Donald Trump and maga Republicans are bringing fascist history alive again as described by George Orwell

Donald Trump - George Orwell and Fascism....some echo comments: 

An autocrat is easy to underestimate

Echo essay by Mark Satta published in The Conversation (an excerpt):  In a 1942 essay written during the middle of World War II and reflecting on his experiences as a volunteer soldier in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell wrote that “our traditions and our past security have given us a sentimental belief that it all comes right in the end and the thing you most fear never really happens,” and that “we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run.”

George Orwell was worried by these optimistic instincts because he thought they ran counter to the evidence. The evidence, on the contrary, suggested that things typically don’t turn out right on their own. Rather, social improvements normally require concerted effort and vigilance against backsliding.

In another essay from the same year, Orwell criticized various intellectuals who treated Hitler as “a figure out of comic opera, not worth taking seriously.” And he criticized many English-speaking countries for being places where it was “fashionable to believe, right up to the outbreak of war, that Hitler was an unimportant lunatic and the German tanks made of cardboard.”

Echo opinion letter published in The Guardian news:

(Maine Writer: Hip Hip Hurray❗ Leave it up to George Orwell, author  of the prophetic novel 1984, to boil the concept of fascist down to one easy to spell and pronouncable word❗)

In 1944, George Orwell noted that “the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless”.

Emma Brockes points out that the word “fascist” gets thrown around a lot (The word ‘fascist’ has lost all meaning. And Trump is using that to his advantage, 23 October). 

It was the same in George Orwell’s day. In his 1944, Tribune column Orwell said that, “as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless … I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922, Committee, the 1941, Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.”

The best definition he could come up with was to suggest that “almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’”.

From Neil Smith in Solihull, West Midlands, in England

Donald Trump owns rising inflation because his tariffs fuel spikes in costs while eggs prices are higher than ever

Inflation is heating up again, putting pressure on Trump to cool it on tariffs:  An echo essay published in The Conversation by Jason Reed, Associate Professor of Finance at Notre Dame University.

Inflation figures released on Feb. 12, 2025, will come as a disappointment to Americans who hoped Donald Trump would be true to his word on bringing down prices “on Day One.” It will also put pressure on the new administration to be wary of policies that may heat up inflation – and that includes tariffs.

The consumer price index, which measures the change in prices paid by consumers for a representative basket of goods and services, rose unexpectedly from December to January by 0.5%. It means consumers are paying around 3% more on item prices than they were a year ago.

Economists had been expecting the pace of inflation to slow in January.

The news isn’t good for anyone concerned. It means inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s long-run target of 2% – making it harder for the central bank to cut rates at its next meeting on March 19. At its last meeting, the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee kept its benchmark federal funds rate unchanged at a range of 4.25-4.50%.

Following the release of the latest inflation data, markets have a stronger conviction that the Fed will again hold rates steady when it meets in March.

It also means more pain for consumers. Higher interest rates set by the Fed play a large role in determining rates for mortgages, credit cards and auto loans. 

If January’s rate of inflation were to continue throughout 2025, consumers would see a painful 6.2% annualized inflation rate.

And although it would be churlish to link the latest jump in inflation to an administration just weeks old, it does put into focus the current slate of Trump economic policies. 

Economists have long warned that imposing tariffs on imports and cutting taxes does little to curb inflation – rather, they may contribute to faster price increases.

Already, China has been hit by a 10% tariff on all products. Trump has also proposed a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports, and he mulled imposing new tariffs on Canada and Mexico – two of the United States’ largest trading partners.

I believe that if these wide-ranging tariffs come into effect, the Federal Reserve will have no choice but to keep rates elevated for the remainder of 2025.

Revving up for higher car costs:  One of the largest drivers of inflation in January was rent increases, which accounted for nearly 30% of all items increase. Rents jumped 4.6% from a year earlier.

If Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports, like lumber, take effect, Americans can expect continued price increases in the homebuilding sector. Supply and demand imbalances remain a key driver for higher prices, so fewer houses being built due to higher materials cost will likely lead to higher rents.

Consumers saw better news on new vehicle prices, which remained flat over the month and showed slight declines from a year ago.

This is even as demand for new cars increased 2.5% over 2024. In January 2025, the number of new vehicles sold topped the same month a year earlier for the fifth month in a row.

But, as with homebuilding, any tariffs on the import of car parts or materials will impact the auto industry. Carmakers may have breathed an immediate breath of relief when Trump delayed new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. But if deals aren’t reached by the March 1 deadline, industry analysts expect immediate impacts on top sellers.

And any higher cost of new cars will have a knock-on effect on used cars, which saw prices jump 2.2% in January – it’s largest increase since May 2023.

Increased prices are no yoke! (groan):  Of course, not all inflationary pressures are in the purview of government.

The transportation sector, which includes insurance and parking fees, increased by 8% over the year. Insurance prices soared almost 12%, on the back of last year’s 20.6% increase in prices, while parking fees increased by almost 5% as a result of more expensive repairs and more dangerous driving behaviors.

Meanwhile, with bird flu continuing to spread, egg prices rose a shocking 15.2% in January, and are 53% more expensive than at this time last year. (Killing millions of chickens just to create enough wings for Super Bowl weekend also contributes to the egg shortage.)

All in all, voters who cited inflation as the main reason they were backing Trump may be feeling a little uneasy – the administration is only a few weeks old, but for one reason or other, Americans are experiencing ever higher prices with little relief in sight.

Religious leaders who became martyrs, saints and Nobel Prize laureates often spoke truth to power

A stained glass window at the Canterbury Cathedral in England depicting the murder of Saint Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury.

Religion Hub by Joanne M. Pierce, College of the Holy Cross

A scholar of medieval Christianity explores the history of Christians who spoke out, unafraid to risk official censure or even death.

In asking Trump to show mercy, Bishop Budde continues a long tradition of Christian leaders ‘speaking truth to power’
(The Conversation) — A scholar of medieval Christianity explores the history of Christians who spoke out, unafraid to risk official censure or even death.

(The Conversation) — Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon on January 21, 2025, in which she appealed to President Donald Trump to have mercy toward groups frightened by his position on immigrants and LGBTQ+ people – especially children – drew reactions from both sides of the aisle.

In a post on his social networking site, (Fake❗)Truth 😟😖😡Social, Trump called her comments “nasty in tone” and remarked that she “brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way.”

“She and her church owe the public an apology!,” he posted. 

Several (crazy❗😠😰) conservatives criticized her sermon, while many progressives saw her as “speaking truth to power.” 💟✝️☦️

As a specialist in medieval Christianity, I was not surprised by the bishop’s words, as I know that Christian history is full of examples of people who have spoken out, unafraid to risk official censure, or even death.

Early voices: Even in the early centuries of Christianity, followers of Jesus Christ’s teachings could be outspoken toward political leaders.

For example, in the first-century Gospels, John the Baptist, a contemporary of Jesus, confronts the ruler of Galilee, Herod Antipas, for marrying his brother’s wife – a practice forbidden in the Hebrew scriptures. For that, John the Baptist was ultimately beheaded.

In a prayer later called the Magnificat, Mary, the mother of Jesus, praises the glory and power of God who casts down the mighty and raises the lowly. In recent interpretations, these words have been understood as a call for those in authority to act more justly.

In the late fourth century – a time when Christianity had been made the official religion of the Roman Empire – a respected civil official named Ambrose became bishop of the imperial city of Milan in northern Italy. He became well known for his preaching and theological treatises.

However, after imperial troops massacred innocent civilians in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, Ambrose reproached Emperor Theodosius and refused to admit him to church for worship until he did public penance for their deaths.

Ambrose’s writings on scripture and heresy, as well as his hymns, had a profound influence on Western Christian theology; since his death, he has been venerated as a saint.

In the early sixth century, the Christian Roman senator and philosopher Boethius served as an official in the Roman court of the Germanic king of Italy, Theodoric. A respected figure for his learning and personal integrity, Boethius was imprisoned on false charges after defending others from accusations by corrupt court officials acting out of greed or ambition.

During his time in prison, he wrote a philosophical volume about the nature of what is true good – “On the Consolation of Philosophy” – that is studied even today. Boethius, who was executed in 524, is venerated as a saint and martyr in parts of Italy.

Thomas Becket and St. Catherine:  One of the most famous examples of a medieval bishop speaking truth to power is that of Thomas Becket, former chancellor – that is, senior minister – of England in the 12th century*. On becoming archbishop of Canterbury, Becket resigned his secular office and opposed the efforts of King Henry II to bring the church under royal control.

After living in exile in France for a time, Becket returned to England and was assassinated by some of Henry’s knights. The king later did public penance for this at Becket’s tomb in Canterbury. Soon after, Becket was canonized a saint.

Another influential saint was the 14th-century Italian mystic and writer Catherine of Siena. Because of the increasing power of the kings of France, the popes had moved their residence and offices from Rome to Avignon, on the French border. They remained there for most of the century, even though this Avignon papacy increased tensions in western Europe.

Many Christian clerics and secular rulers in western Europe believed that the popes needed to return to Rome, to distance papal authority from French influence. Catherine herself even traveled to Avignon and stayed there for months, writing letters urging Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome and restore peace to Italy and the church – a goal the pope finally fulfilled in 1377.

Leaders speak up across denominations:  The Reformation era of the 16th and early 17th centuries led to the splitting of Western Christianity into several different denominations. However, many Christian leaders across denominations continued to raise their voices for justice.

One important and ongoing voice is that of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. Early leaders, like Margaret Fell and George Fox, wrote letters to King Charles II of England in the mid-17th century, defending their beliefs, including pacifism, in the face of persecution.

In the 18th century, based on their belief in the equality of all human beings, Quaker leaders spoke in favor of the abolition of slavery in both the United Kingdom and the United States.

In fact, it was Bayard Rustin, a Black Quaker, who coined the phrase “to speak truth to power” in the mid-20th century. He adhered to the Quaker commitment to nonviolence in social activism and was active for decades in the American Civil Rights Movement. During the Montgomery bus boycott in the mid-1950s, he met and began working with Martin Luther King Jr., who was an ordained Baptist minister.

In Germany, leaders from various Christian denominations have also united to speak truth to power. During the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s, several pastors and theologians joined forces to resist the influence of Nazi doctrine over German Protestant churches.

Their statement, the Barmen Declaration, emphasized that Christians were answerable to God, not the state. 

These leaders – the Confessing Church – continued to resist Nazi attempts to create a German Church.

Desmond Tutu and other leaders:  Christians on other continents, too, continued this vocal tradition. Óscar Romero, the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador, preached radio sermons criticizing the government and army for violence and oppression of the poor in El Salvador during a national civil war. As a result, he was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980. Romero was canonized a saint by Pope Francis in 2018.

In South Africa, the Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu, archbishop of Cape Town, spent much of his active ministry condemning the violence of apartheid in his native country. After the end of the apartheid regime, Tutu also served as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established to investigate acts of violence committed both by government forces and violent activists. Before his death in 2021, Tutu continued to speak out against other international acts of oppression. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

For some (wrong minded right wing zealots❗), Bishop Budde’s words might seem radical, rude, inappropriate or offensive. But she did not speak in isolation; she is surrounded by a cloud of witnesses in the Christian tradition of speaking truth to power.

*Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury- Thomas Becket was born around 1118 in Cheapside, London and died on December 29, 1170 in Canterbury, Kent. He was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder, age 52. 

Donald Trump brags about immigrant deportations regardless of causing humanitarian harm

Trump promises to deport all undocumented immigrants, resurrecting a 1950s strategy − but it didn’t work then and is less likely to do so now- reported in The Conversation by Katrina Burgess Professor of Political Economy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University*. 

Illegal immigrants being escorted back across the border to Mexico. (Photo by Loomis Dean/Lif Picture 

In September 2023, Donald Trump made a sweeping promise that shocked many − even though, as recent memory serves, he made a nearly identical pledge the last time he ran for president.

“Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” Trump said.

Forcibly rounding up and deporting the country’s approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants, including many who have lived here for decades and have children who are U.S. citizens, might sound dystopian. But a version of this plan already happened in the 1950s, when the Eisenhower administration launched the short-lived “Operation Wetback,” which forcibly deported about 100,000 people to Mexico.

Illegal immigrants

The Largest Mass Deportation in American History
As many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower-era campaign called 'Operation Wetback.'

While campaigning in Iowa last September, the former guy Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country.

Trump was referring to Operation Wetback, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954, to end undocumented immigration by deporting hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. “Wetback” was a widely used ethnic slur for Mexicans who illegally crossed the Rio Grande, the river dividing Mexico and the U.S.

Trump says that he can replicate Operation Wetback on a much grander scale by setting up temporary immigration detention centers and relying on local, state and federal authorities, including National Guard troops, to remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S.

As a migration scholar, I find Trump’s proposal to be both disturbing and misleading. Besides playing to unfounded and dehumanizing fears of an immigrant invasion, it misrepresents the context and impact of Eisenhower’s policy while ignoring the vastly changed landscape of U.S. immigration today.

Katrina Burgess, a scholar of political economy, migration and diaspora at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, brings readers back to a dark few months in American history, from May 1954 through January 1955. She explains why Trump’s potential plan is likely to be even less successful than the failed Operation Wetback once was.

"As a migration scholar, I find Trump’s proposal to be both disturbing and misleading."

“If he were to win the presidency again, Trump would have the legal authority to deport undocumented immigrants, but the logistical, political and legal obstacles to doing so quickly and massively are even greater today than they were in the 1950s,” Burgess writes.

While campaigning in Iowa last September, former guy Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country.

Trump was referring to Operation Wetback, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954, to end undocumented immigration by deporting hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. “Wetback” was a widely used ethnic slur for Mexicans who illegally crossed the Rio Grande, the river dividing Mexico and the U.S.

Trump says that he can replicate Operation Wetback on a much grander scale by setting up temporary immigration detention centers and relying on local, state and federal authorities, including National Guard troops, to remove the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the U.S.

As a migration scholar, I find Trump’s proposal to be both disturbing and misleading. Besides playing to unfounded and dehumanizing fears of an immigrant invasion, it misrepresents the context and impact of Eisenhower’s policy while ignoring the vastly changed landscape of U.S. immigration today.

Operation Wetback: In May 1954, U.S. Attorney General Harold Brownell appointed Joseph Swing, a retired general, to lead the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, in a “special program to apprehend and deport aliens illegally in this country from areas along the southern border.” Until 2003, the INS was responsible for immigration and border control, now handled by multiple federal agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Swing ramped up a decade-long practice of using special task forces composed of INS agents who could be rapidly deployed where needed in order to locate and deport undocumented workers. The operation began in California and then spread to Arizona and Texas. INS agents set up roadblocks and raided fields, factories, neighborhoods and saloons where immigrants were working or socializing. The INS also built a vast wire-fenced security camp, according to the Los Angeles Times, in order to detain apprehended immigrants in Los Angeles before sending them to the border.

Captured immigrants were put on hot, overcrowded buses or rickety boats and sent to designated border crossings in Arizona and Texas, where they were forced to cross back into Mexico. Some found themselves stranded in the Mexican desert just over the border. In one incident, 88 migrants died of sunstroke before the Red Cross arrived with water and medical attention. Others were delivered to Mexican authorities, who loaded them onto trains headed deeper into Mexico.

By mid-August, INS agents had deported more than 100,000 immigrants across the U.S. Southwest. Fearing apprehension, thousands more reportedly fled back to Mexico on their own. Most of these immigrants were young Mexican men, but the INS also targeted families, removing nearly 9,000 family members, including children, from the Rio Grande Valley in August. There is also evidence of U.S. citizens getting caught up in the INS sweeps.

Operation Wetback wound down its operations a few months later, and Swing declared in January 1955 that “the day of the wetback is over.” The INS disbanded its special mobile task forces, and the deportation of undocumented immigrants plummeted over the next decade.

Not just about deportation: Operation Wetback made the headlines and disrupted countless lives, but it was more show than substance when it came to deportation.

The government’s claim to have deported more than 1 million Mexicans during the summer of 1954 does not stand up to scrutiny. The 1.1 million figure was for the entire fiscal year, which ended in June 1954, and a sizable share of these apprehensions were repeat arrests, sometimes in a single day. Moreover, over 97% of these deportations occurred without a formal order of removal. Instead, migrants agreed, or were coerced, to leave the country after being apprehended.

Despite Trump-like rhetoric decrying a “wetback invasion” across the U.S.-Mexico border, Operation Wetback’s main objective was not to remove Mexican immigrants but rather to frighten U.S. farmers, especially in Texas, into hiring them legally.

This tactic largely worked. A crucial but often overlooked detail about Operation Wetback is that it happened at the same time as the Bracero Program, a massive guest-worker program between the U.S. and Mexico. Between 1942 and 1964, U.S. employers issued over 4.6 million short-term contracts to more than 400,000 Mexican farm workers. Nearly three-quarters of these contracts were issued between 1955 and 1964 – after the INS carried out Operation Wetback.

Operation Wetback is unlikely to have led to a dramatic decline in undocumented immigration had Mexican workers not had a legal option for entering the United States. As one immigrant caught up in Operation Wetback commented, “I will come back – legally, if possible. If not, I’ll just walk across again.”

The INS explicitly recognized the connection between the Bracero Program and the decline in undocumented immigration in a 1958 report, stating that “should … a restriction be placed on the number of braceros allowed to enter the United States, we can look forward to a large increase in the number of illegal alien entrants into the United States.”

It is no coincidence that the lull in migrants illegally crossing the U.S-Mexico border after Operation Wetback did not last once the Bracero Program ended in 1964. Mexicans still had strong incentives to migrate, but now they had to do so without visas or work contracts, contributing to a steady increase in border arrests after 1965, that surpassed 1 million in 1976, and reached nearly 2 million in 2000.



Real lessons

If he were to win the presidency again, Trump would have the legal authority to deport undocumented immigrants, but the logistical, political and legal obstacles to doing so quickly and massively are even greater today than they were in the 1950s.

First, most undocumented immigrants now live in cities, where immigrant sweeps are more difficult to carry out. The INS learned this lesson when Operation Wetback shifted from the largely rural Southwest to urban areas in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest in September 1954. Despite transferring hundreds of agents to these locations and using similar tactics, INS agents produced far fewer apprehensions as they struggled to find and detain immigrants.

Second, the U.S. undocumented population is much more dispersed and diverse than in the 1950s. Today, Mexicans are no longer in the majority, and nearly half of undocumented immigrants live outside the six major hubs for immigrants – California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois.

Third, most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. did not sneak across the border. An estimated 42% entered the country legally but overstayed a visa illegally. Another 17% requested and received a short-term legal status that protects them from immediate deportation.

Finally, mass deportations are likely to spark a more broad-based resistance today than happened in the 1950s. Once staunchly opposed to undocumented immigration, most labor unions and Mexican-American organizations are now in the pro-immigrant camp. Likewise, the Mexican government, which helped with Operation Wetback, is unlikely to allow massive numbers of non-Mexicans to be deported to its territory without the proper documentation.

Trump has not supported a way to provide undocumented immigrants with a legal alternative, which means that migrants will keep finding ways to cross illegally.

*We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Trump is being indicted with laws created by Congress to fight Ku Klux Klan terrorism

An echo essay by John Patrick Kelly Professor of Literature and Director of Irish and Irish American Studies, College of Charleston, published in The Conversation.

Of the 80 plus federal and state charges that former guy Donald Trump faces as he campaigns for the White House again, one of the least well known harks back to the darks days of a racially divided America, after the end of the Civil War.

Known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts*, they are officially called the Enforcement Acts because they empowered the federal government to enforce the laws that freed enslaved people and guaranteed equal protection and the right to vote.

As a historian who studies democracy and the American South, Joseph Patrick Kelly of the College of Charleston believes the 1870s have something to teach us about the fourth count in the January. 6 case against Trump.

And this news will impact on Trump.

“In the 20th century,” Kelly explains, “the Supreme Court has ruled that all sorts of election infringements violate the Enforcement Acts, including stuffing ballot boxes and bribing voters. A suspect doesn’t have to commit violence against Black voters to violate the law.”

A brief history of the Ku Klux Klan Acts: 1870s laws to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, now being used against Trump by Joseph Patrick Kelly, College of Charleston

One of the charges against Donald Trump dates back to the 1870s, and was designed to give the federal government the power to ensure states held free and fair elections.

In the indictment against former President Donald Trump and his role in the January 6 violent attack against the U.S. Capitol, special prosecutor Jack Smith charged the former president with violating four different federal laws – and Trump pleaded not guilty to each one of them on Aug. 3, 2023.

Three of the charges in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump are fairly easy to understand. They require a jury to determine whether Trump tried to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 election and if he knowingly conspired to obstruct the certification of results on January 6, 2021, all in an attempt to remain in the White House.

But the fourth charge against Trump – of conspiring against the rights of the voters to cast ballots and have them fairly and honestly counted – is more complicated, and it comes from a dark time in U.S. history.

As a historian who studies and writes about democracy and the American South, I believe the 1870s have something to teach us about the fourth count in the Jan. 6 case against Trump.

Ku Klux Klan Acts:
The indictment asserts that Trump knowingly conspired “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States – that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”

That quote comes from a series of laws enacted in the 1870s called the Ku Klux Klan Acts. They are officially known as the Enforcement Acts because they empowered the federal government to enforce the Civil War amendments – the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments that freed enslaved people and guaranteed equal protection of the laws and the right to vote.

As the Brennan Center for Justice points out, in the 20th century the Supreme Court has ruled that all sorts of election infringements violate the Enforcement Acts, including stuffing ballot boxes and bribing voters. A suspect doesn’t have to commit violence against Black voters to violate the law.

Retreat from democracy: When the Ku Klux Klan tried to steal the 1872, presidential election by killing and intimidating newly enfranchised Black men, federal troops swooped into South Carolina and arrested hundreds of Klansmen. The Department of Justice secured convictions in 140 cases by using the law that is being used to prosecute Trump.

Congress had to expand the attorney general’s staff into an entire department of government to handle the excessive case load.

The Klan prosecutions worked.

The 1872 election was relatively free and fair. In South Carolina, where the Black population outnumbered the white population, President Ulysses Grant, who had commanded the Union Army in the Civil War and led it to victory over the Confederacy, won with 75% of the vote.

Congress had to expand the attorney general’s staff into an entire department of government to handle the excessive case load.

The Klan prosecutions worked.

The 1872 election was relatively free and fair. In South Carolina, where the Black population outnumbered the white population, President Ulysses Grant, who had commanded the Union Army in the Civil War and led it to victory over the Confederacy, won with 75% of the vote.

After Grant was reelected, many champions of Black rights lapsed into what historians often characterize as a moral fatigue. 

According to historian Eric Foner’s “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution,” a “resurgence of overt racism” in the North triggered a “retreat from Reconstruction.”

The turning point was at Colfax, Louisiana.

Just before Easter in 1873, federal soldiers steamed up Louisiana’s Red River to investigate reports of yet another wave of white terrorism against Black citizens.

As later described by Col. T.W. DeKlyne, as the soldiers approached the town of Colfax, they saw neglected neglected crops and abandoned farmhouses. They followed a trail of corpses to the charred, smoking remains of the courthouse, whose grounds were strewn with more dead bloating in the sun. Some were burnt. Others had been shot, execution style, in the back of the head.

In his history of the Colfax massacre, journalist Charles Lane estimated that between 62 and 81 Black men were killed, most after they surrendered to the white militia.

Despite the bloodshed, Louisiana officials did nothing to hold the murderers accountable.

But federal attorneys indicted 98 men. Nine stood trial, including one William Cruikshank, who Lane described as the “burly, self-confident” plantation owner who had supervised the executions.

Cruikshank was convicted not of murder, but of the federal crime of conspiring to violate the civil and voting rights of Americans – the same crime that Trump is charged with.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, where justices heard all sorts of arguments on the authorities of state and federal governments to enforce voting rights laws. But the real issue was whether the federal government, 11 years after the end of the Civil War, still had the will to protect the civil rights of Black people.

The Supreme Court set William Cruikshank free, and white supremacists established racist regimes in every Southern state for nearly 100 years thereafter.

According to Nicholas Lemann, professor emeritus at Columbia University, the Civil War did not end in 1865 at Appomattox Court House – the Virginia village where Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered his forces to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

The last battle, he contends, was fought at Colfax, and the South won. The South staged unfair elections for the nearly the next 100 years. Not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, did the federal government signal it would force states to hold free and fair elections.

Civil War amendments today

The latest retreat by the Supreme Court from defending Black civil rights might have begun in 2013, in its Shelby County v. Holder ruling, in which the justices abolished a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that ensured federal oversight of voting rules in areas with a history of discrimination. The 5-4 majority held that states could be trusted to guarantee citizens’ voting rights.

Writing in dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg compared enforcing the Civil War amendments to “battling the Hydra,” the multiheaded monster that sprouted new heads after one was defeated.

In North Carolina, for instance, the Republican lawmakers tried to put what is known as the “independent state legislature theory” into practice. That theory holds that state legislatures are the supreme authority in federal elections.

But in the Moore v. Harper case, Chief Justice John Roberts disagreed and wrote in the 6-3 majority opinion on June 27, 2023, that the “federal court must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review” over elections.

Given this long history of advance and retreat, it’s not surprising, then, that special counsel Jack Smith, in his use of a law to prosecute Trump that dates back to the Reconstruction Era’s laws protecting the Black vote, has reasserted the Department of Justice’s power to enforce the Civil War amendments.

*The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, defined citizenship and guaranteed due process and equal protection of the law to all, including four million formerly enslaved Black men and women. Vigilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan, however, freely threatened African Americans and their White allies in the South and undermined the Republican Party’s plan for Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan Act made it a federal crime to deny any group or individual “any of the rights, privileges, or immunities, or protection, named in the Constitution.”

Climate change is destroying Florida's Alligator Reef and marine scientists are desperately trying to save the corals

An echo essay and report published in The Conversation* by Michael Childress, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences & Environmental Conservation, Clemson University,

Armed with scrub brushes, young scuba divers took to the waters of Florida’s Alligator Reef in late July to try to help corals struggling to survive 2023’s, extraordinary marine heat wave. 

Marine scientist Ken Nedimyer collects still-healthy elkhorn coral fragments for moving. The tree structure keeps the corals free of harmful algae. Reef Renewal USA

Carefully, they scraped away harmful algae and predators impinging on staghorn fragments, under the supervision and training of interns from Islamorada Conservation and Restoration Education, or I.CARE.

Normally, I.CARE’s volunteer divers would be transplanting corals to waters off the Florida Keys this time of year, as part of a national effort to restore the Florida Reef. 

But, this year, everything is going in reverse.

As water temperatures spiked in the Florida Keys, scientists from universities, coral reef restoration groups and government agencies launched a heroic effort to save the corals. Divers have been in the water every day, collecting thousands of corals from ocean nurseries along the Florida Keys reef tract and moving them to cooler water and into giant tanks on land.

Marine scientist Ken Nedimyer and his team at Reef Renewal USA began moving an entire coral tree nursery from shallow waters off Tavernier to an area 60 feet deep and 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 Celsius) cooler. Even there, temperatures were running about 85 to 86 F (30 C).

Ian Enochs, a research ecologist and lead of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab Coral Program, found that every coral in the Cheeca Rocks area had bleached by Aug. 1, 2023. NOAA AOML ❗

Their efforts are part of an emergency response on a scale never before seen in Florida.

The Florida Reef – a nearly 350-mile arc along the Florida Keys that is crucial to fish habitat, coastal storm protection and the local economy – began experiencing record-hot ocean temperatures in June 2023, weeks earlier than expected. The continuing heat has triggered widespread coral bleaching.

While corals can recover from mass bleaching, events like this, long periods of high heat can leave them weak and vulnerable to disease that can ultimately kill them.

That’s what scientists and volunteers have been scrambling to avoid.

The heartbeat of the reef:  The Florida Reef has struggled for years under the pressure of overfishing, disease, storms and global warming that have decimated its live corals.

A massive coral restoration effort – the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mission: Iconic Reef – has been underway since 2019 to restore the reef with transplanted corals, particularly those most resilient to the rising temperatures. 

Nevertheless, even the hardiest coral transplants are now at risk.

Reef-building corals are the foundation species of shallow tropical waters due to their unique symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae in their tissues.

During the day, these algae photosynthesize, producing both food and oxygen for the coral animal. At night, coral polyps feed on plankton, providing nutrients for their algae. The result of this symbiotic relationship is the coral’s ability to build a calcium carbonate skeleton and reefs that support nearly 25% of all marine life.

Unfortunately, corals are very temperature sensitive, and the extreme ocean heat off South Florida, with some reef areas reaching temperatures in the 90s, has put them under extraordinary stress.

When corals get too hot, they expel their symbiotic algae. The corals appear white – bleached – because their carbonate skeleton shows through their clear tissue that lack any colorful algal cells.

Corals can recover new algal symbionts if water conditions return to normal within a few weeks. However, the increase in global temperatures due to the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is causing longer and more frequent periods of coral bleaching worldwide, leading to concerns for the future of coral reefs.

A MASH unit for corals

This year (2023), the Florida Keys reached an alert level 2, indicating extreme risk of bleaching, about six weeks earlier than normal.

In fact, the early warnings and forecasts from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch Network gave scientists time to begin preparing labs and equipment, track the locations and intensity of the growing marine heat and, importantly, recruit volunteers.

At the Keys Marine Laboratory, scientists and trained volunteers have dropped off thousands of coral fragments collected from heat-threatened offshore nurseries. Director Cindy Lewis described the lab’s giant tanks as looking like “a MASH unit for corals.”

Volunteers there and at other labs across Florida will hand-feed the tiny creatures to keep them alive until the Florida waters cool again and they can be returned to the ocean and eventually transplanted onto the reef.

Protecting corals still in the ocean

I.CARE launched another type of emergency response.

I.CARE co-founder Kylie Smith, a coral reef ecologist and a former student of mine in marine sciences, discovered a few years ago that coral transplants with large amounts of fleshy algae around them were more likely to bleach during times of elevated temperature. Removing that algae may give corals a better chance of survival.

Smith’s group typically works with local dive operators to train recreational divers to assist in transplanting and maintaining coral fragments in an effort to restore the reefs of Islamorada. 

In summer 2023, I.CARE has been training volunteers, like the young divers from Diving with a Purpose, to remove algae and coral predators, such as coral-eating snails and fireworms, to help boost the corals’ chances of survival.

Monitoring for corals at risk: To help spot corals in trouble, volunteer divers are also being trained as reef observers through Mote Marine Lab’s BleachWatch program.

Scuba divers have long been attracted to the reefs of the Florida Keys for their beauty and accessibility. The lab is training them to recognize bleached, diseased and dead corals of different species and then use an online portal to submit bleach reports across the entire Florida Reef.

The more eyes on the reef, the more accurate the maps showing the areas of greatest bleaching concern.

Rebuilding the reef: While the marine heat wave in the Keys will inevitably kill some corals, many more will survive.

Through careful analysis of the species, genotypes and reef locations experiencing bleaching, scientists and practitioners are learn valuable information as they work to protect and rebuild a more resilient coral reef for the future.

That is what gives hope to Smith, Lewis, Nedimyer and hundreds of others who believe this coral reef is worth saving. Volunteers are crucial to the effort, whether they’re helping with coral reef maintenance, reporting bleaching or raising the awareness of what is at stake if humanity fails to stop warming the planet.

*Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Donald Trump illegally hid secret documents and created a threat to national security

 Gary Ross

Donald Trump appeared in a Miami, Florida, federal court, where he pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges.  Trump is charged with mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.

An essay echo published in The Conversation by Gary Ross, Associate Provessor with Texas A&M:

Donald Trump’s arraignment in federal court was obviously a historic moment for this country. 

Twice impeached and twice indicted, he is the only former American president federally charged with crimes.

How the exposure of highly classified documents could harm US security – and why there are laws against storing them insecurely.

As you’ve no doubt learned by now, he is accused of taking, and then storing in various unsecure locations in Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida, documents belonging to the National Archives. The Justice Department says Trump repeatedly refused to hand them over when federal archivists requested he do so.

Whether he was just careless, wanted the documents as trophies or had more nefarious motives is unclear. Whatever his motivations, though, storing those documents in the way the government alleges he did is serious.

Gary Ross, a scholar of U.S. intelligence at Texas A&M University, helps us understand why.

“Historically, foreign spies have attempted to enter highly secure U.S. government buildings to obtain classified information,” he writes. “If (they) knew Trump stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, they may have attempted to enter the property. 

In fact, in 2019, a Chinese business consultant entered the resort and initially got past Secret Service agents.”

That woman, who was carrying multiple electronic devices, ultimately was stopped in the main reception area, Ross notes.

I wonder how many other business consultants got through in the many months the documents were still on the property. Don’t you?😁

Trump was hiding secret documents in boxes stored in his bathroom and other places at his Mar-A-Lago home.

When Donald Trump pled not guilty on June 13, 2023, to federal criminal charges related to his alleged illegal retention of classified documents, it was his first opportunity to formally answer charges that he violated the Espionage Act.

The Justice Department alleges that, after his presidency, Trump held, in an unsecure location, documents about some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, including information about U.S. nuclear programs as well as U.S. and allies’ defense and weapons capabilities and potential vulnerabilities to military attack and that he repeatedly thwarted efforts by the National Archives to retrieve them.

The Conversation asked Gary Ross, a scholar of Intelligence studies, who has investigated cases involving the mishandling and unauthorized disclosure of classified information for multiple U.S. government agencies, to define some of the categories of risk detailed in the indictment and explain how the U.S. and allies may have been harmed.

What’s the risk to US national security?

U.S. national security includes the country’s ability to defend itself, collect and analyze sensitive information about other nations’ capabilities and intentions, and maintain relationships with allies. National security can be compromised in a variety of ways.

Americans are familiar with espionage, or spying. It’s when a government recruits an official or resident of another country – just as the Soviet Union recruited Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI special agent, in 1979 - to provide classified U.S. intelligence.

But the Espionage Act is much broader than traditional spying and includes the unauthorized possession, storage or disclosure of classified information.

According to the federal indictment, Trump stored boxes containing various levels of classified material in different parts of The Mar-a-Lago Club, his Palm Beach, Florida, resort. Boxes were kept on a ballroom stage, in his bedroom and in a bathroom and shower between Jan. 20, 2020, when he left the White House, and Aug. 8, 2021, when the FBI recovered 102 classified documents.

Trump had returned some classified material on Jan. 17, 2021, and June 3, 2021.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction documented two instances in which allied intelligence agencies refused to share sensitive information with the U.S. due to concerns that the U.S. would not protect the information.
What are the risks to soldiers and citizens?

In addition to information about U.S. nuclear programs, the U.S. and allies’ defense, and weapons capabilities and potential military vulnerabilities, the indictment alleges Trump also unlawfully retained classified information about U.S. military retaliation plans in response to a foreign attack.

In enemy hands, this intelligence, if still valid, could significantly increase their ability to develop effective countermeasures or to alter their military tactics. At best, this could prolong a conflict, and, at worst, could allow an adversary to defeat U.S. forces, which could jeopardize citizens’ lives.

In each scenario, the lives of U.S. service members could be placed at increased risk.

Additionally, an enemy able to identify a U.S. vulnerability, particularly a self-identified vulnerability, can also try to exploit that weakness to their advantage, just as the United States did during World War II.

Prior to the 1942 Battle of Midway, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted communications detailing Japan’s military strategy for the upcoming battle.

U.S. forces took advantage of the information, won the decisive conflict and turned the tide of the war.

Ironically, the U.S. was unsuccessful in safeguarding the fact that it had intercepted and decrypted Japanese communications. A Naval officer allowed a Chicago Tribune journalist unauthorized access ❗to classified U.S. communications.

Subsequently the journalist wrote an article revealing the U.S. penetration.

This was one of the few instances in which the U.S. government considered, but ultimately rejected, prosecuting a media outlet for disclosing national defense information.

Treatment of immigrants is deeply intertwined with religious freedom "“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free."

This echo essay is published in The Conversation and in the San Antonio Texas Report by Laura E. Alexander, and associate professor of religious studies and Goldstein Family Community Chair in Human Rights at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free," Galatians.

Many religious traditions preach the need to care for strangers. 

But what happens when caring for the stranger comes into conflict with government policy?

After Title 42 restrictions at the U.S. border ended on May 11, 2023, debates about immigration have heated up again — focused mostly on reform, border security or refugees’ needs.

But the treatment of immigrants is deeply intertwined with religious freedom as well. As a scholar of religious ethics who studies immigration, I am interested in recent cases that highlight growing tensions between immigration policies and religious groups’ commitments to pastoral and humanitarian care.
Ministry at the border

One high-profile example centers on Rev. Kaji Douša, senior pastor at Park Avenue Christian Church in New York City, who traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, in 2018 to provide pastoral care to asylum seekers.

Her work was flagged by Customs and Border Protection after a Honduran woman allegedly said that Douša told migrants that marrying each other would make it easier to receive legal papers in the U.S. As Douša later testified, she did perform religious ceremonies, but only for couples who were already in common-law marriages and without claiming to provide any legal status.

Douša’s name and photo were added to a Department of Homeland Security watch list that included lawyers, journalists and activists, and she was detained and questioned by CBP officers upon her return to the U.S. A CBP official also sent an email to Mexican authorities asking them to ban Douša from entering Mexico because she lacked proper documentation – which the official later acknowledged had no basis in fact.

Douša filed a lawsuit accusing DHS of unjust surveillance and retaliation, and in March 2023, a federal judge ruled in her favor. Judge Todd Robinson agreed that DHS had violated Douša’s right to freedom of religious expression by instructing Mexican authorities to detain her.

Both Douša and the United Church of Christ, which ordained her, argued that her actions were based in her religious commitments. Douša previously stated, “To reject a migrant is to cast away God’s angels, which I am unwilling to do.”

Shifts in the legal landscape:  This is not the first time religious leaders or groups providing pastoral and humanitarian care to migrants have come under scrutiny.

One famous example is the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, an informal network of up to 500 churches whose members provided safe haven to undocumented asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America.

Several members of the movement were convicted of conspiring to smuggle immigrants into the U.S. They appealed, arguing that their work was inspired by their religious convictions and that the government was violating their First Amendment rights. Yet their claims were largely unsuccessful.

Over the past few decades, however, religious freedom claims have often found more favor in U.S. courts.

In part, this is because of the 1993, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which has made it easier for people and institutions to claim religiously based exemptions from generally applicable laws. One of the best-known examples is the 2014 Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the court, citing the owners’ religious convictions, exempted the national chain of crafts stores from providing employee health insurance that included contraception coverage.
Help on the ground

This shift has opened new lines of defense for religious actors, including humanitarian groups.

No More Deaths is a nonprofit associated with a Unitarian Universalist church in Tucson, Arizona. Members leave supplies along desert routes traveled by migrants, provide first aid and occasionally offer services such as temporary shelter to migrants who are suffering from exposure.

In 2018, volunteers were charged with littering, driving on protected lands and, in one case, harboring undocumented immigrants.

Four volunteers were initially convicted, but their charges were dismissed after they argued that they were compelled by religious convictions and that the government had violated their freedom of religious expression. The appeals court judge cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as the Hobby Lobby case in holding that the volunteers were protected under U.S. law.

A more recent dustup between a religious humanitarian organization and government officials occurred in December 2022. A group of Republicans in Congress sent a letter to Catholic Charities, a humanitarian nonprofit affiliated with the church that provides food, shelter and bathing facilities on both sides of the border.

In U.S. border cities, the organization also provides transportation from shelters to bus stops and money exchanges. The representatives’ letter cited this work as a reason to suspect Catholic Charities of encouraging illegal border crossings and required staff to preserve records of their work.

The organization argued that the charges were “both fallacious and factually inaccurate.” Caring for people in need, “including vulnerable people on the move,” leaders wrote, “is a part of the fabric of the global Catholic Church and is mandated by the gospel.”

Yet another sticking point between religious groups and immigration law has emerged in Florida in recent weeks. A bill recently signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis was modified after religious groups protested against its proposed criminal penalties for knowingly transporting or concealing an undocumented immigrant. Religious leaders argued that this would violate their religious freedom by preventing them from providing rides to religious services or from finding aid for people in need.
National vs. universal mandates

It is not surprising that these conflicts keep happening, considering the U.S. government’s and religious organizations’ different motivations around migration.

One main driver for politicians is simply that many voters are nervous about newcomers, especially if they have different cultural, religious or racial backgrounds. The nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute has found that while 55% of Americans think immigrants strengthen American society, 40% believe a growing number of newcomers “threatens traditional American customs and values.” In the past few years, multiple Republican politicians have even embraced some version of the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Once limited to extremist and antisemitic groups, replacement theory alleges that immigrants are either replacing native-born American citizens or are intentionally being used to facilitate electoral and social change.

Political scientist Seyla Benhabib has argued that another reason some leaders focus on border policies is that national sovereignty has been weakened in a globalizing world. Multinational corporations, for example, are sometimes influential enough to shape government policies, such as lobbying for weaker labor laws and environmental protections.

But whereas sovereignty and citizens are priorities for governments, many religious traditions teach adherents to care for people regardless of what community they belong to. Religious thinkers do argue over whether their traditions encourage greater attention to people in their own communities. Still, when it comes to people’s most basic survival needs, most emphasize that care should know no borders.

For the foreseeable future, these priorities will continue to clash — and some religious people may push back by claiming a First Amendment right to freedom of religious expression.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.