In any given news cycle it is sometimes the lesser articles that are more illuminating in terms of where everything in a country as vast as the United States is heading. This is particularly true in terms of what the U.S. has been experiencing in 2020: a pandemic, civil unrest, wars and continued turmoil overseas plus an election that promises to result in one of two radically different visions of what America should be.
Ironically, Joe Biden is being depicted as the establishment candidate but the Democratic Party program is actually far more radical than that of the Republicans. The Democrats are locked into support of policies that are ostensibly meant to address racial disparities and gender related issue but will instead increasingly turn government into an intrusive mechanism for social engineering, abandoning America’s traditional meritocracy while also creating categories that some might describe as fostering reverse racism and sexism. There could be devastating impact on American education, on maintaining law and order, on controlling immigration, on setting hiring quotas and on First and Fourth Amendment rights relating to free speech and association. A glorious multicultural and gender bending future shaped by Democratic Party social justice hacks will be nothing but a disaster for most Americans, effectively disenfranchising many citizens based on the color of their skin or for other attributes yet to be determined.
And the widespread support for Biden by neoconservatives, who would return to power with his administration, would mean that the likes of Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and Jennifer Rubin will be driving a pro-Israel anti-Iran policy that might even outdo what Trump and Mike Pompeo have contrived, which now will include labeling international human rights agencies as anti-Semitic. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee would be headed by Robert Menendez, corrupt even by congressional standards, who is a totally owned shill for the Israel Lobby. Dan Shapiro, who has apparently become Biden’s leading adviser on the Middle East, is an American Jew now living in Israel and working for an Israeli think tank who should be registered as a Foreign Agent.
The neocons and their media allies are also architects of much of the anti-Russian sentiment in Congress, making the current bad relationship measurably worse. As the Democrats have been blaming practically everything on Russian President Vladimir Putin one cannot expect any serious effort to reset the relationship.
Trump for his part brings with him the negative baggage of his abrasive persona as well as his apparent inability to assimilate and apply simple facts relating to how the nation and the rest of the world work. He has been the aggressor directly against Syria and Iran as well as Venezuela and has been using NATO to threaten Russia. His attitudes towards the environment and climate change are also a disgrace but whatever you think of Trump’s actual performance, the fact is that throughout the campaign and since taking office most of the media and the entire “progressive” left has been labeling him a fascist and a racist. And hanging the racist tail on Trump has continued in the current campaign, to include the lines of questioning in the recent presidential debates and the town hall hosted by Savannah Guthrie.
Trump might make America worse in some ways, but he will not substantially change it as the Democrats almost certainly will do either willfully or by not paying attention to what is developing. Several stories circulating on social media demonstrate just how much “equal justice under law” has been eroded in the minds of some Democratic Party luminaries. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted a demand to create a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” after the expected defeat of Donald Trump. The commission borrows the name and would be modeled on the organization set up in South Africa after the fall of the apartheid government and the establishment of majority black rule, an exercise in attempted democratization that has nevertheless failed to put an end to extremely high levels of corruption and communal violence in the country.
Reich’s objective is not limited to punishing the Trump White House’s top officials who may have promoted policies considered anathema by the incoming Democratic administration. Reich tweeted “When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It would erase Trump’s lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe.” The Reich proposal would potentially mean punishing thousands of otherwise innocent individuals who had little influence over what happened during the past four years. “Enabled” covers a lot of ground, and is prone to devolve into something like a witch hunt. “McCarthyism” only much worse comes immediately to mind.
Reich followed up on his proposal with a second tweet saying “I love the people responding to this tweet as if it’s a radical, undemocratic idea” and, to be sure, there are a lot of people out there who think like he does. One Reich supporter wrote in defense of the proposal “As long as unresolved historic injustices continue to fester in the world, there will be a demand for truth commissions” and there have been numerous comments on social media sites like Facebook insisting that “something be done” about the “deplorables” who voted for and supported Trump.
Other comments made on Twitter in response to the Reich demand include “It is the right idea and I fully support it. It is not right for people to do so much damage to people and get away Scott free. The GOP is Complicit in Genicide and Senicide. There need to be repercussions.” And “I agree 100%… my fear is Joe Biden is going to come into office and want to heal the nation and work with the GOP and ignore all this… if he does that, I will work to ensure he is a 1 term president too.” And also “But it doesn’t go far enough, clearly. Trump’s assets and those of his voters should be seized by the state through legislation and distributed to those he’s harmed as reparations. Surely that’s the only way to heal our nation. Land of the free!” And finally “Robert… you’re right. And after we win… we’ll come for you all… we’re pretty much over trying to share a country with you anyway. Four years ago I thought you were people with bad ideas. I was wrong: YOU’RE BAD PEOPLE.”
Another good Democrats-are-in-power story comes from Virginia where Governor Ralph Northam is preparing to sign a bill that will prevent policemen from stopping cars with expired registrations or inspection stickers, no headlights, brake lights, or other moving violations relating to safety. The reasoning behind the bill is that black drivers appear to be stopped for such offenses disproportionately. That may be true, but the assumption by Northam and his crew is that blacks are being targeted by police, whereas the actual cause just might be that a disproportionate number of blacks don’t maintain their cars very well. Some black public officials including Arlington’s so-called Public Defender Brad Haywood loves the idea, saying: “This might be the most significant reform of the state’s criminal justice system in decades. This is a big step forward for racial justice in Virginia.”
While some of the offenses might be regarded as relatively painless, allowing cars to drive without brake lights in a state like Virginia where drivers routinely proceed at over 70 miles an hour on highways could prove catastrophic if someone had to stop quickly with the cars behind not knowing it until too late. The safety of all citizens is clearly being sacrificed to render what is perceived as social justice for a minority, but when Democrats are in a full pander mode anything is possible.
And a third and final story, also from Virginia, is about the impending death of the once formidable American public education system. It concerns the destruction of what is regarded as the best high school in the United States because it is not diverse enough. The Fairfax County school board has ruled that the high admission standards at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a prestigious magnet school, are now to be eliminated after approval of a proposal submitted by Superintendent Scott Brabrand. The decision by the board eliminates the test and the $100 application fee, long requirements of the rigorous admissions process at Thomas Jefferson. Brabrand’s proposal also increases the size of the school, known as TJ. The changes have been implemented and this year’s eighth-graders — many of whom have prepared for the test — will not take the multi-part exam covering math, reading and science.
Details of how the new admissions policy will work have not been finalized, but a lottery is being considered. One mother protested that a lottery “trashes the meaning of hard work.” TJ’s student body is currently more than 70 percent Asian and about 20 percent white, with single-digit percentages of black and Hispanic students. The intention is to have the school more closely resemble the demographics of Fairfax County’s schools, which is 10 per cent black, 27 per cent Hispanic and 38 per cent white. It will be accomplished by fiat policies and quotas. Though whites are actually under-represented in the school nothing will be done to increase their presence.
Other select by-examination-only schools in New York City, Boston, Chicago and on the West Coast are similarly being stripped of their exclusivity and will instead be embracing diversity. The San Diego school district is completely eliminating testing grades so more minorities can graduate. And the students will no longer be downgraded for exhibiting behavior problems or truancy.
The Beatles once sang “You say you want a revolution!” It seems that many so-called progressives, minority spokespersons and assorted radicals want one here in America. Truth commissions, laws that only apply based on race and quotas in schools are only the beginning. Joe and Kamala, if they are elected, will no doubt encourage all that and more. As there are many “deplorable” Americans who want to preserve what the United States once was, the Democrats might well regret the path that they have chosen even if they do win the election.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
