Kids go hungry while the rich play in space

There is a new blog post entitled, “Not the final frontier.”


Lunch shaming

Amir Vera, “Pennsylvania school district tells parents to pay their lunch debt, or their kids will go into foster care,” CNN, July 20, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/20/us/pennsylvania-school-lunch-debt-trnd/index.html


Donald Trump

I think Jelani Cobb fills in the missing pieces[1] that I would raise with Donald Trump’s attacks on the “squad,” specifically Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.[2]

I’ve long regarded the United States as a fascist country,[3] but this really isn’t just about fascism. It’s about the parallels with Nazi Germany: Concentration camps,[4] rallies targeting members of subaltern groups,[5] and violence against subaltern groups implicitly if not quite explicitly backed by political authorities.[6] I can’t even say that war is missing because we were already at war: Barack Obama left us with wars in more places than  he inherited from George W. Bush. And Trump seems to be provoking a war with Iran.

It’s really all there now, perhaps not yet at the scale and intensity of Nazi Germany, but certainly of the kind.

Jelani Cobb, “Donald Trump’s Idea of Selective Citizenship,” New Yorker, July 21, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/donald-trumps-idea-of-selective-citizenship


  1. [1]Jelani Cobb, “Donald Trump’s Idea of Selective Citizenship,” New Yorker, July 21, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/donald-trumps-idea-of-selective-citizenship
  2. [2]Noah Bierman, “Trump seeks to disavow ‘send her back’ chant at his rally,” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 2019, https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-07-17/trump-new-chant-send-her-back; 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/; 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; Ashley Parker, “How a racist tweet became a Trump rally chant in three short days,” Washington Post, July 18, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-a-racist-tweet-became-a-trump-rally-chant-in-three-short-days/2019/07/18/bd81b798-a968-11e9-9214-246e594de5d5_story.html; Salvador Rizzo, “Trump falsely claims he tried to stop ‘Send her back!’ chants about Rep. Ilhan Omar,” Washington Post, July 18, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/18/trump-falsely-claims-he-tried-stop-send-her-back-chants-about-rep-ilhan-omar/; 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/; John Wagner, Mike DeBonis, and Colby Itkowitz, “A divided House votes for resolution condemning Trump’s racist remarks,” Washington Post, July 16, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lashes-out-again-at-minority-lawmakers-as-house-prepares-to-condemn-his-racist-tweets/2019/07/16/bca3afa4-a7b3-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html; John Wagner and Colby Itkowitz, “Trump vows congresswomen ‘can’t get away with’ criticizing U.S.,” Washington Post, July 19, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-day-after-distancing-himself-from-hostile-chant-trump-criticizes-media-for-its-coverage-of-his-rally/2019/07/19/9c094c16-aa12-11e9-9214-246e594de5d5_story.html
  3. [3]David Benfell, “A simple definition of fascism,” Not Housebroken, July 6, 2019, https://disunitedstates.org/2019/07/06/a-simple-definition-of-fascism/
  4. [4]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/
  5. [5]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
  6. [6]Noah Bierman, “‘Alt-left’ charged at ‘alt-right,’ Trump says, again placing blame for Charlottesville violence on ‘both sides,’” Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-trump-blames-both-sides-for-1502828835-htmlstory.html; Jonathan Easley, “Trump unloads in defense of his Charlottesville response at Phoenix rally,” Hill, August 23, 2017, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/347592-trump-unloads-in-defense-of-his-charlottesville-response-at-phoenix; Jeet Heer, “Trump’s Racism and the Myth of ‘Cultural Marxism,’” New Republic, August 15, 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/144317/trumps-racism-myth-cultural-marxism; Jonathan Easley, “Trump unloads in defense of his Charlottesville response at Phoenix rally,” Hill, August 23, 2017, http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/347592-trump-unloads-in-defense-of-his-charlottesville-response-at-phoenix; Colleen Shalby, “From blaming ‘many sides’ to ‘racism is evil’ and back again, what Trump has said so far on Charlottesville,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2017, http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-how-trump-s-responded-to-violence-in-1502831078-htmlstory.html; Times of Israel, “Criticism mounts over Netanyahu’s response to US neo-Nazism,” August 17, 2017, http://www.timesofisrael.com/criticism-mounts-over-netanyahus-response-to-us-neo-nazism/; Jeffrey Toobin, “Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and Charlottesville,” New Yorker, August 15, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/donald-trump-steve-bannon-and-charlottesville

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