(ThyBlackMan.com) Everything about President Donald Trump’s Independence Day-eve speech at Mt. Rushmore was a much-unneeded reminder that the personification of crude, self-glorifying narcissism occupies the White House as we celebrate our 250th birthday. He chose the venue to suggest, not subtly, that he deserves to be etched on a mountainside along with — God help us – former Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, rather than, say, incarcerated.
Trump cast himself as a great president, naturally, rather than inarguably our worst, one who has debased not only our image but our national character. Ironically, he singled out “American culture” for praise, ironic because when he leaves office, he will have done so much to poison it.
But he has had plenty of help.
Last month, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg became the latest prominent victim of American culture in its sorry state. Swatting has become the new “in” form of harassing political opponents: phony telephone calls making bogus accusations against wholly innocent people to trigger terrifying, humiliating visits by law enforcement that inflict lasting emotional distress. It’s the new “thing” in Trump’s America, a form of viciousness deployed by loathsome types on the Right against the Left, and on the Left against the Right.
In Buttigieg’s case, an anonymous “tip,” if you can call it that, was reported to a child protection services office near where he and his husband live with their young twins. The purpose of the “tip” was to “report” that there was some reason to fear for the twins’ safety. It was garbage: The call was from an anonymous caller who falsely claimed that Buttigieg had once been in Alabama and had supposedly told someone he had committed bad acts.
Following protocol, the child services people separated Buttigieg and his husband from their two small children and interviewed the kids. After determining that the whole affair was bogus, they reunited children and parents, but not before traumatizing Buttigieg’s family.
It was, Buttigieg said, “one of the most awful moments of my life.” He also articulated the challenge America faces. “To me,” Buttigieg said, “the most important thing going forward is we just cannot allow our politics to keep moving in this direction. This can’t be treated as something that it’s just normal you accept. We just can’t go on like this.”
Republicans have been subjected to the same stuff, and worse. Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul are among them. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise barely survived a 2017 assassination attempt when a left-wing activist started shooting during a Congressional softball practice. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the intended victim of an assassination plot.
Back over on the Democrats’ side: in 2020, the FBI arrested 13 right-wing extremists for plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer because she had instituted public health measures to which they objected.
Now there’s a new strain: Left on Left harassment, where progressive activists harass progressives who hesitate to recite every single performative line required of them, and who are targeted as a result.
Witness Scott Wiener, now the Democratic nominee for a California Congressional seat. During his Democratic primary, Wiener’s dutifully harsh criticism of Israel was not enough for progressive activists, who demanded that Wiener characterize Gaza as a “genocide.” Wiener first declined to do so, but when the political pressure on him to recite the magic word became too great, caved and recited it, announcing that, upon reconsideration, it was a genocide.
It wasn’t satisfactory.
Wiener, a nationally recognized transgender rights advocate, was chased from a transgender rights event, surrounded by shrieking, cursing protesters. “You’re a piece of s—- on Gaza!” screamed one. “F—- you and your Zionist handlers!” screamed another. “You stopped being queer the minute you started supporting Israel!” screamed a third. “Everyone f—-ing hates you!”
“They were so physically and verbally aggressive that it was impossible for me to safely remain in the park,” said Wiener. “When opposition and disagreement transition to harassment, including cornering me or trying to physically bully me out of a public event, that crosses a line.”
Sadly, this is American culture presently. The question is whether there is any way we can save it.
Written by Jeff Robbins
Official website; https://x.com/jeffreysrobbins
