History is full of cataclysmic opportunities. We’re watching one in America right now.
In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Acts to protect voting rights. In reaction, the GOP ran AZ senator Barry Goldwater for president. He ran on a rollback of business regulation and civil rights to the years before the New Deal.
In a reaction to this regression voters gave Democrats such a strong majority in Congress that LBJ was able to pass 84 new laws to put what he called the Great Society into place.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Created jobs in Appalachia, establishing job-training and community development programs.
Established Head Start.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 increased federal investment in universities. Plus scholarships and low-interest loans to students.
The Social Security Act of 1965 created Medicare and Medicaid.
Passed new protective legislation that required cigarettes and other dangerous products to carry warning labels.
Required products to carry labels identifying the manufacturer.
Required lenders to disclose the full cost of finance charges in loans.
Passed legislation protecting the environment, including the Water Quality Act of 1965 that established federal standards for water quality.
Created the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.
In 1967 the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was established. Followed in 1969 by National Public Radio.
Then another reaction in 1968, when former VP Richard M. Nixon won the presidency, after promising that he would not continue to use the federal government to protect Black rights in the South. He promised an end to regulation. And to taxes and the social welfare programs they funded.
And just like that, the race to tear apart the postwar government that helped all Americans by appealing to racism was back on. And has never left.
If you don’t believe it just listen to the most recent, but continuing, noise coming from the WH.
The Department of Homeland Security sends out inflammatory posts about Haitians. About 350,000 Haitians came to the US after a catastrophic earthquake in 2010. Their country was destabilized. Violent gangs predominated.
America granted Haitians Temporary Protected Status, allowing them to stay in the US. because it was too dangerous to go home.
But Kristi Noem described Haitians as “entitlement junkies” and “foreign invaders,” and refused to extend TPS for those immigrants. Despite the fact that even the current State Department warns travelers not to visit Haiti “due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, unrest and limited health care.”
In June SCOTUS ruled that the Trump administration had the power to end TPS. Haitians living in the US for decades, with deep roots in their communities and our economy, were told they no longer had legal status and would be deported.
The Department of Homeland Security posted on social media: “Haiti TPS has been TERMINATED. Those with TPS are in our nation illegally. They have two options: LEAVE IMMEDIATELY or be DEPORTED.”
And they attached a video of chained Black men and women being moved through the rain toward a waiting plane.
Black people in chains. Herded by men with guns. Ring any bells?
This is the kind of behavior that they are asking we vote for in November. They believe this is what we the people want. They want us to join them in a repressive, regressive march backwards in all social progress we’ve made in this country. All the way back to Black people in chains.
In favor of what exactly? If it’s a vision of a better America they’re offering us they’ve got a funny way of showing it.
Americans always rise to the challenge. And now is one of history’s moments we absolutely have to.
Our country is better than what we are seeing right now. And our own history proves it.
Another big time backlash is due…VOTE.
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