Our problem isn't Kamala Harris's campaign, or Biden's age, or anything about the D party really. It's that there are millions of homophobic, misogynistic bigots in this country who elected one of their own as president because he promised that they could continue to hate and blame the same people he hates and blames.
Even if Harris had won, we would have this problem. With Trump's win, he's piled on more problems, but fundamentally our problem is a population of white people who don't want good things, because Black/Brown people might get good things too. They hate women. They hate LBGTQIA. And each day, the GOP/MAGA have to feed more groups into the chopper for them to hate.
I'm sick at what this country has become because white people fear and hate others so much.
As Lyndon Johnson said to his assistant Bill Moyers 60 years ago on the night the Voting Rights Act passed, "We've lost the white south for a decade (he was way too optimistic) because they know down there that as long as you tell any white man he's lucky because the cardboard box he's in is dry and the one the (racial slur for black person) is in is wet, you don't have to steal his money, he'll give it to you."
Unfortunately, that's been true outside the south forever also, just not publicly celebrated as it is down there.
I'm a descendant of one of the first group of Europeans anywhere to make the non-ownership of slaves a condition of membership in their community (Germantown Quakers, 1688); his descendants were abolitionists for the next 175 years and I've been doing my best to live up to them for the past 60 years. And my nephews will probably be involved in the same damn fight 60 years from now.
I’ve always appreciated your comments, TCinLA. I run onto you and your excellent observations in Substack now and then. Always common sense. Glad to rub shoulders with you.
Bingo! Robert Reich said today he's come to the conclusion this had to happen. My husband's also been saying this. It hasn't even been a month, and the country is falling apart. We will never separate the hard base from Trump, but eventually there will be a few million who peel away.
Absolutely concur that it's about race. And secondarily, women. I posted this on the DailyKos but the powers-that-be never put it up as a main trending post. I had women in mind with this, mostly. But it applies to race.
You can be a nurse, an LPN, or medical technician, but you can’t be a doctor or surgeon.
You can be a flight attendant, but you can’t be a pilot.
You can be a teacher, but you can’t be a principal.
You can be a paralegal, but you can’t be an attorney.
You cannot be an engineer.
You cannot be an architect.
You can be an employee, or office support staff, or middle management, but you cannot be in senior management, or in the executive suite. No CEOs.
You cannot serve on a board of directors.
If not deported, you can pick our crops, but you can’t own the farm.
You can own small businesses, like hair salons and travel agencies, and but not large ones.
If elected to Congress, and Republican, you cannot be a committee chair, or serve in any leadership capacity.
If applying for college, affirmative action is for white males.
If a woman serving our country, you cannot fight in battle, or be an officer.
You cannot be a police or fire captain, or chief of police or chief of a fire department.
People of color are welcome to die for our country, but you cannot be an officer at any level.
You cannot live here if you parents were not born here.
If gay, you cannot serve in the military.
You cannot be a pastor, minister, priest, or rabbi.
Keith—with all due respect to your list, I am a White Woman who was a Registered Architect for 30 years. I’ve always thought that was due to the overall open-minded character of architects.
You are exactly right. If it was Kamala not speaking to the working class how come the majority non white people voted for her? I think some of them must be working class right? It was race and the fact that she is a woman. I’m really angry that we ALL have to FO because of the dumbasses who chose to FA.
Corporate media will continue to cowtow to the racism and misogyny. Why? Because they know the alternative is speeding up the death of the Fourth Estate. Therefore WE MUST look elsewhere for truthful reporting. Support nonprofit journalists.
Of course!! I’ve been saying this forever!! Plus, you cannot convince me that musk didn’t play with the swing state votes. These people have to know they are choosing/being evil. I don’t know how they live with themselves. Both my sister & I have been screamed at viciously & told to leave my Dad’s for asking innocent questions. I have held myself back from telling him that his brother died in wwll fighting against people like him, but it’s the truth. I had no clue he was a racist. Fox has poisoned him & there’s no reaching him. I believe we are in the majority, & we have to fight, now!
Sue, I am sorry about your dad. A good friend cut off contact with both her brothers since the election because they voted for Trump again and still refuse to get vaccinated for Covid, despite living with their (and her) mother who has contracted Covid twice from her sons and ended up in the hospital.
I have to say, you covered a good bit very clearly and concisely. I have felt this way for a very long time...since he started running in 2016. He opened the door for filthy racism to be accepted again in this country. It was never really gone and I didn't know that until I adopted a mixed race child when he was 2. You wouldn't believe the racist comments I heard...from the first time I took him out in public. It was under their breath, but some white people were bold enough to ask why I, as a white woman, would adopt a black child? Even coworkers, who I thought were friends. The fear for my son really settled in when I watched him jump into the back of a pickup truck with Trump flags along with a confederate 'blood' flag on his way out to the football field with his team mates. I will worry forever. He always thought he was never invited to anything with his sports teams all these years because his mom is 'older' than all the other moms. He's 17 now and knows what he always really knew and it is just so sickening. The racism in this country runs very deep indeed. It has always been about racism.
I have my guard up these days so that very little gives me a gut-punch, and makes my eyes well up. But your comment did just that. This really got to me. I don't know what to say, except that I hope that these times will also bring out the BEST people, and not only the worst. I feel completely inadequate to give any kind of comfort, but please know that I (and many others like me) TRULY care about you and your son. Sitting here mopping up tears. I am SO sorry you both are dealing with this.
Thank you for this brilliant hard-hitting, truth filled analysis. You are a prophet. America must heed your calling us to see the sin of racism—human beings hating each other. It is destroying this country.
I teach an anti-racism coursein a Seminary. And last week we covered having empathy for those who hatefully despise you—one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s principles. I am praying for more empathy as I hold President Trump and Elon Musk accountable.
You said it correctly. If we don’t get a grip on this racism crisis in our country, we are headed for the abyss.
The crazy secret that you former friend and MAGA cult don't realize is that the free lunch program helps more white children than black or brown. I worked at more that one low income school in different states and that is true across the US. Also, they assume that the special education programs that they have been dismantling since W was in office, have predominantly white children. In AL, KY, IN and GA, the ones I am familiar with, the classes are mainly white children. They have managed to feed this racist lie too!
I believe those of us who subscribe knew this. I banged the drum about fascism and racism for several years now. When Adam Serwer wrote "Cruelty is the Point" during the early days of Trump's first term, it became my North star. I knew white Christians were feeling threatened by the LGBTQ community and people of color. I worked with them for years before my retirement. I was friends with many of them. They respected I was secular and I respected them. Then Trump came. I will never forget when a close friend said "Isn't it wonderful we can say Merry Christmas again?" after we picked up drinks at Christmas time. This is an educated woman with a college degree. I called her on it. All the small cracks became canyons. I am not friends with any of these people. They mainline FOX News and listen to their pastors go after migrants. The cold hard truth is they want a pure white race where the bible is in every classroom. It is a fascist cult.
"All the small cracks became canyons. I am not friends with any of these people." That just gut punched me. You get to the point where you can't bridge that chasm. You look across it and know there's no way to reach across anymore. It's so sad, but also a relief to not have to pretend any longer.
There are 2 times I felt I got slapped by those in"our side". One was when they dissed identity politics as a losing cause after the election. I thought that's one thing we got right! The other was just yesterday when I read that numerous Democrats, including Jeffries, were ticked at progressive groups like Indivisible for encouraging us to call our reps. They seemed to be annoyed by their overwhelmed phone lines. The vibe I got was, what do you want from us, you know we're in the minority, right? I hope that article was incorrect. I have to say our Virginia reps, Kaine, Warner and McClellan, have been interested, thankful, and encouraging.
I read that, too. I called Jeffries office and said I read you're upset people are calling and you blamed Moveon.org and Indivisible. I said I wasn't part of either. I was simply an old woman mad as hell. I really am not impressed with Jeffries.
This may be the best thing you have written Earl on substack. I am in Georgia that briefly turned purple in 2020 2021. I have watched a Republican super majority pass the worst voter suppression laws in our very Black community. The whole case against Fani Willis and Nathan Wade was racism. Georgia with the burning of ATL has quite the racist past. Our sitting governor Brian Kemp’s family was one of the biggest plantation owners in Georgia. He signed voter suppression laws under a picture of the house a few years ago. He used his position as Secretary of State against Stacey Abrams by removing 100k voters mostly black from the voter rolls right before the 2018 election. I could tell you history about Brian Kemp that would blow your mind. Georgia also passed one of the worst abortion laws. Kemp gets a pass. He is a mediocre white man who failed up. My family has been in the south since the Amer Rev. My family enslaved Africans. It has been my mission since Trump announced in 2015 to atone for that not that I can. I have a biracial adopted daughter. She is my shining light.
Don't forget misogyny and homophobia.
Our problem isn't Kamala Harris's campaign, or Biden's age, or anything about the D party really. It's that there are millions of homophobic, misogynistic bigots in this country who elected one of their own as president because he promised that they could continue to hate and blame the same people he hates and blames.
Even if Harris had won, we would have this problem. With Trump's win, he's piled on more problems, but fundamentally our problem is a population of white people who don't want good things, because Black/Brown people might get good things too. They hate women. They hate LBGTQIA. And each day, the GOP/MAGA have to feed more groups into the chopper for them to hate.
I'm sick at what this country has become because white people fear and hate others so much.
As Lyndon Johnson said to his assistant Bill Moyers 60 years ago on the night the Voting Rights Act passed, "We've lost the white south for a decade (he was way too optimistic) because they know down there that as long as you tell any white man he's lucky because the cardboard box he's in is dry and the one the (racial slur for black person) is in is wet, you don't have to steal his money, he'll give it to you."
Unfortunately, that's been true outside the south forever also, just not publicly celebrated as it is down there.
I'm a descendant of one of the first group of Europeans anywhere to make the non-ownership of slaves a condition of membership in their community (Germantown Quakers, 1688); his descendants were abolitionists for the next 175 years and I've been doing my best to live up to them for the past 60 years. And my nephews will probably be involved in the same damn fight 60 years from now.
That doesn't mean we stop.
I’ve always appreciated your comments, TCinLA. I run onto you and your excellent observations in Substack now and then. Always common sense. Glad to rub shoulders with you.
Bingo! Robert Reich said today he's come to the conclusion this had to happen. My husband's also been saying this. It hasn't even been a month, and the country is falling apart. We will never separate the hard base from Trump, but eventually there will be a few million who peel away.
💯🎯
Absolutely concur that it's about race. And secondarily, women. I posted this on the DailyKos but the powers-that-be never put it up as a main trending post. I had women in mind with this, mostly. But it applies to race.
You can be a nurse, an LPN, or medical technician, but you can’t be a doctor or surgeon.
You can be a flight attendant, but you can’t be a pilot.
You can be a teacher, but you can’t be a principal.
You can be a paralegal, but you can’t be an attorney.
You cannot be an engineer.
You cannot be an architect.
You can be an employee, or office support staff, or middle management, but you cannot be in senior management, or in the executive suite. No CEOs.
You cannot serve on a board of directors.
If not deported, you can pick our crops, but you can’t own the farm.
You can own small businesses, like hair salons and travel agencies, and but not large ones.
If elected to Congress, and Republican, you cannot be a committee chair, or serve in any leadership capacity.
If applying for college, affirmative action is for white males.
If a woman serving our country, you cannot fight in battle, or be an officer.
You cannot be a police or fire captain, or chief of police or chief of a fire department.
People of color are welcome to die for our country, but you cannot be an officer at any level.
You cannot live here if you parents were not born here.
If gay, you cannot serve in the military.
You cannot be a pastor, minister, priest, or rabbi.
You cannot be president.
Keith—with all due respect to your list, I am a White Woman who was a Registered Architect for 30 years. I’ve always thought that was due to the overall open-minded character of architects.
You are exactly right. If it was Kamala not speaking to the working class how come the majority non white people voted for her? I think some of them must be working class right? It was race and the fact that she is a woman. I’m really angry that we ALL have to FO because of the dumbasses who chose to FA.
MainStreamMedia needs to stop giving him and his cultists a platform unless they are going to strongly push back at every lie.
Corporate media will continue to cowtow to the racism and misogyny. Why? Because they know the alternative is speeding up the death of the Fourth Estate. Therefore WE MUST look elsewhere for truthful reporting. Support nonprofit journalists.
Thank you.
Of course!! I’ve been saying this forever!! Plus, you cannot convince me that musk didn’t play with the swing state votes. These people have to know they are choosing/being evil. I don’t know how they live with themselves. Both my sister & I have been screamed at viciously & told to leave my Dad’s for asking innocent questions. I have held myself back from telling him that his brother died in wwll fighting against people like him, but it’s the truth. I had no clue he was a racist. Fox has poisoned him & there’s no reaching him. I believe we are in the majority, & we have to fight, now!
Sue, I am sorry about your dad. A good friend cut off contact with both her brothers since the election because they voted for Trump again and still refuse to get vaccinated for Covid, despite living with their (and her) mother who has contracted Covid twice from her sons and ended up in the hospital.
I am with you in not believing the ROT (reign of tyrant/terror/terrorist) truly won the majority of the votes in this election and all swing states. He had the help of the muskrat who, as he said in his pre-inauguration rally, really knows about vote counting computers. The truth will come out but probably too late. https://www.c-span.org/clip/public-affairs-event/user-clip-trump-talking-about-elon-musk-knowing-about-voting-computers/5150057
just where are our investigative reporters I wonder?
Your article is superb. Sadly, you are dead on about everything you wrote. Your "friend" doesn't deserve you.
Thanks, Tracey.
I, a fellow 65 y.o. white man, could not agree more! Also, every comment thus far I also agree with 100%
Ditto, from a 71-year-old white man.
Thank you for another great article. 🙏
I'm so depressed right now, I'm going back to bed for the rest of the day. 😥
I totally get it, Diane.
A lot to process right now.
Rascism is baked into the US.
I wonder what the constituional discussion srrounding "three-fifths" was like.
As old white guys, Earl, you and I have a responsibility to call out racism whenever and wherever we see it.
We sure do, Bob.
Least we can do ...
I have to say, you covered a good bit very clearly and concisely. I have felt this way for a very long time...since he started running in 2016. He opened the door for filthy racism to be accepted again in this country. It was never really gone and I didn't know that until I adopted a mixed race child when he was 2. You wouldn't believe the racist comments I heard...from the first time I took him out in public. It was under their breath, but some white people were bold enough to ask why I, as a white woman, would adopt a black child? Even coworkers, who I thought were friends. The fear for my son really settled in when I watched him jump into the back of a pickup truck with Trump flags along with a confederate 'blood' flag on his way out to the football field with his team mates. I will worry forever. He always thought he was never invited to anything with his sports teams all these years because his mom is 'older' than all the other moms. He's 17 now and knows what he always really knew and it is just so sickening. The racism in this country runs very deep indeed. It has always been about racism.
He's damn lucky to have you as a mother, Carolyn, and you are damn lucky to have him as a son ...
I have my guard up these days so that very little gives me a gut-punch, and makes my eyes well up. But your comment did just that. This really got to me. I don't know what to say, except that I hope that these times will also bring out the BEST people, and not only the worst. I feel completely inadequate to give any kind of comfort, but please know that I (and many others like me) TRULY care about you and your son. Sitting here mopping up tears. I am SO sorry you both are dealing with this.
Dear Earl,
Thank you for this brilliant hard-hitting, truth filled analysis. You are a prophet. America must heed your calling us to see the sin of racism—human beings hating each other. It is destroying this country.
I teach an anti-racism coursein a Seminary. And last week we covered having empathy for those who hatefully despise you—one of Dr. Martin Luther King’s principles. I am praying for more empathy as I hold President Trump and Elon Musk accountable.
You said it correctly. If we don’t get a grip on this racism crisis in our country, we are headed for the abyss.
Thanks for the feedback, Vivian. Helpful, and always on target.
Your witness gives me hope.
The crazy secret that you former friend and MAGA cult don't realize is that the free lunch program helps more white children than black or brown. I worked at more that one low income school in different states and that is true across the US. Also, they assume that the special education programs that they have been dismantling since W was in office, have predominantly white children. In AL, KY, IN and GA, the ones I am familiar with, the classes are mainly white children. They have managed to feed this racist lie too!
The shit she doesn't know could fill a barn.
I believe those of us who subscribe knew this. I banged the drum about fascism and racism for several years now. When Adam Serwer wrote "Cruelty is the Point" during the early days of Trump's first term, it became my North star. I knew white Christians were feeling threatened by the LGBTQ community and people of color. I worked with them for years before my retirement. I was friends with many of them. They respected I was secular and I respected them. Then Trump came. I will never forget when a close friend said "Isn't it wonderful we can say Merry Christmas again?" after we picked up drinks at Christmas time. This is an educated woman with a college degree. I called her on it. All the small cracks became canyons. I am not friends with any of these people. They mainline FOX News and listen to their pastors go after migrants. The cold hard truth is they want a pure white race where the bible is in every classroom. It is a fascist cult.
Absolute truth here, Rita.
Trump's a complete moron, but he whistles their tune. I hope everyday that they follow him off the cliff.
(And that there IS a cliff.)
"All the small cracks became canyons. I am not friends with any of these people." That just gut punched me. You get to the point where you can't bridge that chasm. You look across it and know there's no way to reach across anymore. It's so sad, but also a relief to not have to pretend any longer.
Exactly how I feel.
There are 2 times I felt I got slapped by those in"our side". One was when they dissed identity politics as a losing cause after the election. I thought that's one thing we got right! The other was just yesterday when I read that numerous Democrats, including Jeffries, were ticked at progressive groups like Indivisible for encouraging us to call our reps. They seemed to be annoyed by their overwhelmed phone lines. The vibe I got was, what do you want from us, you know we're in the minority, right? I hope that article was incorrect. I have to say our Virginia reps, Kaine, Warner and McClellan, have been interested, thankful, and encouraging.
The Democrats' response to all this has been less than inspiring, Barbara.
I read that, too. I called Jeffries office and said I read you're upset people are calling and you blamed Moveon.org and Indivisible. I said I wasn't part of either. I was simply an old woman mad as hell. I really am not impressed with Jeffries.
As another old woman who's mad as hell, I thank you. I hope the message got to him. Yeah, I keep wanting to like him, but that did not help.
I read that as atoo Barbara and it pissed me off
This may be the best thing you have written Earl on substack. I am in Georgia that briefly turned purple in 2020 2021. I have watched a Republican super majority pass the worst voter suppression laws in our very Black community. The whole case against Fani Willis and Nathan Wade was racism. Georgia with the burning of ATL has quite the racist past. Our sitting governor Brian Kemp’s family was one of the biggest plantation owners in Georgia. He signed voter suppression laws under a picture of the house a few years ago. He used his position as Secretary of State against Stacey Abrams by removing 100k voters mostly black from the voter rolls right before the 2018 election. I could tell you history about Brian Kemp that would blow your mind. Georgia also passed one of the worst abortion laws. Kemp gets a pass. He is a mediocre white man who failed up. My family has been in the south since the Amer Rev. My family enslaved Africans. It has been my mission since Trump announced in 2015 to atone for that not that I can. I have a biracial adopted daughter. She is my shining light.
Right on, Mary!
Thank you, Earl -- this is an amazing column, and so very much needed right now. I completely agree, and I thank you again.
I appreciate that, Deb.