. They never notice that I’m taking their picture next to the ruler so that I know how tall they’ve gotten. They don’t know that I’m preparing for the moment when I look up and one of them isn’t there.

It happened one time. I looked away for a second and then one of them was gone. I jumped up and grabbed his brother, pulling him from one station to the next in a frantic search. A member of the museum staff saw me and came to my aid. What’s his name? I told her. What’s he look like? I answered. How tall is he? What’s he wearing? I don’t know, I don’t remember. She called a description out to her colleagues, based on what little information I’d provided. I was still frantic — annoyed by the crowds of kids who made the search for my nephew much harder — and so, so mad at myself for not noticing what he’d been wearing.

They found him within minutes. He’d made his way back down to the first floor to the toy trains and was with another member of the museum’s staff. Relief made its way through my body — loosening my grip on my other nephew’s arm, slowing my heart rate back down to a normal pace — and I ran to reunite with my nephew who, of course, was unbothered. He just wanted to play with the trains, he said, blissfully unaware that he’d given me one of the scariest moments of my life.

I thought about that day again last night, when Kristen Welker asked the president about the more than 500 children who were separated from their parents by this administration’s grotesque immigration actions. I thought about the fear I experienced on the day I lost my nephew — for just a little while, in a museum brimming with cameras and staff — and tried to imagine what it must be like to be one of those parents… to have that fear be omnipresent in your life… and to have the man responsible for it, show not even the slightest bit of remorse for your pain.

“Mr. President, your administration separated children from their parents at the border, at least 4,000 kids,” Welker asked during last night’s debate. “You’ve since reversed your zero tolerance policy, but the United States can’t locate the parents of more than 500 children. So how will these families ever be reunited?”

Donald Trump never answered the question and, instead tried to hit all the immigration buzz words he knew: coyotes, cartels, bad people, the wall. It was nonsensical, of course — the question was about family separation so the idea that coyotes or cartels are primary actors is absurd — but Trump is invested in turning out his base and they eat those buzz words up with a spoon. Welker continued to press him about how he would reunite the kids with their families and he deflected blame to the Obama-Biden administration. They built the cages, he said, ignoring the fact that no one had even asked him about that. Welker pressed again and Trump conceded that there was no plan before returning to his buzz words.

“We’re working on it very… We’re trying very hard,” Trump answered. “But a lot of these kids come out without the parents. They come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

Biden, on the other hand, at least had the decency to be indignant about the separations, saying, “Parents were ripped… their kids were ripped from their arms and separated, and now they cannot find over 500 of the sets of those parents, and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal. It’s criminal.”

Trump was granted time to respond and, instead of offering a rebuttal, he tells the national audience about how well those 500+ children are being kept. He said, “they are so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

The facilities where they lie in cages on concrete floors, wrapped in mylar blankets… the facilities where story after story suggests that those children aren’t just being traumatized by the separation and the conditions, they’re being sexually abused while in custody. Their facilities aren’t clean, they are not “so well taken care of”… the president is a liar.

There are people who are calling this debate “civil.” Because Trump wasn’t the ranting, raving bully that he was in the first debate, there are people willing to cede the debate to him. He managed to climb over the lowest of low bars so, of course, let’s dub him the winner. That’s how much the political media is invested in tone.

But this debate was not civil. There is nothing civil about orphaning 500+ kids as a matter of public policy. There is nothing civil about putting them in cages. There is nothing civil about the way we’ve treated these families who came to the United States — in accordance with the law — and asked for mercy. This is not civil… and the fact that anyone thinks so says more about them and the things they value than what actually happened on that debate stage.

Last night was the final presidential debate before Election Day (11 days away). Biden was as effective as he’s been throughout this campaign, litigating the president’s failures, and Trump didn’t do enough to expand his outreach beyond the base (and, in particular, among that part of the base that spends as much time as he does embracing conspiracy theories). It’s my hope that it’ll be the last time we see the president on the national stage…but I worry that what we’ll be left with is a politics and a media who never really disagreed with Trump — not on policy — they just didn’t appreciate his tone.

Biden Addresses LGBTQ Protections while Trump Aggressively Meanders in Dueling Town Halls

There was supposed to be a debate last night. Two candidates, on opposite ends of the stage, entertaining questions from a select group of “undecided voters” in a town hall format. It’s a format meant to humanize the politician… to allow them to develop a rapport with an average citizen or to show sympathy when the moment warrants it. Usually, it’s the highlight of the presidential debates. But, as it has throughout this year, COVID came along and upset everyone’s plans.

The Commission on Presidential Debates tried to salvage the debate, proposing that the second debate be held virtually, but Donald Trump’s campaign rejected that outright. With no compromise to be had among the parties — and with increasing controversy developing around the debate’s chosen moderator — the commission cancelled the second debate and set on preparations for the final debate on Oct. 22.

With an opening in his calendar, Biden immediately agreed to a 90-minute town hall with ABC News, moderated by George Stephanopoulos. The network hosted a similar town hall for the president in September. Then, in the eleventh hour, NBC News announced they’d be hosting a town hall with Trump — similar to one held for Biden a week ago — at the exact same time as the former vice president’s event on ABC.

So now, instead of one town hall, where audiences would get to hear from both candidates and where the candidates would get to critique each other live, voters had to choose between the dueling town halls. Or, you could just wait and let me watch them for you.

ABC: The Vice President and the People

Joe Biden shows off his mask during his town hall event, "The Vice President and the People."

The town hall is a format in which Joe Biden should shine. The tragedies that have defined his life — the deaths of his wife and young daughter in an car accident, his younger son’s addiction and the loss of his elder son to cancer — have molded him into a fundamentally empathetic person and the town hall format really allows a candidate to showcase that ability. That said, the format is also less structured, with no firm time limits. Less disciplined candidates, which Biden certainly is, can tend to meander… and sometimes stumble into troubling statements.

To his credit, Biden didn’t stumble too much last night. If anything, his town hall felt like a microcosm of what his presidency might be like: good, but not great… boring at times… both grounded and constrained by his 40+ years of experience in Washington…and rooted in a fundamental decency that sometimes disappoints. A few moments in Biden’s town hall stood out: outside of two town halls, hosted by LGBT groups during the Democratic primary, LGBT issues have gone largely unremarked upon during the campaign. Considering the way our community and trans folks, in particular, have been harmed by the current administration, it’s a startling omission. But last night, with ordinary voters taking over the questioning, Joe Biden got two questions about issues impacting our community.

The first question, from Philadephia Democrat Nathan Osburn, spoke to an issue that’s at the forefront of the minds of a lot of LGBT folks lately: the Supreme Court. After taking comfort in the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock — which formally extended discrimination protections to LGBT employees — our community has been dealt one blow after another. First, the death of equality champion, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then the nomination of her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, a judge with a record of support for anti-LGBT causes, followed by the statements from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito blasting the Court’s decision in Obergerfell. Osburn’s question spoke to that fear.

“What do you think about ideas from people like Pete Buttigieg and others to put in place safeguards that will help ensure more long-term balance and stability?” Osburn asked. “And what do you say to LGBTQ Americans and others who are very worried right now about erosions of their rights and our democracy as a whole?”

Biden, in a moment that was clear-eyed although not very comforting, answered, “I think there’s great reason to be concerned… I think there’s great reason to be concerned for the LGBT community, something I fought very hard for, for a long time to make sure there’s equality across the board.”

Biden was pressed by George Stephanopoulos on whether he’d support expanding the Supreme Court but was reluctant to take the bait. Instead, he wanted to keep the focus on the push by the White House and Senate Republicans to rush Barrett through the nomination process. If Republicans handle the nomination poorly — and given that yesterday’s Judiciary Committee vote was done in violation of Committee rules, that’s a pretty safe bet — Biden seems open to considering all options.

“It depends on how this turns out. Not how he wins, but how it’s handled,” Biden stressed. “I don’t know anybody who’s gone on the floor that’s been a controversial justice in terms of making fundamentally or altering the makeup of the court that’s gone through in a day kind of thing.”

Later in the town hall, Mieke Haeck, a mother of two daughters, one who is trans, from State College, asked the former vice president about how he’d undo some of the harm that the Trump administration has done to trans people. She asked, “How will you, as president, reverse this dangerous and discriminatory agenda and ensure that the lives and rights of LGBTQ people are protected under US law?”

This time, Biden was both clear-eyed and comforting: “I will flat out just change the law. Eliminate those executive orders.”

As he wont to do, Biden rambled in response to the question moving almost nonsensically from one LGBT topic to the next, but I found some real heart in his answer. He spoke as clearly as I’ve ever heard him about trans identity being innate: he said no kid would choose to be transgender, knowing how difficult it’d make their lives. He noted the epidemic of violence against trans women of color (though, admittedly, he understated the numbers).

“There is no reason to suggest that there should be any right denied your daughter,” he told Haeck before pointing out that his son, Beau, had gotten protections based on gender identity and expression added to Delaware’s anti-discrimination laws. Biden noted that his son’s efforts were inspired by a trans woman who worked in his office while Attorney General. That woman was Sarah McBride, and next month she’ll likely become the highest-ranking elected trans person in the United States.

NBC: Trump Town Hall

Donald Trump addresses a town hall in Miami, hosted by Savannah Guthrie of NBC.

Donald Trump’s town hall was also a microcosm of his current and potential future presidency: evasive, unfocused, prone to embracing conspiracy theories and with a profound disdain for strong women. As with Biden’s NBC town hall last week, Trump’s started with a set of question from the forum’s moderator… in this case, Savannah Guthrie. Interviews with this president are especially difficult because: 1. he has an aversion to facts and 2. he responds in such a vituperative way that it’s just easier to concede the point. To her credit, Guthrie refused to back down.

She pushed him repeatedly to reveal when the last time he tested negative for COVID — prior to his positive test — a question the president could not answer with any certainty. She recoiled at the suggestion that the president had caught the coronavirus not from the trip to Cleveland with White House advisor, Hope Hicks, who tested positive or at the Rose Garden super-spreader event… but at an event with Gold Star families a day later. When he tried to take credit for saving 2 million people from dying from coronavirus, Guthrie challenged him. She also pushed him to denounce white supremacy and QAnon, a fringe conspiracy that’s gaining traction within the rightwing, including likely members of Congress.

“Let’s waste the whole show,” Trump responded when Guthrie pushed him to denounce QAnon. “You start off with white supremacy. I denounce it. You start off with something else. Let’s go. Keep asking me these questions.”

Trump doesn’t mind town halls, in part because he feeds off the energy of the crowd. They’re not as engaging for him as his super-spreader political rallies, of course, but still, they give him that adrenaline fix that comes from appearing before a live studio audience. But, for the Trump campaign, the difficulty becomes directing that adrenaline in a way that benefits them politically. Despite being down double digits in the polls, Trump hardly used any of his town hall answers to offer any direct criticism of Joe Biden. He couldn’t pivot from questions about COVID, healthcare and pre-existing conditions, passing an emergency relief package or taxes to attacking Biden, even when his questioner left him an opening.

Instead, he was nonsensical about a host of issues: claiming there was a difference between DACA and Dreamers or claiming that he’s done more for African-Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln or claiming that a COVID vaccine is just around the corner. He never accepted fault for anything, including his own tax returns; instead, blaming his flaws on Nancy Pelosi, the IRS, on Senate Democrats being mean to Brett Kavanaugh or the Obama administration.

It was, in short, a microcosm of his presidency. If you’ve been paying attention for the last four years, you didn’t miss a thing.

The third second and final presidential debate will be held on Thursday, Oct. 22 at 9PM from Nashville, TN. It will be moderated by NBC News’ White House correspondent, Kristen Welker.

Extra! Extra!: Where to Start, Trump’s Tax Avoidance or COVID Superspreading?

We’re back! A friend of mine observed recently that it feels like the news cycle has gotten even shorter. It certainly feels that way! I honestly forgot about some of these things that happened two weeks ago in the wake of the White House superspreader event scandal (which Natalie covered in her intro to the VP debate recap). This week’s Extra! Extra! gives an update on the latest scandals from Trumpland, some reflections on what happened in Minneapolis this summer, another setback in the fight for Indigenous rights and sovereignty and news on some of the growing conflicts in the Western world.

The News from Trumpland

Trump’s 2016 Campaign Listed Millions of Black Voters It Wanted to Stop From Voting, Leak Reveals

Natalie: We knew there was a voter suppression effort, aided by the Russians, that targeted black voters… but this sophistication of this effort, by the Trump campaign and the Republican Party, is just so deeply offensive. What’s particularly galling about this to me is that the campaign had a list of people who were skeptical about Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and instead of doing the work to persuade those voters, the campaign thought voter suppression was the better option.

The President’s Taxes: Long Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

Himani: Two weeks is a strangely long time and also not. Honestly, as I was putting this news round up together, I had realized that I had forgotten that The New York Times released this searing expose about Trump’s taxes. Since that happened, we had the shocking fiasco of the first presidential debate and then, of course, the White House turned into ground zero for the latest Coronavirus outbreak in the US. A lot has happened.

But this news from the Time is pretty monumental. I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the time to read the whole thing (this tl;dr is pretty helpful though). Yes, there was the much reported news that lasted a day that Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2017. Yes, that is appalling, truly. But what got lost in the headlines is the fact that he actually paid more in taxes to other countries because of his business ventures there: “In 2017, the president’s $750 contribution to the operations of the U.S. government was dwarfed by the $15,598 he or his companies paid in Panama, the $145,400 in India and the $156,824 in the Philippines.” That being said, there was no new information regarding Trump’s entanglements in Russia.

The most damning part though, in my opinion, is the glaring conflict of interests. We all kind of sort of knew that this was happening. But Trump is in deep, deep amounts of debt. And that debt makes his use of the presidency as a forum for trying to save his businesses all the more corrupt. As the Times reports:

“His properties have become bazaars for collecting money directly from lobbyists, foreign officials and others seeking face time, access or favor… At the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., a flood of new members starting in 2015 allowed him to pocket an additional $5 million a year from the business. In 2017, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid at least $397,602 to the Washington hotel, where the group held at least one event during its four-day World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians…. When he took office, Mr. Trump said he would pursue no new foreign deals as president. Even so, in his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. And while much of that money was from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland, some came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics — for example, $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey.

Natalie: You’re forgiven for forgetting this story momentarily, Himani, because the Trump administration is just a perpetual shitshow… and as soon as your grappling with one unfathomable misstep, another one is announced and we’re forced to grapple with that. It messes with your sense of time.

I think, as egregious as that $750 income tax payment is — hell, I’m mad right now just typing it out — the real story is the point you’ve seized on, Himani: how much debt is the president in and to whom does he owe that money? And, as he seeks reelection, that becomes a national security question because, if he’s susceptible to blackmail from whomever owns his debt. What if a hostile government purchases his debt? How does that impact the decisions that he might make? We endanger ourselves by putting a man carrying this much debt back in the Oval Office.

More broadly: we have (had?) a set of political norms in this country… things that we’ve been doing for as long as anyone can remember for reasons that most of us have forgotten…but, if anything, I hope the last four years — and this story in particular — crystallize why those norms exist and why they should be codified so that a candidate isn’t allowed to willingfully disregard them again.

Everyone in the White House cluster who has reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus

Natalie: There are people working in the White House — in the People’s House — who have COVID or know they have been exposed to it and are doing nothing to protect the people around them. They believe, in spite of the evidence and the 210,000+ Americans we’ve lost, that they are immune from the science. And if that wasn’t enough to be angry about, there’s still so much we don’t know: when was the president’s last negative test? Why did the vice president just abruptly cancel his campaign trip to return to Washington? The president is CLEARLY unwell, why hasn’t the cabinet moved to invoke the 25th Amendment? Where in the world is Bill Barr?

We are in the midst of a true constitutional crisis, we have no idea who’s in charge of the country right now…and yet concern over that will continue to be painted as an extension of the campaign…a purely political concern.

A Closer Look at What Happened in Minneapolis

Born with two strikes: How systemic racism shaped Floyd’s life and hobbled his ambition

The Store That Called the Cops on George Floyd

Himani: I spend a lot of time thinking about the racial hierarchies that exist in America and especially about the anti-Black racism that runs rampant in Asian communities. These two articles need to be read together. The first is a deep exploration of the many layers of racism (and its bedfellow poverty) that eclipsed George Floyd’s life long before he was murdered. The second dives into the story of the Palestinian-owned corner store where a clerk made the fateful 911 call that led to Floyd’s death. The inescapable pull of anti-Black racism and poverty reverberates strongly through the biographical piece on Floyd from the Washington Post. The impossible, untenable positions that non-Black minorities are cornered into emerges in the coverage from Slate.

Ultimately, the thing I can’t let go of, that reading these two pieces in succession makes crystal clear is that while both the Floyd family and the Abumayyaleh family have both, undeniably, experienced racism in this country, the extent to which racism can completely curtail a person’s life is worlds apart.

How a Pledge to Dismantle the Minneapolis Police Collapsed

Rachel: We’re seeing iterations of the way that seeming momentum around racial justice over the summer of uprising was in some cases a self-serving bid to avoid criticism until they felt the moment had passed (for instance, COPS is notoriously starting filming back up after previously indicating they’d end the show). There’s certainly some of that happening in Minneapolis as well, but I think there are also complex legislative realities and realities of power at work. Several councilmembers quoted in the NYT piece above seem to be claiming a certain level of defensive naivete – “Councilor Andrew Johnson, one of the nine members who supported the pledge in June, said in an interview that he meant the words “in spirit,” not by the letter. Another councilor, Phillipe Cunningham, said that the language in the pledge was “up for interpretation” — implying essentially that they couldn’t possibly have known “defund the police” meant “defund the police.” What seems truer, as someone living here, is that many of those councilmembers either had enough commitment to the cause for one meeting but not the commitment to fight for it through months of bureaucratic roadblocks and public criticism (so, the commitment and long-term planning of organizers), and/or that they were ready to wait out public opinion, hoping that if they demurred long enough, the pressure to make real change would lessen.

What’s happening here is interesting to me because it’s a revealing one about how (especially Dem) established political structures can sometimes find it convenient for us to conceive of power – first, that their job is to use their power with respect to affect and sentiment (“I meant the words in spirit,” “I hear you,”) not material change, and second, that their hands are tied by the loudest public sentiment (“people are confused by this idea;” “a plurality no longer supports defunding the police,”) so they can’t act. The latter idea, of course, isn’t applied consistently; when a plurality wanted the four MPD cops arrested and charged, or a majority of the US wants Medicare for All, for instance. I’m reminded of the online outrage over elected representatives essentially tweeting to call their constituents to organize around an issue, as if they themselves aren’t the ones with the structural power to address it – this tweet being perhaps the prime example. Especially with the audience being a generation who grew up watching power struggles between Dems and the GOP with regard to whether or not one party would be able to totally gridlock the other from passing legislation, the posture of many blue pols right now seems to be to express public regret that they are just unfortunately powerless to do anything, and that they’re really at the mercy of citizens (by this logic, it’s also our fault when we suffer from systemic harm, not theirs). It’s a pretty gnarly piece of rhetoric! Speaking, again, from Minneapolis, it’s also helpful to know that all these decisions are being made (or allowed to die in committee) while ongoing protests continue in the city as they have for months, and police continue to raid encampments every weekend, exactly as the city promised they would not do. As a local tweet that I can no longer find expressed, the city has decided they’d rather just put up plywood over every building downtown against protests every single weekend than try changing anything.

And Elsewhere: The Movement to Defund Grows

Chicago Lawmakers Push To Build Team Of Emergency Responders Who Aren’t Police

Rachel: As someone who believes deeply in abolition I’m extremely familiar with the snarky gotcha of “so what happens when you need to call 911?” And while many people have done great work answering that, it also isn’t detrimental to the project of abolition to acknowledge that there are crises and times when someone is in danger, and it’s necessary for healthy communities to have resources to call on urgently when that happens. It’s always so wonderful to have even more examples of how new systems can provide that without causing harm! New Haven is also working on a program like the one above in Chicago; similar ones are already functioning elsewhere, like the CAHOOTS program in Oregon and STAR in Denver.

They’re Getting Bolder Because They are Hardly Ever Held to Account

A Pro-Trump Militant Group Has Recruited Thousands of Police, Soldiers, and Veterans

Internal document shows Trump officials were told to make comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse

Natalie: Of course they were.

The Frighteningly Sophisticated Plot to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer

Natalie: This is absolutely horrifying… I’m grateful that the plan was thwarted and the men behind this plot have been arrested. And we should, rightfully, call out the president and his allies for their propensity to fan the flames of hate against duly elected public servants. That said, I hope that as we move forward we also stop to think about what a chilling effect this incident or, worse, the attack on the family of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas have on women and their interest in being public servants.

Reveling in Conspiracy Theories Is So Much More Fun than Dealing with the Actual Issues

QAnon believers say they want to stop sex-trafficking. Sex-trafficking survivors say the movement is ‘infuriating.’

Rachel: One of the many insidious things about violent right-wing ideology is how often it co-opts aggressively unimpeachable ideals, albeit in very fatuous versions that never go beyond a slogan. Although it is very dumb, the GOP’s basic riff on “we must protect Americans and their freedoms from the evildoers who wish to harm it!” that it’s adapted to fit various foreign powers, gay people, antifa, the list goes on, is very effective. Many of us also remember the persistent “think of the children” layer of homophobic organizing in the 90s and early 2000s, conveniently invisibilizing, you know, LGBT children. Given this context, it isn’t surprising that QAnon has latched onto the ‘save imaginary children from sex trafficking’ organizing principle; it allows its followers to cast themselves in the roles of Benson & Stabler every time they log on, a heady power trip. And as is always the case with these self-serving and fanatic campaigns, it has no relationship to reality and is seriously harming the actual people who are impacted by the real-life counterpart to QAnon’s imaginary stories.

The EPA Just Reversed This Summer’s Landmark Tribal Sovereignty Ruling

EPA Grants Oklahoma Control Over Tribal Lands

Rachel: Jesus, this is just so awful – I don’t have words.

Natalie: It really is…and while Tribes will no doubt, head to court to try and challenge the ruling, using McGirt as their basis for argument (the Chief Justice predicted the majority ruling would lead to cases like this in his dissent). But it’s also worth noting that the governor of Oklahoma was permitted to ask for control over tribal lands because of a little known stipulation tucked into the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act.

We need to elect a new president and a new senate to undo that provision.

Himani: Natalie, you’ve raised this point before and, once again, it applies: what are Supreme Court rulings worth when the people charged with enforcing them brazenly do not care to follow the law?

The State of Voting in America

Himani: Are you registered? Are you sure? Do you know whether you can vote by mail and if so how?

Postal Service workers quietly resist DeJoy’s changes with eye on election

Himani: It should not come down to individuals ignoring directives from their supervisors or working off the clock to save this election. But this is where we are at.

How photo ID laws and provisional ballots target the most marginalized Southerners

Subject of Project Veritas voter fraud story says he was offered bribe

Discrimination, Strife and Conflict in Other Parts of the Western World

Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict draws in fighters from Mideast

Himani: An armed conflict is escalating in the Caucasus with at least 400 people killed and drawing in other parts of the region. For the context on what’s going on, I recommend this article from The Guardian. It really does feel like the whole world is in flames right now.

The promise and peril of the EU’s new asylum plan

Macron outlines new law to prevent Islamic ‘separatism’ in France

Himani: This is such a thorny issue. My gut reaction is that there’s a lot of Islamophobia — which France has an incredibly long history of — that’s led to this point. I mean, as per The Guardian article: “The measures include placing mosques under greater control and requiring that imams are trained and certified in France.” Do they have the same requirement on Catholic churches? At the same time, back in April I wrote in this column about an expose on how Saudia Arabia is using money (mostly) and power to shape the practice of Islam worldwide. I stand by my gut reaction re: Islamophobia because I think there’s a lot of questions we need to be asking about the economic and political influence of organized religion around the world. Ultimately, this feels like just one more instance of holding Islam to a different, unfair standard under the ruse of “counter-terrorism.”

Memo reveals ‘shocking’ police misuse of COVID-19 database, say rights groups

‘It breaks my heart’: Uighurs wrongfully held at Guantánamo plead to be with families

Himani: This article is just heartbreaking. It shows how so many fucked up things in the world intertwine and carry forward across decades.

Extra! Extra! is running on a biweekly schedule for the month of October. We’ll see you in two weeks!

Extra! Extra!: In Search of an Order of Magnitude to Even Measure Trump’s Unforgivable Immigration Legacy

This week’s Extra! Extra! turns to some devastating immigration news and a look at women’s rights more broadly. This week also brought, perhaps unsurprising, news that the fossil fuel industry knew half a century ago the devastation they would wreak on the planet and did nothing. We also take a look at the state of police brutality globally before turning to a few updates on the upcoming US election.

Immigration News, or the Lawful Dehumanization of People

Appeals court OKs Trump plan to end protected immigration status for 4 countries

Himani: Trump’s opening act was the Muslim ban which bounced around through the courts until the Supreme Court upheld it in June 2018. Since then, he’s closed pretty much every single avenue of “legal” immigration, including gutting the asylum program. While it remains the case that, if we’re talking about deportations of people who have been in the country for longer periods of time, there actually have been fewer of those under Trump than Obama, Trump has sown unprecedented discord in immigrant communities with his large immigration raids.

None of this is to excuse what happened during the Obama administration with deportation. But it does indicate a very clear shift in approach between Trump and Obama. (Probably the understatement of the year, that.) Trump’s goal, from the beginning, was the border wall — to shut down entry into the country both literally and figuratively, and Trump is accomplishing this with his immigration policies. And now, he’s trying to expand the group of people who would be eligible for deportation. We saw this with his approach to DACA — even though the Supreme Court upheld DACA and a federal judge mandated that the administration accept new DACA applications, the Trump administration is blatantly refusing to. This decision around TPS will have largely the same effect; people who were previously protected from deportation no longer will be.

As we’ve seen time and again with Trump’s immigration policies: they make their way through the courts and, ultimately, Trump and Bush appointees go through great lengths to bend the law to let the administration do whatever it wants. In this case, that means the extraordinary claim that Trump’s decision on TPS isn’t motivated by “racial animus.”

I’m not here to say that things were swell under Obama: there is clearly a meaningful difference between “better” and “good.” But what Trump is doing, and by extension what he would do in a second term, is unconscionable.

Unpacking the Explosive Allegation That a “Uterus Collector” Is Terrorizing Immigrant Women

Rachel: This has been weighing so heavily on me all week, and is absolutely going to end up being something covered in history books (if we’re still allowed to have those?) as far as atrocities that were performed in the background of more mainstream concerns like Zoom hangouts and home workout routines and that no one stopped. I’ve really appreciated Tina Vasquez’s excellent reporting on this at Prism, and there isn’t a ton I can add that she hasn’t.

I do want to point out two things: that reproductive violence and medicalized violence have always been part of both the carceral system and the immigration system; at the risk of flattening a long and complex topic, we can think about the fact that incarcerated pregnant people are often denied necessary prenatal medical care and forced to give birth while literally shackled; the racist and xenophobic public anxiety around “anchor babies” of migrant women; and the horrifying history of using inmates as test subjects for clinical trials. The persistent resistance from ICE against allowing journalists or non-GOP politicians to see the inside of detention facilities or speak with detained people was an obvious red flag that this (and probably much more, unfortunately) was likely occurring, but also we didn’t need that cue because these values and priorities are a fundamental part of the carceral system of immigration.

And looking more closely at reproductive rights specifically, this is why it’s so key for mainstream (white) feminism to develop a lens on reproductive rights beyond abortion and birth control — in a white supremacist culture that overvalues the nuclear family as centered around middle-class white women, our major reproductive hurdle is going to be access to birth control. For Black, brown, Indigenous and migrant women, the state has consistently and violently robbed them of the ability to have safe and healthy families, which includes reproduction – which is why we’ve seen mass forced sterilization so often in US history when it comes to these groups. I’m thinking of this because of the detail that one of the ICE facility’s doctor’s former patients alleged that he couldn’t be forcibly performing hysterectomies, because he had actually refused her one when she wanted it voluntarily, implying that she might in fact want children later. The reality is that it’s actually totally expected that the same doctor would hold both views and refuse agency in opposite ways for different groups of women.

The State of Women’s Rights: It’s Not Looking So Great

Backlash in Pakistan as police appear to blame woman for gang rape

Dalits bear brunt of India’s ‘endemic’ sexual violence crisis

Growing more radical, Mexican feminists seize control of a federal building

Himani: I’m always a little wary of posting articles about women’s rights abuses in the so-called “third world”, “global south” or whatever term you prefer. There’s this other-ism that sometimes feels like it lurks below the surface of these conversations, particularly when they’re had in Western and white spaces. As if America and Europe don’t have their own problems with sexual violence, assault and domestic violence. In all three countries discussed here, what’s happening to women is horrifying and heartbreaking. But rather than only seeing the brutality, the focus should also be on the activists who are bringing these issues to the forefront in their countries, even sometimes at the risk of their own lives and safety.

They Knew the Climate Catastrophe Would Come

How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled

Himani: This was a damning and also unsurprising read how Big Oil knew going back to the ’70s at least that plastic could not be recycled but they kept lying about it. And now plastic pervades the entirety of our existence, from the food we eat to the water we drink to the air we breathe.

The Wildfire Catastrophe Was Premeditated

Himani: And in what basically reads like a companion story, Big Oil — along with Big Coal — also knew, going back to the 70s, that burning fossil fuels would lead to global climate change which would in turn lead to devastating environmental phenomenon, including the massive wildfires we’ve been witnessing across the globe the last several years.

And Related: The Same Companies that Do Not Care about the Environment Also Do Not Care about Indigenous Rights

A Mining Company Blew Up A 46,000-Year-Old Aboriginal Site. Its CEO Is Resigning

Rachel: This is so devastating, Jesus. I’m also having a lot of thoughts about this in light of the now-memeified call to arrest Breonna Taylor’s killers – the reality is that even if there are consequences for the cops who killed her, that won’t constitute justice; justice would be Breonna still being alive. Similarly, the sort of corporate equivalent of a notes app apology that’s issued here in response to a completely irreversible harm is so useless and disrespectful!

A month after the destruction in Juukan Gorge, the company issued an apology and said it would support strengthening legal protections for Aboriginal heritage sites.
Last month, after a board review, Rio Tinto stripped the three executives of performance-related bonuses for this year. That review concluded that even though the company had legal permission, its actions “fell short of the Standards and internal guidance that Rio Tinto sets for itself.” …”We are also determined to regain the trust of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people and other Traditional Owners,” Thomson said.

Okay?? The implication that the issue here is one of affect — “we will regain the trust” — and not of material harm is so deliberately obfuscating. I’m very frustrated by the increasing momentum attempting to move the public consciousness into issues of feeling (“It’s important to us that the public feel heard”) rather than committing to material change.

Update on the Pandemic: Still Causing Devastation

The Phrase That Explains Why This Pandemic Has Been So Devastating

Himani: This article didn’t present any new information but another lens for understanding what we have known for a long time throughout this pandemic: the pandemic is disproportionately affecting communities that were already experiencing substantial stress and harm because of the way we’ve chosen to organize our societies.

LSU coach Ed Orgeron: ‘Most’ of team has contracted coronavirus

Rachel: Wow, who could have predicted this! Who could have possibly seen this coming! Ahhh!

Coronavirus vaccine won’t be available to everyone before 2024 end: India’s Serum Institute chief

Himani: The main takeaway here is that it will take a long, long time to actually distribute a vaccine for COVID-19 even after it’s been developed. Any notion that a vaccine will quickly rid us of this problem needs to be dispelled, pretty much immediately.

Police Brutality Is, Truly, A Global Problem

The Uprising in Colombia: “An Example of What Is to Come”

Rachel: Full disclosure, I haven’t finished reading this, but I will and also would recommend it! For months & years we’ve been talking about seeing the overlaps between different communities in resistance globally; the same tear gas canisters being used in Palestine as in Ferguson, watching the same tactics to defuse them spread through social media from Palestine to Hong Kong to Chile to the US. This is really harrowing in a lot of ways, but also helpful and can be energizing and informative; this can be a scary look at ‘what’s to come,’ but also in the same way that ‘scary’ videos from other locales helped Portland protesters organize and effectively resist riot police, so can more info from Colombia!

Bolivia government abusing justice system against Morales and allies – report

Police Fire Tear Gas At Refugees Protesting To Leave Greek Island

Some Updates on the Protests in the US

Accused Killer Of California Cops Was Associated With Right-Wing ‘Boogaloo Movement’

Army National Guard major told Congress feds requested heat ray and stockpiled ammunition before clearing DC protest

Portland Protesters Say Their Lives Were Upended by the Posting of Their Mug Shots on a Conservative Twitter Account

A Little Something to Hope For in Criminal Justice Reform

A New Association of Progressive D.A.s Could Overhaul California’s Reform Movement

Himani: Prosecutors are re-examining their own roles and positions in the criminal justice system. While there’s something appealing about the idea of fully dismantling a system that is so completely broken and starting over from scratch, there are the practical considerations of, you know, how to actually dismantle such a fully entrenched system. So the new moves by DAs in California and in Virginia to form new alliances and associations that are actively pushing for changes in how they view crime and policing, to me, feel like an important step towards building an equitable and fair justice system.

State of the US Election

The Wisconsin Supreme Court Has Already Begun to Sabotage Absentee Voting

Himani: This is so fucked up and I strongly encourage everyone who is eligible to vote in American elections to read this article.

Biden Volunteers Are Encountering a Shocking Number of Voters Pushing an Unhinged Smear

Facebook announces curbs on internal debate of political issues

Himani: Facebook is moving to limit its staff’s ability to talk about the upcoming election. Meanwhile, the conspiracy theories it had (at a very minimum) a hand in allowing to grow on its platforms are already having their effects on the upcoming election.

The Intercept Promised to Reveal Everything. Then Its Own Scandal Hit.

Himani: And on the subject of election coverage, last week I highlighted some reporting by the Intercept and a few commenters, rightly, brought to my attention that I was giving far too much credit to a journalist with a troubling history of denying Russian interference in the 2016 election and who had given credibility to an established racist, misogynist and transphobe. (The tweet from the transphobe has been removed from the original post but you can see the discussion in the comments section.)

Coincidentally, this article was published in the New York Times two days later. It describes a pretty substantial fuck-up in the news room that resulted in the arrest of a government informant. (Remember Reality Winner?) But more importantly, this whole situation serves as a reminder, as the presidential election kicks into high gear, to approach the news with ever-increasing caution. Also coincidentally, Vox published a “Fake News Survival Guide” last week. A lot of things here that might be familiar but some helpful reminders on ways to consume the news without falling prey to all the sensationalism and conspiracy theory-ing.

Well, Here Is One Good Thing that Will Happen on Nov 3

Sarah McBride wins Democratic primary in Delaware on path to become first-ever transgender state senator

Rachel: Not to brag but did you know that Autostraddle’s own Carmen Rios interviewed Sarah back in 2012? Some things have changed for the better since then! This is so exciting!

Extra! Extra!: How Much Does Yet Another Trump Reveal Actually Reveal?

This week’s Extra! Extra! Offers more reflections on police brutality and delves into some damning news coming out of Trumpland. We also look at some LGBTQ+ news from around the world and dive into some of the not-so-great situations unfolding in Europe. And to close out, a look at the state of the Internet, climate change and the pandemic.

The Endless Stream of Police Abuses

Police Unions Are Showing How They Really Feel About Racism and Brutality by Endorsing Trump

Himani: As I wrote a couple weeks ago: another week in America, another story of police brutality. The problem with America’s violent police forces is not new; it is not going away any time soon. This week, again, we had one heartbreaking story after another: a school called the police on a seventh grader in Colorado, a 13-year old with autism shot by police in Utah, more horrifying cover ups in New York. Then there’s the racist policing practices, as recently reported in Washington, DC and the disturbing depths of surveillance by law enforcement, as recently revealed amongst the Albuquerque PD. The accounts go on and on and on, and, always, I think, “And this is just what’s reported on. This is just what’s making it into my small net of news that I read.”

Since the inception of this column many a month ago, I’ve had an ongoing debate with myself whether the goal here is to try to capture “the most important things that are happening” — as if that were really an achievable goal — or to bring attention to news and perspectives that get at what (to me at least) are the heart of the issues facing us. Every week, the answer to that question is different. When it comes to police brutality, it feels particularly challenging to focus on a few acts of abuse when we all know the abuse is happening constantly.

So this week, I’m landing on the side of highlighting one bit of news that I think perfectly encapsulates why the police are beyond reform. We all know that the criminal justice system, as an entire institution, is racist. But the fact that the police unions came out and explicitly endorsed Trump should remove any doubts on the matter. As Ben Mathis-Lilley so effectively highlights in this article for Slate the choice before them should not have been hard: Biden has made it clear he is not anti-police and that he is wedded to the notion of police reform, which would increase the coffers of police departments around the country. And yet the police unions still decided to endorse the candidate who is explicitly and unabashedly racist.

LGBTQ+ News from Around the World

Philippine leader pardons US Marine in transgender killing

Pardon of US Marine in Philippines may be linked to coronavirus vaccine access, says Duterte spokesman

Himani: There are so many things about this that are so horrifying. First the fact that this asshole murdered someone because she was a trans woman. Then that this asshole got special treatment in serving his prison sentence because he’s with the US military. And finally that Duterte pardoned him in part, it seems, because he’s seeking to be in America’s good graces so that the Philippines can have access to a COVID-19 vaccine. And this is why you don’t make a fucking arms race or apply free market principles to matters of global health.

St. Petersburg Schoolchildren Screened for LGBT ‘Propaganda’

Himani: Over in Russia, a horrifying trend continues of teachers being forced to surveil student activity for reposting rainbows on social media.

Disability Rights

Homeless musical chairs: Disabled get boot from Midtown shelter to make way for men being moved from Upper West Side homeless hotel

Himani: So much to be upset at here, namely the cavalier disregard for the rights of people with disabilities, just callously uprooting them from their homes with no notice. And for what? Because a bunch of white, wealthy New York residents don’t want to coexist in their city with people who don’t share their class status.

I will add, because it wasn’t mentioned in the article, that part of what’s so upsetting about this is knowing that so much high-end real estate in New York (particularly in Manhattan) sits vacant, and this was the case even before the pandemic exacerbated that the existing homelessness crisis. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the homelessness crisis is largely — if not entirely — manufactured to cater to the demands of the wealthy.

Rachel: I can’t agree with Himani enough, and as seems to be my drum to beat, I also want to add once again that this is unfortunately just a new extreme of literalization with regards to something that’s always existed: ableism presents materially, beyond the abstract of able-bodied bias, in resource distribution. Care, health, safety and wellness are, at the end of the day (and under capitalism), based in who is given access to the resources they need; disability and chronic illness require a baseline level of resources to address meaningfully that isn’t profitable under capitalism to provide, and this story illustrates that, as does our homelessness crisis in general, really! If the US treated disability accommodations and support, healthcare for chronic illnesses, and effective addiction treatment as priorities and allocated resources accordingly, the homelessness crisis would already be significantly reduced.

The Latest Reveals from Trumpland

‘Play it down’: Trump admits to concealing the true threat of coronavirus in new Woodward book

Himani: So this is truly damning. But then, when it comes to the Trump administration, so many things are, and somehow, it doesn’t seem to matter. I know that this will either be read by people who share my perspective on this upcoming election and are just as exhausted and frightened of the very real prospect of a second Trump term as I am or it will be read by people who don’t share my perspective and aren’t going to be persuaded by me.

Knowing that, well, here we go, anyways: In the latest round of Trump reveals, it turns out that Trump was well aware how deadly COVID-19 was and he knew that it was a disease that spread easily because it was at least somewhat airborne. For months now, we’ve seen how the Trump administration had spent years dismantling all of the US’s protections against a pandemic because “it was a waste of money” or because “it was unlikely to happen,” and has continued to erode those protections to play geopolitical games about vaccine development and WHO funding.

But part of what’s so shocking about Bob Woodward’s interviews here is just the blatant lying. Those other things were complex and involved many layers of policy and administration and the articles that explained those situations were long and sometimes dense. This is a matter of literal soundbites that encapsulate the entire situation. My sister reminded me, recently, that Trump is a notorious germaphobe. It all makes sense now. It’s not that he was ignorant about the virus. It’s that he literally did not care. Although as I write that, I also find myself asking, “Who’s surprised?”

I have not read Mary Trump’s book — yet, and I know she is a complicated lesbian. But I have read a lot of articles about it and a lot of her interviews because so much of what she describes hits just a little too close to home for me, personally. And so there’s a way in which it feels like, ok yes Mary Trump talks about her uncle being a sociopath, various people have said he’s a pathological liar and they mean those terms clinically, I know what it’s like to live among people like that and yet all those words can still feel so abstract, until you have a moment like this which just makes it all so crystal clear.

Whistleblower Alleges DHS Told Him To Stop Reporting On Russia Threat

Himani: And on the list of things that feel like “well, duh” a whistleblower in DHS alleges that Trump is silencing the intelligence community about Russian interference in the upcoming election.

In crackdown on race-related content, Education Department targets internal book clubs, meetings

Himani: This one. I will say this one took me by surprise and filled me with a rage I can barely put into words. Last Friday, the White House issued a directive banning federal agencies from participating in trainings about racism. And this is DeVos’ response. Among the things that the agency cannot do is talk about critical race theory, which, to me, is like the lowest of lowest bars for talking about race in America.

Ironically, while the Education Department is working to actively censor any discussion of race at all, as Michael Stratford reports for Politico, they just finalized a rule that would cut funding to universities that “run afoul of the First Amendment” or “violate their own speech policies.” And we know what that means. While silencing any discussion of racism, the Education Department is simultaneously trying to force universities to give a platform to white supremacists, under the guise of “free speech.”

As always, in America, some people have rights and some people don’t.

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’

Himani: So this bombshell dropped last week and received a flurry of attention in the media over the course of this week. Among the things I found interesting in reading about this article, however, was that the journalist who broke this news, Jeffrey Goldberg, has a pretty damning history of his own:

[A tweet has been removed here because the author was discovered to be a racist, misogynist and transphobe.]

I think this is what gets me about this whole situation. Multiple news outlets were writing about this article as if this is the thing that could sink Trump in the upcoming election. The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald wrote a compelling piece about how the media is setting itself up for yet another round of Trump reveal that turns out to be not a reveal and then ends up reinforcing all the QAnon Deep State whatever the fuck conspiracy theories.

But the question I’m left with is why is it that in America this is the news that would purportedly sink Trump’s re-election? I know why: I mean, after all, today is the anniversary of September 11th. And while that was a tragedy and while I mean no disrespect to those who serve in the military, there’s a part of me that really has to wonder about the type of person who, in the face of all the devastation Trump has wrought in the past four years (but particularly in this year), says, “I think he’s ok” or “I’m not sure how to feel about him,” but when it turns out Trump maligned the veterans and service members — well that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I have never been one for nationalism, so perhaps this is just something I truly can’t understand.

Related Note: One of Trump’s Recent Attempts to Further Rig America’s Political System Has Been Blocked. For Now.

Court Blocks Trump’s Attempt To Change Who Counts For Allocating House Seats

Himani: While encouraging this got blocked, it’s only a matter of time before this gets taken up a level or two and the decision is reversed because Mitch McConnell and Trump have almost completely packed the judiciary.

Things Are Not Looking So Hot in Europe

The UK threatens to renege on the Brexit deal it signed with the EU just a year ago

Himani: So I’m going to be completely honest here. I have never followed this whole Brexit deal/no-deal situation very closely, in part because all these economic trade things feel like made up nonsense although I realize they have very serious consequences in the world. As a result, I don’t really understand the situation with Brexit all that well to talk about those aspects of this situation specifically.

What I will say — and what’s lost in the headline here — is that the UK’s current renege involves moves that would violate the Good Friday Agreement, which was the peace deal reached between Ireland and Northern Ireland 22 years ago after decades of violent and tragic conflict. That anyone would think it makes sense to play fast and loose with that peace deal is just… really beyond me.

Navalny Recovering From ‘Deadlier, Slower-Acting’ Novichok Variant – Reports

Himani: It’s pretty incredible and encouraging that Navalny is recovering from being poisoned. But also this whole situation is horrifying beyond words. Knowing that various countries around the world are working on chemical agents to try to secretly poison people certainly does not help me sleep at night.

Detained Belarus Opposition Leader Says She Was Threatened With ‘Dismemberment’

Himani: This situation in Belarus has been incredibly upsetting for a while now. The threats against Kolesnikova are the latest horrifying turn.

How Bulgaria became the EU’s mafia state

The Internet Undone

In China, the ‘Great Firewall’ Is Changing a Generation

Himani: This was an incredible read. I really can’t do it justice, so I highly encourage you to read this article.

Palantir filed to go public. The firm’s unethical technology should horrify us

Himani: At this point, I think most people know how horrible Palantir is? Well, if you don’t, this article pretty much lays it all out. What’s worth noting here is that Peter Thiel, one of the co-founders of Palantir, is also a co-founder of Paypal and one of the first investors in Facebook. And he’s just one of the co-founders. Which is to say, that while this one article is about Palantir, all of Big Tech is this horrible nexus of money and power which is quietly eroding civil rights and liberties around the world.

Labor Rights Issues

‘We Are Watched to Prevent Mass Resistance’: Amazon Workers Discuss Being Spied On

In California’s Wine Country, Undocumented Grape Pickers Forced to Work in Fire Evacuation Zones

Immigration

He fought corruption in Russia. ICE wants to deport him.

Himani: This is one of those heartbreaking articles I read about immigration that leaves me feeling incredibly hopeless about the whole world. Like literally the entire world.

The Climate Apocalypse

The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are to Blame

Himani:It’s fire season on the west coast of the US and hurricane season on southeastern coast. Wildfires have already or are currently ravaging parts of Greece, Australia, Siberia and the Amazon rainforest in this year alone. This utterly bleak article is a sobering reminder of what, exactly, got us here. Humanity did this to ourselves but, more than that, we did this to the rest of the planet and its ecosystems and its wildlife.

Ecological Crises Could Displace More Than 1 Billion People by 2050: Report

Himani: While parts of North America and Europe have faced incredible climate change-induced devastation, the fact that North America and Europe are the “better off” places in this scenario is just… truly beyond words. And, when I think about this in terms of immigration policies, how both of these regions have handled (and continue to handle) refugee crises, once again, I’m left feeling pretty bleak about the future of the world.

The Pandemic’s Over, Right?

Exclusive: White House orders end to COVID-19 airport screenings for international travelers

Rachel: All I can think about when I see this headline is how swiftly and with such (blatantly unconstitutional!) enthusiasm the White House (and at their behest, the TSA and US customs) rushed to enforce the “travel ban.” Within what seemed like moments of the White House’s announcements, people were being turned away from the border with nowhere else to go; people who had been in the air when the executive order was announced were denied entry upon landing mere hours later. For the “safety” of the country. Obviously that was always a deliberately cruel and insincere shroud, but it’s still tough not to feel a sense of whiplash looking at the same institution with many of the same folks choosing to actively end a counterpart system that actually saves lives from a real, ongoing threat. The juxtaposition once again makes crystal clear, heartbreakingly so: they could address this, and could do the right thing; they’re actively choosing not to.

Workers Reveal Disney Is Covering Up Its COVID Cases

Graduate students to strike in protest of fall reopening

Rachel: I have a home team bias here as a former Michigan state resident and grad student (though not at this university), and who knows some folks involved in this grad student union — it’s a first of its kind strike, though, and marks something I think could be pivotal to the current moment. As much good analysis has pinpointed, a key component of why the US’s pandemic response has been so disastrous has been that it prioritizes profits over people, and the survival of corporations over the survival of citizens. The degree to which we’re seeing this play out on university campuses as well — requiring students, faculty, staff, and facilities workers to return physically to campus and pay full tuition despite knowing full well that the campus isn’t capable of enforcing effective pandemic control, thus putting everyone at risk and likely making thousands of contagious returns to home communities an inevitable eventuality — is an indicator of the degree to which our institutions of learning are now functionally businesses. BUT the potential that lies in how entwined this threat is with profit means that there is tremendous power in labor movements for us to protect ourselves; a power structure that revolves entirely around profit is extremely vulnerable to the power of organized and unified workers.

So far (very very early days) the response to the U of M strike has been heartening; undergraduate students have committed to solidarity and refusing to cross the picket line, as have tradeworkers associated with the campus; the university was effectively forced into offering a deal within the first few days, which was rejected due to its lack of action on divesting from police (abolition solidarity!). No promises of course about how this strike will turn out, or about the efficacy of work stoppages in every single situation, but I think it’s extremely worth watching this space to learn about what’s possible in terms of concretely resisting the unacceptable options most Americans are being offered as this pandemic rages on unchecked.

Extra! Extra!: The US’s COVID-19 Cases Peak as Stimulus Package Passes; Here’s All That Explained

This week’s Extra! Extra! COVID-19 is going to focus on news out of the US. After all, this is the week that the US finally reached the top of the global rankings in terms of number of confirmed cases (we all know the US should’ve been at the top of that list for weeks now) – now accounting for nearly 20% of confirmed cases around the world. Yes, there is a much, much bigger world that is getting hit with COVID-19 right now, and I definitely want to turn to that. But there’s a lot to say in the US alone right now.

Congress just passed a stimulus package the likes of which, I truly believe, have not been seen in a long, long time, if ever. We’re talking substantial expansions to unemployment insurance, something that essentially amounts to a one-time universal income for low income and middle class Americans and loans with forgiveness provisions for small businesses. The fact that Mitch McConnell co-signed any of this is astounding to me.

And yet, it’s not enough. It will not be enough for so, so many people in this country. The federal response to the pandemic continues to be contradictory, fragmented and not grounded in reality (let alone science). States are basically running amok and making their own decisions (with governors sometimes going against the better judgement of mayors). Some states are trying to fleece indigenous groups in the name of Coronavirus. Meanwhile undocumented people – far too many of whom are in detention centers – are receiving neither federal nor state assistance. Lack of health care continues to, literally, kill people in this country. And while there are all sorts of thorny medical ethics questions that need to be tackled in a situation like this, people with disabilities are still being treated as though their lives aren’t equally valuable.

I promise you all that next week we will turn back to global coverage of this pandemic, which is, after all, a global situation.

Stimulus Package

Himani: The stimulus package includes A LOT of things. For the tl;dr of what was passed, check out the first article linked above from NPR. For useful information on what this could mean in your actual life, I recommend the NY Times FAQ. And if you want the human perspective from someone involved in applying pressure on Congress on what to include in the bill for regular people and small businesses, check out the Medium article featuring Tom Colicchio.

Senate Passes $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package

F.A.Q. on Stimulus Checks, Unemployment and the Coronavirus Bill

Tom Colicchio Spent 19 Years Building a Restaurant Empire. Coronavirus Gutted It in a Month.

Himani: The stimulus package is not enough. For one thing, the one-time check and four-month expansion of unemployment insurance does not map onto what could very well be a longer time frame. Second, and more importantly, it ignores the needs of many people in the US, which we’ll discuss further below. And, as the Slate article points out, it also does little to address the shortage of healthcare workers and medical devices which could, for instance, have been included in the bill as job-creating measures.

It’s not enough, but honestly it’s more than I ever hoped for, given how utterly amoral Republicans and Trump are. Democrats forced Republicans to make meaningful changes to the bill – most notably the expansion to unemployment insurance of $600 per week of federal benefits on top of state benefits. The Democratic party is disjointed and often disappointing, but I also appreciate the difficulty of the situation they are in. No matter what they do, Republicans have shown again and again that they do not have any sort of conscience and do not care about any kind of rules – and Trump just demonstrated that once again.

And on another level, whenever the choice is “do nothing and stand by your principles” or “do something and save some people’s lives” I’m always going to choose the latter. Truly, would it have been better to lose everything in order to expand paid sick leave? Or ensuring that states are prepared to hold mail-in elections in November? I don’t mean to trivialize these issues – they are incredibly important – but I just don’t think that letting nothing happen is the right answer.

Natalie: It’s hard to think of this moment in purely political terms…people are suffering and I think Congressional Democrats were more interested in moving swiftly and getting something done to mitigate that suffering. They behaved similarly with the stimulus following the economic collapse and it’s a far more difficult calculation than people give it credit for being. As you rightly pointed out, Himani, how much do you give up to expand paid sick leave or provide election security?

That said, I think this will ultimately be the first of many bills to help us grapple with the economic impact of Corvid-19. Because, truth be told, this isn’t really stimulative, right…it’s just sustaining. I think we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to addressing the economic fallout from all this and Congressional leadership will have to come back to the negotiating table once the fallout becomes more clear. And since the administration and private corporations have already shown themselves to be untrustworthy partners, the Democrats can push for more progressive legislation down the road.

The Mega-Bailout Leaves 4 Mega-Questions

The Senate Coronavirus Bill Is Not Going to Be Enough

Trump Says He Won’t Comply with Key Transparency Measures in the Coronavirus Stimulus Bill

Natalie: FYI: Megan Rapinoe did an Instagram Live session with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez yesterday. If you have questions about the stimulus package, it’s worth checking out.

How COVID-19 Makes Already-Terrible Things So Much Worse

Himani: This slew of articles serves as a reminder that while a virus might not discriminate, our systematically discriminatory society does make it so that the adverse effects of the pandemic play out disproportionately across the population.

Trump Admin Urged To Free Migrants After Detainee Tests Positive For COVID-19

For Vulnerable Black Communities, the Pandemic Is a “Crisis on Top of a Crisis”

People With Intellectual Disabilities May Be Denied Lifesaving Care Under These Plans as Coronavirus Spreads

How Coronavirus is Changing Life Inside San Quentin State Prison

Teen Who Died of Covid-19 Was Denied Treatment Because He Didn’t Have Health Insurance

“White-Collar Quarantine” Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide

How the United(?) States Are Handling the Pandemic

Disunited States of America: Responses to Coronavirus Shaped by Hyper-Partisan Politics

Closures, Benefits And Takeout: Here’s How Each State Is Battling Coronavirus

Michigan Governor Says Vendors “Being Told Not to Send Stuff” to Her State — after Trump Bashed Her

Natalie: He is doing, brazeningly, exactly what he did to Puerto Rico. He is doing, brazeningly, exactly what he got impeached for…but because Republicans refuse to hold him accountable in any way, he just continues to do it.

Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-Oklahoma) is citing the COVID-19 pandemic to pressure tribes into negotiating new Class III gaming compacts.

‘Foolishness and Foolery’: Churches, Stores Reopen As Governor Overrides Mayors’ COVID-19 Orders

Failures at the National Level

Internal Emails Show How Chaos at the CDC Slowed the Early Response to Coronavirus

Doctors And Nurses Say More People Are Dying Of COVID-19 In The US Than We Know

The President Is Trapped

How the Pandemic Will End

Extra! Extra!: A Socially Distant Democracy

This week’s Extra! Extra! considers the shocking indictment against Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and what democratic action looks like during social distancing.

Stay tuned for COVID-19 news updates on Monday – including information on the stimulus package just passed by Congress.

Democracy during a Pandemic

What Protests Look Like in a Time of Social Distancing

Rachel: I’ve been thinking a lot about what direct action looks like now; there’s a near-universal consensus that the state is failing us, the likes of which I’ve never seen, but not necessarily a clear course of action for how to address it and demand something different. I’ve been thinking a lot about this piece I loved, which is in part about ACTUP and says: “ACT UP got in people’s faces to demand government and businesses respond faster and with more urgency to the AIDS crisis. The biggest currency they used was their bodies, gathered in mass. They laid down in streets to protest inaction, stormed the New York Stock Exchange and took over the Food and Drug Administration. In 1992, they even marched to the White House and threw the dead, cremated remains of people who had died of AIDS onto its lawn… they also used their bodies to transgressively maintain intimacy, such as at the 1987 kiss-in at St. Vincent’s hospital.”

The obvious thought, right now, is that what we can do with our bodies in public spaces is limited right now without further endangering ourselves and others. I’m thinking about the protest tactics that are being adapted, outlined in this article – some picking up on longtime approaches, like projecting or posting images and messages in public. I’m thinking about how much the rage and fear that we’d normally see channeled into street protests is being channeled into a politics of refusal – talk about rent strike, about walking out of jobs without paid sick leave. I’m thinking also about what it would look like to “transgressively maintain intimacy” in a time when so many of us are suffering so deeply from the disconnection that a pandemic forces – and the ways in which we’re being forced into contact that’s harmful instead of sustaining (a panicked customer harassing a terrified service worker about not being able to find toilet paper is the opposite of intimate, for example). Strategies that prioritize connection and choosing to witness the humanity of those most often denied it, like writing to incarcerated people, are more important now than ever, when systems of power are urging us to do the opposite.

Georgia to Mail Absentee Ballot Request Forms to All Active Voters

Natalie: So, to speak specifically to Georgia first: the state was supposed to hold its Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday (March 23) but it was pushed back due to concerns about the ongoing pandemic. To prepare for the May primary, state officials — many of whom only have their jobs because of voter suppression — are now sending out absentee ballot request forms to all active voters. Note that they’re sending out request forms, not the ballots themselves…so voters have to go the additional step of filling out that form, sending it back, waiting for the actual ballot, filling it out and sending it back. And given Georgia’s recent court battles over what constitutes an “inactive” or “active” voter, who knows how fairly these request forms are being distributed.

But while what Georgia’s put into place isn’t ideal, it’s something that all states are going to have to begin evaluating in the next few months. We don’t know yet how long this pandemic will last so, if it threatens to impact the November elections, states have to act now. The Stimulus Bill that passed in Senate (and may pass in the House today) shortchanges the money that we need to ensure safe elections in the wake of a pandemic: state leaders and voting rights advocates had asked for $2 Billion, the Republicans in the Senate offered $140M and the compromise was $400M. The $2 Billion allocation would’ve given the states the resources to implement a complete vote-by-mail system, following the methodology of the six states that already conduct their elections by mail. By shortchanging our elections systems, Georgia’s system of absentee ballot requests is perhaps going to be the future of American democracy, if coronavirus persists until November.

As she is wont to do, Stacey Abrams summed the issue up perfectly in a conversation with Chris Hayes last night:

‘You Can’t Put The Public In Danger’: How The Coronavirus Has Changed Campaigning

Natalie: I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Too much, actually… because I don’t think the campaigns really have a good understanding about how campaigning will work from now on. I think, for as long as this goes on, it plays to the benefit of the incumbent who, through their role as legislator/governor/member of Congress/president, is provided with earned media on a regular basis. The challenger has to worry about injecting themselves in a narrative and turning a universal response to a crisis into a political issue. It is an impossible situation and it’s hard to know what campaigns should be doing.

That said, I think it’s fair to say that whatever Joe Biden’s doing right now ain’t it. He can’t compete with Trump’s daily press briefings — which have become psychopantic, misinformative replacements for his political rallies — in terms of reach or even Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s briefings in terms of comforting the nation. He has to do better or he’s going to give this election away.

Trump Is Now Openly Trying to Censor His Critics. He May Succeed.

Himani: And in a truly terrifying turn of events, the Trump campaign is trying to block stations from broadcasting a political ad that lines up Trump’s actual statements downplaying COVID-19 to the rise in cases and deaths in the US. The lawsuit might cause stations, which can’t afford to get into a costly legal battle, to self-censor and stop playing the lawful ads.

Venezuelan President Indicted

US Indicts Venezuela’s Maduro on Narcoterrorism Charges

U.S. Indicts Venezuelan President Maduro on Drug Trafficking Charges

Himani: The situation with Venezuela reflects how impossible foreign policy can be. To be clear, I don’t think it’s right for the US to try to oust political leaders by military force, coercion or some combination of the two. That doesn’t change the fact that Maduro is responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions of people. For America to use its clout to influence a situation like this is reprehensible to say the least. If nothing else, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, let alone the Vietnam War and Korean War, show how utterly inhumane and irresponsible that decision is. For the world to watch idly and do nothing is still reprehensible, though. For instance, I think about the genocides in Rwanda and in the Balkans in the ’90s and the massacres in Cambodia in the ’70s that the world just watched and let happen. To do nothing still leaves us with blood on our hands.

When it comes to indicting Maduro, I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I am shocked by the news, and I’m skeptical of the charges because I just don’t trust William Barr or his Justice Department. The AP and LA Times articles lay bare Trump’s very obvious political motivations: this is an administration that has just been itching for war and believes that ousting Maduro might help Trump win Florida in November’s election. I’m conflicted to say the least and dismayed at best when I think of the consequences of this.

These articles also make clear how this approach does nothing to help Venezuelans who were already suffering and that these indictments will only push Maduro to act even more recklessly, putting Venezuelans at greater risk. COVID-19 has already shown up in the country, and I’ve been worried about what would happen when it did, given that the medical system was already, more or less, collapsing in Venezuela before the virus hit.

I hope the Trump administration doesn’t do anything else this reckless with regards to Venezuela. I hope Maduro doesn’t do anything reckless in retaliation. This is one of those situations, like so many around the world, that we have to watch and wait.

And Other Foreign Policy News We’ve All Missed Because COVID-19

The Coronavirus Hasn’t Stopped Trump From Undermining Our National Security

Trans Rights

Trump Administration Officially Declares It Believes Trans Girls Should Be Treated as ‘Biological Males’

Reproductive Rights

Thanks to Coronavirus, Abortion Clinics Are under Attack—Again

#MeToo

Time’s Up Said It Could Not Fund a #MeToo Allegation Against Joe Biden, Citing Its Nonprofit Status and His Presidential Run

Criminal Justice

City of Ferguson Hit with $1.7 Million Settlement for Municipal Court Abuses

Supreme Court Allows States To Virtually Eliminate The Insanity Defense

Labor Rights

Amazonians United Wins PTO for all Amazon Workers

Here’s Why Trump-Era Republicans Are Obsessed with Trying to Outlaw Trans People

One of the most pervasive questions for the American legal system is how to deal with questions of identity — how to create and enforce laws that deal with the slippery question of who someone is rather than the more concrete questions of what they do. Identity is woven into the fabric of American law, an institution that evolved from English colonists who wanted to use its punitive power to reify their own moral fiber as compared to that of the indigenous people around them, and later to reinforce the institution of slavery. The infrastructure hasn’t changed, but our cultural vocabulary of identity has grown much more complex, as have its markers and signifiers. LGBT identities are in some ways uniquely tricky for legal classification and enforcement, because we aren’t always visibly marked; even gay people (sometimes) have trouble identifying other gay people by how we dress, behave, or move through the world; how can the law do so? That’s a tough question to puzzle out, but Lord does it try.

We can see the question of how to track identity through external indicators play out in a lot of ways — is job discrimination against a woman who wears suits gender discrimination, since wearing a suit wouldn’t be a problem if she’s a man? We see it in the hoops LGBT asylum seekers are required to jump through — if bisexual asylum seekers are “capable” of “normal” relationships, does asylee status track along identity, or behavior? Most pressingly, what options does a legal entity (like the federal government) have if it wants to suppress or disempower LGBT identities?

This week, the Trump administration had its best success so far with its unhinged campaign to ban trans people from military enlistment; the Supreme Court agreed to allow the ban to go forward, despite injunctions from other courts. History, we like to say, is circular. In a post love-wins USA, many of the concrete markers that the larger culture associates with gay identity — specifically those having to do with having our relationships with people of the same sex recognized — are now legally indistinguishable from that of the larger population, if not necessarily culturally or socially. Instead, we’ve circled back to the underlying thinking of the 1950s. In the late 2010s and especially under Trump, gender and gender conformity are back under the legal microscope in a move that targets the gender nonconformity fundamental to aspects of gay identity for many, and also increasingly and dangerously, trans people.

In the frenzy of cultural conversation around Prop 8, a t-shirt slogan became popular: “Legalize Gay.” It was tongue in cheek, obviously, but the phenomenon it pointed up is real: the effort to keep same-sex unions meaningless in the eyes of the law was an effort to sideline, minimize and disempower the people who have those unions, gay people as a group. This is far from a new approach; one can think of the systematic efforts toward forced assimilation of Indigenous people in the US, prohibiting people from speaking their own language in their homes, practicing their own religion; taking children to boarding schools thousands of miles from home to make sure they grew up away from every cultural touchstone. The logic then and now was that if you can prohibit the defining actions and experiences that a group shares, you can effectively outlaw a people out of existence. If a federal government wanted to do the same to queer and trans people, they would have to answer the question: what defines us?

There are some historical precedents to what the government thinks the answer to that is. Presentation has always been a major part of how institutions of power make sense of our identities (or fail to). The infamous three-item rule, linked to how police justified their crackdowns on gay gathering spaces like Stonewall Inn, required wearing at least three pieces of clothing commensurate with their assigned gender at birth. As Austen and Abby explained, the rule was about gender but also about trying to enforce a kind of legibility in general — we are an anxiety-inducing, illegible bunch by nature!

This wasn’t just McCarthyism at its finest (although that did have a lot to do with it); laws outlawing cross-dressing or “masquerading as the opposite sex” actually go back to the mid-nineteenth century… wearing [men’s] clothing wasn’t just a social taboo, it was a criminal act. …Starting in the 1840s and continuing well into the 20th century, ordinances were passed in cities making it a crime for a man or a woman to appear in public “in a dress not belonging to his or her sex.” In the nineteenth century these laws had little to do with any sort of moral outrage over men and women wearing clothes that were atypical for their sex. …The thought that clothing might be used to mask someone’s true nature, rather than to reveal their character, was incredibly unsettling in this period. Thus, cross-dressing laws were less about gender policing (although that is inherently a factor), and more about trying to ensure that first impressions were as accurate and reliable as possible. By the time we get to the 1950s, however, these laws continued to be enforced almost exclusively because of a moral panic over “deviant” sexualities that would surely rip apart the very fabric of American society and turn us all into pinko commie dykes.

Laws enforcing gender conformity in presentation have the effect of incentivizing hetero- and cisnormativity, and also have the larger function of providing a pretext for scrutinizing gender presentation at all — in an anecdote Austen and Abby cite from Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold one woman describes how she was pulled out of her car to have her outfit evaluated:

I’ve had the police walk up to me and say, “Get out of the car.” I’m drivin’. They say get out of the car; and I get out. And they say, “What kind of shoes you got on? You got on men’s shoes?” And I say, “No, I got on women’s shoes.” I got on some basket-weave women’s shoes. And he say, “Well you damn lucky”‘ ‘Cause everything else I had on were men’s–shirts, pants.

She was allowed to go — but the fact is she was pulled out of the car at all, and routinely. Even if individuals “pass” these evaluations of gender conformity, the reality of their legal standing has been shaped by the fact that they’re subject to that specific evaluation at all — that part of what we accept as a day to day reality is state monitoring of behavior and presentation related to sex and gender, or more plainly, “being visibly queer or trans in public.”

State surveillance of personal choices was also the underlying premise of the notorious Texas sodomy law that Lawrence v. Texas struck down — an attempt to approximate criminalizing being gay by criminalizing gay sex, even when had in private, consensually and between adults. The Lawrence v. Texas ruling didn’t strike it down until 2003; as of 1960, every state in the US had an anti-sodomy law in the books, some which caused anyone convicted of it to lose their right to vote. Lawrence v. Texas was notable in that not only did the decision written for it address privacy concerns — that John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were entitled to their privacy, but also that the sex they had been having in the privacy of Lawrence’s apartment wasn’t immoral or illegal in the first place. In an America where gay sex was no longer an outlawed facet of being gay — and several years later, when marrying someone of the same sex no longer was either — things became more complicated.

As LGBT activists have increasingly relied on expansive interpretations of Title VII and Title IX (outlawing “discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” and the promise that “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” respectively), LGBT identity has become increasingly tied to gender and gender expression. Progressive legal strategy that tries to anchor protections for LGBT people to already-existing protections based on gender has become more dominant as Trump’s Congress has meant that the courts are a surer bet than a Republican legislature for forcing change; the same legal precedents are being relied upon for issues of public accommodations access for trans people, employment discrimination against cis lesbians, and bathrooms and locker rooms for trans students, and legal questions about how their genders are expressed, perceived and taken into account (or not) are at the crux of these rulings.

At the same time, we’re seeing a level of documentation of and vocabulary around gender that we’ve never had before. Whereas self-identification was previously a personal or social exercise, our social media accounts now often literally label us; our preferences on dating apps or porn sites create a paper trail about who we sleep with, who we love, who we are. There are legal pathways and frameworks for changing gender marker on ID, as circuitous and punishing as they are; recent legal advances mean that in several places in the US, you can have a nonbinary gender marker on your legal documentation.

On the flip side of that coin, Utah is considering passing legislation that would bar changing gender markers altogether. As has always been true for LGBT people, the visibility often required for institutional change carries risks: police departments in progressive cities often now ask for pronouns when making arrests, but anecdotally, many report that answering honestly if you’re trans or nonbinary means that you’re taken directly to solitary. The paper trail required to change your name and gender marker means you’re essentially marked as trans forever within government records; now, under an openly anti-trans administration, trans women are reporting their passport renewals are being denied.

Danni Askini, whose documents have read “female” since she transitioned in 1998 at age 16, was denied the right to renew her passport because “failed to disclose” that she was transgender, she told [the Advocate]. She said the U.S. Passport Office told her in June that after 20 years of having a passport that matched her gender identity, she needed to provide proof of gender transition.

The Trump administration has been openly antagonistic to trans people in a variety of ways — removing Obama-era support for trans students, obviously attempting to ban trans people from joining the military (successfully so, for now, it would seem), and chipping away at the Title VII anti-discrimination advances made in the courts under Obama. More insidiously, though, the language the administration has used in these efforts indicates that they’re trying to make meaningless the frameworks of gender and queerness that LGBT people have spent generations making accessible and liberating for ourselves and each other. In December of 2017, the CDC was quietly issued a memo outlining words they should stop using altogether in official documents; “transgender” was one of them. Just in October, the Trump administration floated an internal memo which proposed enshrining an institutional definition of gender that deliberately disallowed for trans people’s existence:

The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

The threat of ‘genetic testing’ was likely empty; even the Trump administration doesn’t really think that’s a viable option logistically. The real point was exploring establishing a collective worldview that doesn’t include trans people in it.

This week, the Supreme Court agreed to allow the trans military ban to go forward. The Pentagon’s official reaction to the news and backlash to it was, at best, baffling:

“As always, we treat all transgender persons with respect and dignity. (The Department of Defense’s) proposed policy is NOT a ban on service by transgender persons. It is critical that DoD be permitted to implement personnel policies that it determines are necessary to ensure the most lethal and combat effective fighting force in the world. DoD’s proposed policy is based on professional military judgment and will ensure that the U.S. Armed Forces remain the most lethal and combat effective fighting force in the world,” Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokesperson, told CNN.

The only sentence of that statement that actually speaks to the question at hand — the military ban — only does so in that it baldly contradicts everything about it. The ban on transgender military members is not a ban, because we respect trans people and would not ban them; we’ve always been at war with Oceania, etc.

There have always been and will always be parties in power who wish we, where ‘we’ is the diverse and complicated spectrum of LGBT identities, did not exist and who will use whatever tools are at their disposal to do so. One of those tools is the legal and judicial apparatus, which is a double-edged sword, as it’s also one of our potential pathways to greater liberation and safety. As always, their ability to stamp out who we are is dependent upon their understanding of how we act, what we want and need, our values and our defining shared cultural experiences — right now, what’s most visible and fearful to them is the messy, complex and necessary conversation about gender and its intersections with queerness we’ve managed to advance over the last generation.

The battles we’re fighting haven’t changed much; they never really do. We want to be safe both in private and in public, able to keep our families and communities safe too, and recognized by our government to the degree that we can navigate a cold cruel modern world with the same level of difficulty our straight and cis counterparts can. For a generation or so, especially after the AIDS epidemic cruelly highlighted how unvalued gay lives were and how meaningless our family relationships were considered, a primary battleground for these fundamental issues was ensuring recognition and protections for our relationships and demanding acknowledgement of our inherent worth and our resilience. More recently, in a shifting cultural context that recalls the 1950s in a lot of scary ways, the legal paradigm has become once again how our community’s genders and expressions thereof — the degree to which we agree to make them visible and legible or not.

Trump Administration Continues to Decimate Asylum Process, Putting LGBTQ Migrants at Risk

This past weekend, a new executive order from the Trump administration went into effect, requiring potential asylum seekers to enter, legally, through a port of entry in order to be eligible for asylum. Before this went into effect, anyone inside the US was eligible to claim asylum based on fear of harm from their home country, irrespective of how they entered US borders; this is based on the U.S. Refugee Act that was passed by Congress in 1980, allowing anyone who is on U.S. soil to claim fear and enter into the asylum process.

Like many of Trump’s orders, this proclamation came without warning, which means that those working at the ports of entry were caught without warning and already deeply understaffed. There are 48 U.S.–Mexico border crossings, with 330 ports of entry, most of which are backlogged by the request. The Daily Beast reports how already, asylum-seekers following the new orders are being turned away. This follows on the heels of documented intentional misinformation and intimidation of those seeking asylum in the United States via the southern border, about which the ACLU is also pursuing legal suits.

What does this mean for the around 80 LGBTQ migrants who have arrived as part of the current “caravan” of migrants seeking asylum? Even longer wait times and a seemingly indefinite backlog, under the duress of violence and discrimination from their fellow migrants, after fleeing much of the same at home. The nonprofit group Raices has been funding their stay at hotels, but the longer their wait, the thinner those resources will become. The road to asylum itself is fraught and full of dangers, from hostile-to-rogue CPB agents, harsh conditions of travel, and even death, yet the promise and hope of a better, safer life propel the asylum-seekers coming to our borders. Meanwhile, even while their options for claiming asylum have been bottlenecked by this proclamation, the literal roads to asking for asylum are being shut down and made harder to access.

If they do finally make it into the asylum process, they may be detained and have to wait even longer. This wait, for the caravaners, will see a switch from a policy of “last in, first out” to “first in, first out,” which means that those who applied most recently are first to be scheduled for their interviews — but that means they have only that short period of time to prove their eligibility for “parole” or find sponsorship; to obtain a semi-permanent mailing address for receiving interview notices and outcome letters; find legal counsel, and tell their stories so as to pass increasingly high bars of proof for “credible” or “reasonable” fear. For LGBTQ and other asylum-seekers who have previously asked for an asylum adjudication, it means that the time until they can even come in for an interview has become even more protracted as asylum officers work through a 2+ year backlog.

All of this is part of a larger program of intimidation and hostility towards asylum-seekers and immigrants as a whole, under the guidance of Jeff Sessions as Attorney-General and Kirstjen Nielsen as head of DHS. Sessions’ time presiding over the immigration courts has included a drive for “efficiency” that’s forced immigration judges to decide someone’s fate within hours; a severe limiting of the options for immigrants and asylum-seekers, including disallowing victims of gang and domestic violence from claiming those as a legal basis of fear; and a nearly 50% increase in arrests and deportations of non-violent, non-criminal immigrants. Sessions aggressively assigned cases to himself, allowing him to personally shape narrower and harsher precedents in the immigration courts. Though it’s been upheld in court, he continues to challenge DACA and even raise the specter of rescinding it. Though his clashes with Trump after his recusal have resulted in his resignation, his legacy as Trump’s bulldog on immigration is still echoing through the courts he’s reshaped in his image.

Every time a new proclamation is issued and goes into effect, the burden is on advocacy groups and the courts to apply it to the existing law and pursue an injunction. Like many of this administration’s past executive orders — the so-called “Muslim Ban,” for example — advocacy groups and immigration lawyers have been quick to file suit. The ACLU has announced their intention to sue on the basis of the Refugee Act, and an injunction stalling the order is intended to go into effect soon thereafter.

Even as families from the “Northern Triangle”  (the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) are making up increasing numbers of asylees, this administration remains committed to its “deterrence” approach to immigration, including the widely-maligned family separations. Their attempts to eliminate restrictions from the Flores Settlement to allow them to detain families indefinitely only makes things more dire.

This administration has been characterized by a bullish pursuit of an anti-immigrant agenda, irrespective of the realities of immigration and the rule of the border. Rather than send administrative and adjudicative support in advance of his executive order limiting asylum, Trump instead deployed almost 7,000 military troops to the border in advance of the caravan, a move characterized by The Washington Post’s editorial board as “a total farce.” Though Nielsen has been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s “zero tolerance” attitude and repeated defense of the department during the uproar over family separations, her attempts at explaining the realities of immigration law in response to his hardline approach to immigration enforcement have displeased him, and many sources are reporting he wants to remove her — in part as a way to also push out White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who has been known to defend her to the president.

There’s not much hope that these staff changes will bring new improvements. Every new executive order, surprise procedure, and anti-immigrant initiative from this administration — even as it’s opposed by advocacy groups and immigration lawyers within the courts — has the effect of slowly eroding the core principles of a nation previously positioned in openness to the refugees of the world. It is not impossible to imagine that an administration that has been hostile to queer and trans people will soon place LGBTQ identities on the chopping block of eligibility for asylum as well. What Trump seems not to understand is that if or when that happens, we will still be here.

“Trans People Don’t Exist” Added to Trump Admin’s Anti-Reality Agenda

This morning, the New York Times broke the story that the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration is “[considering] defining transgender out of existence” — specifically, enshrining a definition of gender within the federal government that ties it immutably to sex as assigned at birth (as documented by a birth certificate “as originally issued”), with no recognition of an individual’s self-determined gender later in life.

The agency’s proposed definition would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.

The NYT appears to have drawn this information from a memo circulating within the DHHS, which argues for these changes but does not make them official. It isn’t confirmed that the Department will go forward with this; even if they do, the Departments of Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Labor would also have to accept this definition for it to be uniformly applied in higher-up government policy. In terms of legal understandings of trans identity in the courts, the Department of Justice is the most important factor; although it is technically possible that the DOJ could part ways on the issue, the department’s history on trans issues under Jeff Sessions leaves little hope for that possibility. The issue is expected to be presented to the DOJ by the end of the year.

There’s little to draw on as far as legal precedent to understand the specifics of how this would work; it’s unusual to say the least for a government agency to “define” such a fundamental cultural concept out of nowhere. Although the Obama administration issued guidance on legal interpretations for courts regarding sex and gender, they generally functioned as guidance, not commandments. In recent legal memory, previous to the repeal of DOMA the federal government did have a definition of marriage as “between one man and one woman,” it was tied into a specific law, the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by conference. Like so much of what the Trump administration has done, this move appears to be an attempt to circumvent Congress and the courts and force through a bigoted agenda. Also like so much of what the Trump administration has done, it’s so unexpected and confusing that it’s hard to say how specifically it will play out.

If adopted, this definition is likely to kneecap legal battles concerning use of public accommodations for trans people — a trans child suing to be able to use the bathrooms appropriate to her gender would have her case shut down, because the federal government would refuse to see her as anything but a cis male child. CNBC says that “The move would essentially exclude the transgender population from civil rights protections, and rolls back Obama administration policies that relaxed the legal concept of sex in federal programs, recognizing it largely as a person’s choice.” It’s not clear exactly what would happen for trans people who have already changed their gender marker on official government documentation, or would like to in the future, but the odds are not good. Where previously trans people have often had to supply tedious and costly amounts of ‘evidence,’ including notes from doctors, surgeons and therapists, to testify to the reality of their gender, the Trump administration could now refute all of that with “genetic testing” — a limited medical concept that also presents frustrating challenges and erasure for intersex people.

In addition to the formidable legal hurdles this change would represent for trans people trying to live safely in the US, it’s indicative of a deeply troubling cultural campaign on the part of the Trump administration to try to simply wish trans identities out of existence. Almost a year ago, the Trump administration was reportedly prohibiting the CDC from even using a list of words associated with scientific issues they seemingly consider left-leaning — “transgender” was one. The administration also removed information for and about LGBTQ families from their website. The director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, Roger Severino, was previously the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, and has called Obama-era legal memos that supported inclusion of gender identity in Title IX “radical gender ideology.”

In the weeks and months to come it will be clearer what the future of this policy push will look like — and as with other attempts by this administration, lawyers, local politicians and community members will organize to figure out what can be done. In the meantime, we can continue standing up vulnerable community members and providing access to resources and safety, and looking for opportunities to materially support the people who need it most.

You Need Help: Your Christian Family Loves Trump’s Debauchery, Hates Your Gayness

Q:

I grew up in a very Baptist family in South Carolina, they’re still Baptist. They voted for Donald Trump despite the fact that his actions go against basically every teaching of Jesus. They’re still standing behind him no matter how grotesque his behavior gets, and I can’t stop thinking about how supportive they are of this man when they did everything but send me to conversion therapy when I came out to them. I am their child and grandchild and they’ve chastised me for homosexuality for eight years now, but what they feel for a man who assaults women and is blatantly and unabashedly racist is practically worship. I do not stand in opposition to the teachings of Christ. Trump does. Yet I’m the one who’s ostracized. Why are they like this? I’m serious. I think it would help me if I could understand why they’re like this. And, maybe it’s not possible, but do you know how can I ever move past it?

A:

Ah, friend. This is a tough one. I’m going to try to answer both of your questions, but the first thing I want to say is: I’m sorry. And also: I understand. My roots are deep and my experiences are wide in the evangelical Christian world; and I continue to struggle with these questions in my own life.

I’ll try to answer the why first because I think it makes the how a little more manageable.

The thing you have to know about the Southern Baptist Convention — the toxic garden from which all these evangelical leaders and politicians grow — is that it was founded when white southern Baptists split from white northern abolitionist Baptists prior to the Civil War, and they did so to continue to use the Bible to defend slavery. When they lost that fight, they championed Jim Crow laws. And when they lost that fight, they championed banning interracial marriage. It’s a religious movement literally founded on and sustained for a century by pure racism, and when Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater came to the south in the late ’60s to court those white voters by appealing to and validating that racism, by telling them they were right to fear and resent the cultural change caused by the Civil Rights movement, that the liberal elite in the north didn’t understand what it meant to be true patriots, Southern Baptists and the Republican Party became inextricably linked together.

By the mid-90s, the GOP was finding it harder to be as overt in their racism as they had been 30 years earlier. Yes, their policies were still racist, but they had to be more palatably so. In a now infamous interview in 1981, Lee Atwater, a Republican consultant and adviser to Ronald Reagan, explained that the party had to keep finding newer, more subtle ways to appeal to racists: “You start out in 1954 [using racial slurs]. By 1968, you can’t say [racial slurs] — that hurts you, it backfires. So you say stuff like ‘forced busing,’ ‘states’ rights,’ and all that stuff. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.” So the racism remained, but the party needed a new scapegoat they could go after loudly. The Southern Baptist Convention made a deliberate and calculated decision to make that new scapegoat gay people.

It’s a very simple strategy: Baptist pastors convince church members their way of life is under threat by an other, GOP leaders promise to create laws to protect the faithful from the threat, Baptist leaders deliver votes to GOP politicians, GOP politicians craft the laws that validate the threat-rhetoric, the other pushes back and protests, Baptist leaders point to those protests and say, “See? Our way of life is under threat!” The GOP steps in and says, “We’ll save you!” Black people, gay people, immigrants, Muslims, trans people. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The tactic hasn’t changed in 150 years, only the scapegoats and the Bible verses used to justify persecuting them.

Which is why, when Fox News arrived on the scene, it became easy as pie for them to step into the swamp of that propaganda and exploit it. The structure was there; they turned it into a machine. For eight years, a black president occupied the Oval Office, and 24 hours a day, every day, Fox News and the conservative punditry herd doubled down and down, again and again, on the bigotry that’s coded into the very DNA of white evangelical Christianity and therefore the Republican Party.

Donald Trump is the through line, the inevitability of a political party and major religion whose lifeblood is creating imaginary monsters out of smoke and mirrors.

So that’s the world you were born into, friend, and the world your family still lives inside. Do you know cognitive dissonance? It’s the intense psychological stress experienced by a person who tries to hold two contradictory beliefs in their head at the same time. Now, everyone’s number one favorite belief is, “I’m a good person.” And every religious person’s favorite belief adds to that, “And I’m right with God.” For your family’s entire lives, they’ve believed they’re good people and they’re right with God in large part because they’ve “protected” themselves and their community and their faith by voting for Republicans, who are defending them from the others.

You are saying: Look at these facts. Can you not see that Donald Trump is a corrupt, depraved con-man?

They are hearing: Look at these facts. Can you not see that this man you’re defending is racist and xenophobic and transphobic and sexist, and therefore your actions are wrong, and therefore your faith leaders are lost at best or corrupt at worst, and therefore the church and political party you’ve spent a lifetime supporting is not good?

Rather than confronting your facts — which would shake the foundations of their very identities — they turn instinctively back to Fox News where James Dobson is saying it’s okay that Trump is embroiled in perpetual sexual scandal because he’s a “baby Christian.” Where Jerry Falwell Jr. is saying it’s okay that Trump calls POC-populated countries “shitholes” because what that really means is he’s not a “phony.” Where Billy Graham Jr. is saying the proof Trump’s a Christian is in his conservative judicial appointments. Never mind that those transparently dishonest and self-serving sentiments would have Jesus spitting “You snakes! You brood of vipers!” at them. Those words soothe the consciences of your family. Their core belief that they are good people remains in tact.

The hard truth is, humans are narcissists above all else. When you came out to your family, they didn’t ask themselves, “Is she bad?” They asked themselves, “If she’s gay and I’ve been taught gay people are sinners, am I bad? Is my religion bad? Have I devoted my life to a lie?” And rather than wrestling with that, rather than self-interrogating and trying to find grace in nuance and compassion for a person they loved, they settled on, “No, I’m good; she must be bad.”

The next question is much harder: How can you move past it?

I’m sorry to tell you: You can’t. You won’t. You will never forget that your family voted for Donald Trump and you will never forget that they have stood by him through every ugly, outlandish, monstrous thing he’s done. You will never stop mentally juxtaposing the way they treated you when you came out as a lesbian with the way they treated him when he said he grabs women by their pussies. Even if, one day, they realize the way they treated you was wrong, you won’t be able to stop yourself from feeling incandescent rage and despair that they can’t extend that same compassion and logic to the other minorities getting scapegoated and pummeled by this presidency. And honestly, I don’t think you should get over it.

I think the best thing you can do for yourself is to move forward with a clear-eyed understanding of the reasons your family believes what they believe and votes how they vote and defends what they defend. Because if you get that, you can understand that it was never about their love for you (though it should have been) but about the terror of confronting their own wrong and bigoted beliefs, and the way that confrontation would have unraveled their worlds.

And then, with that clear-eyed understanding, you can decide where to go. You can start working from the outside-in to try to help them change. The best thing you can do for them is cut off their access to the propaganda. As long as they’re seeking daily (or hourly!) confirmation bias from the conservative punditry herd, they’re never going to change. If you can pull or push them away from that, you’re on the right track. Or you can keep them at arm’s length and refuse to engage with them if they’re not arguing with you with real facts based in reality in the real world, if they’re just parroting whatever bullshit they heard Rush Limbaugh say the day before. Or you can take some time away from them and heal as you grapple with the myriad ways and reasons they’ve hurt you. Or you can stay close to them and continue to appeal to them on an emotional level by explaining the ways their hypocrisy hurts you; you can even bring Jesus into it. Jesus doesn’t have anything to say about gay people, but he has PLENTY to say about the kinds of religious leaders who support a man like Donald Trump.

I looked a man I’ve loved my entire life in the eyes a few months ago and said, “You’re racist.” That tactic is not supposed to work, but something about the fact that it was me — a little girl he’d spoon-fed and taught to read — shook him in his deepest heart. He turned off Fox News.

Here are three facts:

1) Our families are pawns in a zero-sum propaganda war that’s been funded and fueled by the white evangelical Christian Church and the Republican Party for decades.

2) We can’t side-step our responsibilities as activists.

3) There’s always hope.

And now you get to choose how to engage with those three truths with your eyes wide open!

Billionaire Oil Baron Tillerson Is Out as Secretary of State, Anti-Gay “Traditional Families” Fanboy Mike Pompeo Is In

In a stunning clinic on how to make a major state decision with global implications with less gravitas and forethought than the finale of The Bachelor, Trump announced yesterday via Twitter that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was being fired. Tillerson will be replaced with Mike Pompeo, currently director of the CIA (also a Trump appointment); Pompeo will be replaced in his old role as director by Gina Haspel.

Aside from the bizarre logistics of the firing — the erstwhile secretary of state apparently had no warning about losing his position, and found out from Twitter along with the rest of the world — the substance of the replacement is worrying as well. Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil, was a little like having Uncle Pennybags of Monopoly as Secretary of State. In contrast, Pompeo is a more committed religious and social conservative, with a set of values and political vision that aren’t far from Mike Pence.

When running for Congressional representative in Kansas Pompeo’s platform hung together on far-right buzz phrases, from “the illegal immigration that puts our nation at risk” to “terrorists continue to seek a way to destroy the American way of life.” As Pompeo’s career has progressed, his anti-LGBT views and opinions have increasingly been spotlighted. As a representative, he:

“…opposed same-sex marriage, opposed workplace protections for the LGBTQ community, supported legislation to make it easier to discriminate against LGBTQ people under the guise of “religious freedom, and voted against an LGBT-inclusive version of the Violence Against Women Act. He earned a zero percent rating on the HRC’s congressional scorecard for votes on LGBTQ-related matters during the 112th and 114th Congresses, and a meager 30% during the 113th Congress.”

During the hearings to confirm Pompeo as CIA director, Kamala Harris pressed him on whether he would be able to be an equitable boss for the CIA’s LGBTQ employees: “Can you commit to me that your personal views on this issue will remain your personal views and will not impact internal policies that you put in place at the CIA?” Pompeo assured her that he would treat his federal employees with “dignity and respect.” Outside of that hearing, however, Pompeo has also said he supported Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, opposed marriage equality, and that pro-LGBT Supreme Court rulings on marriage equality and religious freedom were “a shocking abuse of power” that “flies in the face of centuries of shared understanding of our Constitution” as well as “sad and counter to the most profound tradition of our great nation.”

Most recently, as CIA director, Pompeo canceled a speech that was scheduled to be delivered by the parents of Matthew Shepard on diversity and LGBT rights at the CIA building. Specifically pertinent to his work as future Secretary of State, Pompeo has met with the Family Research Council, which previously supported anti-LGBT legislation in Uganda. Among the duties of the Secretary of State is advising the President on foreign relations, enforcing foreign policy and maintaining relationships with world leaders; having one in office who doesn’t think that LGBT people are deserving of protections on US soil is a grim suggestion of how Pompeo might act (or not) when it comes to governments abroad who threaten their LGBT citizens with violence.

Pompeo will head the Department of State while Sam Brownback, also of Kansas, is the Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom. A Pence pick, Brownback got rid of protections for LGBT state employees when he was governor, forced public universities to provide funding to anti-gay groups, and signed an executive order allowing religious organizations to refuse services to LGBT people. His confirmation hearing brought up some extremely concerning views that were, unfortunately, ultimately not an obstacle to his being confirmed:

LGBTQ advocates have noted that the most concerning aspect of Brownback’s elevation to the religious freedom post was his response to a question during his confirmation hearing about whether “religious freedom” could be used as a justification for imprisoning or executing LGBTQ people in nations where homosexuality is criminalized. Even under pressure from Democratic senators, Brownback refused to provide a clear answer to that question, also failing to explicitly condemn the practice of executing LGBTQ people abroad.

The story of Tillerson’s firing seems to be largely about Trump’s ego, and frustration that Tillerson pushed back on issues ranging from North Korea to Iran to overall diplomatic strategy. The story of Pompeo’s hiring, however, and of the overall culture of the State Department right now, seems to be that Pence’s ideology is taking a stronger hold than ever before in the federal government. Although some may find some measure of comfort in the Trump administration’s flailing and rootlessness in recent weeks, that doesn’t mean that Pence and other die-hard evangelicals in the administration aren’t using it as a chance to shore up power and solidify the positions of true believers who share their goals.

GLAAD Survey Finds Straight People Fine with “Equal Rights” in 2018, Not So Much Actual LGBT People

Four years ago, GLAAD added one more metric to the toolbox we have at our disposal for measuring the cultural standing of LGBTQ people in the US when they asked the Harris Poll to launch an index that explicitly asks respondents about their level of acceptance of LGBTQ people. The survey asks about the respondents’ level of comfort with interacting with LGBTQ people in everyday social situations like the doctor’s office or place of worship, whether LGBTQ respondents report experiencing discrimination, and the degree to which respondents support “equal rights” for LGBTQ people. As one would expect, the numbers have generally trended more and more towards acceptance as time and progress march on, with numbers either improving or staying the same since the beginning of the index. That is, until last year — when, as GLAAD CEO Sarah Kate Ellis puts it, “the acceptance pendulum abruptly stopped and swung in the opposite direction.”

Compiled in the Accelerating Acceptance report, the index found that after a dip in the reported discomfort in 2016, in 2017 levels of social discomfort with LGBTQ people rose across the board. More non-LGBTQ respondents than last year said they were either “somewhat” or “very” uncomfortable in every imagined hypothetical scenario, ranging from having an LGBTQ doctor to their child learning about LGBTQ history in school to finding out that their own family member is a member of the LGBTQ community. In the case of “learning [my] child was placed in a class with an LGBT teacher,” respondents were actually more uncomfortable than they were in 2014, the beginning of the survey.

Unsurprisingly, at the same time as the non-LGBTQ respondents are reporting their rising discomfort with us, the LGBTQ respondents are reporting higher levels of discrimination. (In 2017, 12% of the respondents self-identified as LGBTQ and 88% did not; in 2016, 17% of the respondents were LGBTQ.) Increased numbers of people reported discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — the percentage jumped 11% since 2016 — as well as on the basis of disability, religion, age, and “other areas.” In fact, the only area in which LGBTQ respondents didn’t report increased discrimination was on the basis of race and ethnicity, which saw a 4% drop in reported discrimination.

Why such a sharp shift across the board? GLAAD suggests we look at the “heightened rhetoric toward marginalized
communities” that ramped up in a particular way during the election cycle in 2016 and stayed up after the inauguration in 2017, as well as the ways in which LGBTQ issues have appeared constantly in the headlines as a matter of debate and the fact that “LGBTQ visibility slipped in news and entertainment media.” (In our own analysis earlier this year, we noted that “in 2016, GLAAD’s annual report revealed that lesbian representation had gone down for the first time since 2004, and ‘while bisexual women are getting a small boost in visibility, it’s often coming at the cost of damaging cliché.’ Our Senior Editor Heather Hogan called 2016 ‘the most frustrating year ever for queer women who love television,’ even compared to years when we had ‘hardly any TV representation at all.'”)

It’s true that when far-right and ultraconservative candidates or issues are dominating the national conversation, especially when they become law, we see increased negative sentiment and violence against marginalized groups — racially and religiously motivated hate crimes rose by a shocking 41% in England and Wales after Brexit. The data for the 2017 survey was gathered from November 16-20 of 2017, in the heady weeks following the results of the US election and at a particular peak of intensely charged rhetoric.

Given that context, it’s interesting to note the one measured criteria of the Accelerating Acceptance report that didn’t change from 2016 to 2017 — the response to the statement “I support equal rights for the LGBT community.” In both 2016 and 2017, 79% of respondents said they either “somewhat” or “strongly” agreed. It’s interesting, given the results of the rest of the survey and the specific wording of the statement, what “equal rights” might mean to the non-LGBTQ respondents. Does it mean the right to safety from harm, to accessible and competent medical treatment, to form families and parent children, to be visibly LGBTQ in public without fear? If straight and cis people are growing more uncomfortable with us as part of their daily life and communities, if they report not wanting us to treat their illnesses or teach their children — what rights to a fully lived and safe public life do they really support for us, and to what extent would they prefer to back an abstract and undemanding sense that “love wins?” Unfortunately, there are some answers the survey can’t give us.

It’s a somewhat grim but ultimately unsurprising reveal, given the direction national discourse and policy have taken in the past year and a half for marginalized people in the US in general and including LGBTQ people. The parallel of the President choosing Mike Pence as his running mate, attempting to ban trans people from the US military, firing the entire HIV/AIDS advisory council, allowing his administration to ban the words “diversity” and “transgender” at the Department of Health and Human Services, opening the doors for rampant life-threatening discrimination against LGBT people in healthcare, specifically revoking Obama-era protections for trans employees and so many other things — and also literally waving a rainbow flag is a bit on the nose, but unfortunately apt. In an era defined for many marginalized people by a deep cognitive schism between the protections and support we’re told we’re afforded and the reality we experience, this shift in support is disappointing but not surprising.

Read ad-free: join AF MEDIA