Whitewashing

It's hard to tell where the racism stops and the fascism starts

The oft-quoted conservative goal of reducing, if not demolishing, the social safety net finally has traction, thanks mostly to the Supreme Court.

There are two arguments here. One argument is economical, and dates back to the 18^th Century as our country was being formed. Just as today, there was an educated v. uneducated divide (everything old is new again). It ran, and continues to run, along rural v. urban divides, and explains two senators per state regardless of population, and the Electoral College that also bestows much power on small states.

The other is that it is more racially-motivated, since it dramatically impacts more people of color than anyone else. You can add misogyny to the modern-day mix. There was no need to limit women then since they had no agency in the 18^th Century.

The administration‘s direction that the Department of Justice start denaturalization proceedings to strip 1000 Black and Brown American citizens of their citizenship, and to take the 1000 Afghans who aided us as translators, guides, etc., and send them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa (or home to be murdered by the Taliban, whom they betrayed by working for us), is as Senator Chris Coons (D-Decency) said, “Exiling them to a country they’ve never lived in or sending them to certain death at the Taliban’s hands is a cowardly betrayal.”

It’s easy to say, but hard to prove, that this has all the outward appearances of xenophobic racism. Afghans and the other targeted people are not white. Meanwhile, we’re upping the immigration quota only for White South Africans.

New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen is the ranking democrat on the foreign relations committee. Her single word on the subject was “unconscionable.“ Separately, on social media, she rallied Congress to take a unified stand against these inhumane and un-American proposals.

For most of the last year, Republican legislators, many of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and benefited from these guides and translators expertise, have held the line against Trump and his racist flying monkey, Stephen Miller, saying collectively that the American government should keep its promises if it wishes to have any credibility in the future. In recent weeks, many of them have gone quiet while the Administration has amped up its anti-Afghan rhetoric.

Some months ago, the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan immigrant, changed the political calculus and for some interceding moments, Republicans were willing to accept the notion that one bad apple spoils the barrel. This proposal, however, is a bridge too far even for those who generally lack the courage to stand up to Trump and Miller.

It’s politically safe for Republicans to howl as the State Department can do this without the Senate or House.

You might think the administration simply ignores the will of the people, and you might be right, but they’re not all dolts up there on Pennsylvania Avenue. They know they’re in trouble. It started in January with our cosplaying Secretary of DHS in her cowboy costumed photo shoot in front of caged deportees in El Salvador. Kristi Noem was all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas.

Public outrage built in Minneapolis with ICE running amok with armed-to-the-teeth masked, unidentifiable gunmen breaking windows, pulling people out of cars and houses, and ultimately murdering two American citizens. That was enough for many people. But the coup d’grace is the undeclared war in Iran, and the petty foolishness unleashed at such a serious moment. Even the reprehensible Tucker Carlson is distancing himself from the megalomania. He went so far as to apologize to his viewers for misleading them, admitting that he’s “tormented” for pushing his fans to vote for Trump, “I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”

The President may continue to use social media to demean and insult, but his people are playing a more serious game. One of tilting our electoral system. Trump says, pass the SAVE act and we’ll have Republican rule for 50 years.

A little like jugglers who must keep many balls in the air, the President needs to continue to distract with insults and bogus claims. The one sure winner in his arsenal is bigotry. Whether he’s calling reporters, women, and people of color “low IQ,” disparaging third-world countries, or posting pictures depicting the Obamas as apes, he knows his base rallies for the racial insult.

He has a lot to try to distract us from, be it an ill-considered war of choice, his clown car of sycophantic cabinet members, or the Epstein files, he has a sure-fire solution.

Finally, a Lighthouse Reports study concludes that minor traffic stops are perilous for people of color, but not Whites. It is SCOTUS-approved racial profiling.

We should ask, is this Justice, or Just Us?

©2026 Jon Sinton