Oh Beautiful, For Fascist Lies…
Read Time:3 Minute, 3 Second
…For mighty waves of shame.
“The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ because the policy now masquerades behind a facade of national-security concerns.”
-Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 6/26/2018-
I wasn’t happy yesterday that there was so little ado about the decision in favor of Trump’s Muslim ban because it may have been and is, in my opinion, a watershed in our descent into Fascism. My question is about whether that descent is irrevocable and whether we’re already there.
It’s partly the fact that the ban is based solely on the “evidence” of the president’s opinion that “they hate us” and that we have a problem with them, that I fear we’ve entered the gravitational field of the Black Hole of Theocracy. The government may not decide what is a permissible religion after all. It would be one thing if the decision were backed by credible evidence of some plot, instead of on the president’s usually spurious opinions, but it is not. As Justice Sotomeyer’s dissenting opinion continues:
“the exclusion was rooted in dangerous stereotypes about, inter alia, a particular group’s supposed inability to assimilate and desire to harm the United States. “
Once again, there seems to be no evidence or intelligence to support a clear and present danger and certainly, in the period in which the ban was set aside, nothing has happened along those lines, which brings into question the extreme urgency called for initially.
That there was no evidence other than the president’s uninformed and loudly proclaimed fear and loathing of Muslims. reminded Justice Sotomayor of the Korematsu decision in the 1980s concerning the concentration camps for American citizens of Japanese descent. As it was proved, there was no evidence of the stated security threat and the argument was not only baseless but fraudulent – Mr. Korematsu won. As you know, survivors of that incident were awarded $20,000.
That a threshold was crossed is suggested by Chief Justice Roberts’ assertion that this precedent could not be used and bears an only superficial resemblance to the case in question. Indeed Korematsu concerned US citizens and the travel ban affects foreigners, but the rejection of past decisions based on proof (and admission) of false information given the court seems applicable to the layman.
If that’s been accurately reported, it would serve as proof that the opinion of Trump now carries more weight than the facts and case law – if not the first amendment itself which forbids the government to discriminate between religions. Seeing the increased consolidation of the branches of government under the direct power of the president, can I suggest that party control over the high courts, Congress and the Justice Department itself is not just a milestone on the path to perdition, but a declaration of “Abandon All Hope, ye who enter here” Are we there yet? It could well be.
And just as I finished writing this, it was announced that Trump will consolidate his victory over all branches of government, putting an end to checks and balances if not Democracy itself. Yes, we are there and even if we retain a few shreds of a free press, his competence in making lies true and the truth into lies makes the 4th estate of little value. We’re there – your destination is here on your right.
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Captain, just save me a space on the boat as we sail away while Anerica sinks under the waves…
[…] at MadMikesAmerica sees much to be ashamed about in the SCOTUS endorsement of Donald Trump’s thinly disguised Muslim ban. It isn’t a Muslim ban if it’s called a Muslim ban and bans Muslims but the words […]
There’s always something good at MMA and I’ve been following Mike since 2010 but I think he had a little blog at first starting in like 2007. All the writers have their own style. Mike publishes every day except Saturday and even then you can find something on occasion.
You’ve a lot of good writing going on over here Mike. How long you been up to this now?
…and if the house and/or senate goes democrat. Otherwise we’ll just have a constantly stone-walled chief executive, as was the case for much of the Obama administration.
You are exactly right Diane!
One day, hopefully in January 2021, Trump will be out of office. If the right person has been elected the nation will recover. If the right person is elected…
The Republicans have always marketed fear as their primary product, at least as long as I can remember. The difference now is that they have a more market savvy champion. Giving the devil his due Trump rolled the dice and they came up winners. The remarkable part is that he kept just enough Republicanism in his dialogue to say he was Republican but went way out on a log. Trumpism is somewhat like a viral disease that spreads rapidly if not stopped before it becomes a pandemic. If not caught and dealt with early it sometimes has to run its course and, unfortunately, we are just at the beginning of that run.
If one actually digs down deep in American history this is who we have really always been. Despite the lofty words and ideals there has been, from the very beginning, greed, power seeking, exploitation of the poor and people not of European descent, and exploitation of the land. We have only to look at Europe prior to the discovery of this land to understand that this was inevitable. Europe was running out of land and resources. That was the major reason for war after war until they are essentially all walking on old battlefields. This land was rich with resources and wide open for exploitation and we did do that. We, meaning the civilized people of Europe, brought disease here that ravaged the people and now we are going the way of Europe 600 years ago. People have have gotten greedy and power hungry and impatient at the very top where it matters … where decisions are made. Trump tapped into that and there may be no stopping him or others like him.
You’ve hit several nails right on the head here. I think if it hadn’t been for WWII we’d have gone down the fascist road a long time ago.
It is indeed fear based. Perhaps all parties rely on trumped up fear, but we’ve really become a kingdom of lies of late, where hardly anything behind the agenda is actually true. Not even their arithmetic adds up and the Republicans are claiming that they were the real force behind the civil rights movement. I’ve never been able to persuade any of them this hokum isn’t true.
But leaders of all persuasions have to have their bogeymen, their scapegoats, their enemies otherwise they might become objective and throw the bastards out. It’s a hard argument to counter – that the Indians, the Jews, the Germans, Italians, Poles and the Irish aren’t causing whatever we’re angry about. We prefer satisfying, self absolving answers and we have a huge capacity to invent them. It isn’t necessary any more for people to figure out why things aren’t how they ought to be. We have a greater degree of separation between reality and perception. We have too much distraction, and we have a bigger lie machine than ever before.
Trump is feeding on peoples fear.
9/11 was perpetrated by Muslims.
Islam is an alien faith / culture.
Most of today’s terrorists are Islamic.
To combat this ban peoples fears have to be heard and addressed without them being dismissed as Islamophobes and racists.
Until Trumps opponents start listening to peoples fears he will just carry right on using them.