Gee, this didn’t take very long at all.
On the very night that the House of Representatives failed to pass an impeachment resolution[1] that would have been a substantive response[2] to his racist tweets,[3]
Goaded on by the president, a crowd at a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday night chanted “send her back! send her back!” in reference to Ilhan Omar, a US congresswoman who arrived almost 30 years ago as a child refugee in the United States.[4]
Credit the neoliberal party for this. Moving forward with impeachment might not have been the smart strategy—indeed, I have argued just that in entries I am now retracting[5]—but sometimes you just gotta move.[6] Because now we’re right there with Adolf Hitler and his rallies in Nazi Germany.[7]
And don’t make me defend that comparison. Because I know I can.[8]
As for Nancy Pelosi (oh, yes, I’ve seen her house in Pacific Heights in San Francisco) and her neoliberal ilk, send them back to their comfortable fucking mansions and build high concrete walls around them with concrete domes over them so they are never heard from again. They are every bit as toxic as Chernobyl and every bit as stupid. Let them starve in the darkness with all their love of power and all their love of fucking money.
Oh, and be sure to remind me of this if I ever again make the mistake of placing any faith whatsoever in a fucking neoliberal.[9]
- [1]Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis, “House votes to kill impeachment resolution against Trump, avoiding a direct vote on whether to oust the president,” Washington Post, July 17, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-divided-as-house-to-vote-on-whether-to-consider-impeachment-of-trump/2019/07/17/dacd1c0e-a8a3-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html↩
- [2]Rachael Bade, “Rep. Green files articles of impeachment against Trump despite pushback from Democratic leaders,” Washington Post, July 16, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rep-green-to-file-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump-despite-pushback-from-democratic-leaders/2019/07/16/63b4c0b6-a800-11e9-ac16-90dd7e5716bc_story.html; Eric Cortellessa, “Liberal US Jews say Trump is weaponizing Israel to defend his racist tweets,” Times of Israel, July 16, 2019, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liberal-us-jews-say-trump-weaponizing-israel-to-defend-racist-tweets/↩
- [3]Jeremy Herb and Manu Raju, “Democrat says House likely to vote on impeachment resolution Wednesday,” CNN, July 17, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/17/politics/trump-impeachment-house-vote/index.html; Michael Luo, “Trump’s Racist Tweets, and the Question of Who Belongs in America,” New Yorker, July 15, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/trumps-racist-tweets-and-the-question-of-who-belongs-in-america; Adam Serwer, “Trump Tells America What Kind of Nationalist He Is,” Atlantic, July 15, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/trumps-white-nationalist-attack-four-congresswomen/594019/↩
- [4]Tom McCarthy, “Trump rally crowd chants ‘send her back’ after president attacks Ilhan Omar,” Guardian, July 17, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/17/trump-rally-send-her-back-ilhan-omar↩
- [5]David Benfell, “It might actually be a good thing that Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House right now,” Not Housebroken, January 12, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/01/12/it-might-actually-be-a-good-thing-that-nancy-pelosi-is-speaker-of-the-house-right-now/; David Benfell, “Why Nancy Pelosi is right about impeachment,” Not Housebroken, May 22, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/05/22/why-nancy-pelosi-is-right-about-impeachment/; David Benfell, “Calls for impeachment are the latest displays of the naturalistic fallacy and system justification,” Not Housebroken, May 23, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/05/23/calls-for-impeachment-are-the-latest-displays-of-the-naturalistic-fallacy-and-system-justification/↩
- [6]The evolution of my thought here has been rapid. It can be traced in previous entries: David Benfell, “Shunning as the human condition,” Irregular Bullshit, July 16, 2019, https://disunitedstates.com/2019/07/16/shunning-as-the-human-condition/; David Benfell, “Accreditors going wild,” Irregular Bullshit, July 17, 2019, https://disunitedstates.com/2019/07/17/accreditors-going-wild/↩
- [7]Indeed, this is an example of why we cannot exclude structural violence in a definition of fascism. David Benfell, “A simple definition of fascism,” Not Housebroken, July 6, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/07/06/a-simple-definition-of-fascism/↩
- [8]To begin (only the barest of beginnings): David Benfell, “It’s time to be clear: Migrant children are being held in concentration camps and the Trump administration is fascist,” Not Housebroken, June 24, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/06/24/its-time-to-be-clear-migrant-children-are-being-held-in-concentration-camps-and-the-trump-administration-is-fascist/; Christopher Brauchli, “Trump and Hitler: A Juxtaposition,” Common Dreams, June 29, 2019, https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/29/trump-and-hitler-juxtaposition↩
- [9]David Benfell, “It might actually be a good thing that Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House right now,” Not Housebroken, January 12, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/01/12/it-might-actually-be-a-good-thing-that-nancy-pelosi-is-speaker-of-the-house-right-now/↩