14 Comments

This column didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. When all the Repug senators walk out instead of applauding the confirmation of a highly qualified Black woman to the Supreme Court - that just showed me how very difficult it will be to elect a Democratic Congress this fall. There are plenty more just like them to KEEP that majority. NO we haven’t made that much progress. I read your details and descriptions but I’m still highly EMBARRASSED by these clearly racist senators trying to run this country. And yeah, I’m frightened bu our lack of progress. And now when they name-call, they add in pedophile. For which the brand is called out to - that person should be sued for libel and assault. I’m sick of this disgusting party of thugs.

Expand full comment

-- A reality check from the heart. Well said.

It's sad but true. What's truly amazing after seven years of Trump and his Orcs occupying everyone's brains with over-the-top malignant narcissism, hate-mongering, and a torrent of nonstop lies is that more Americans don't seem sick and embarrassed and frightened enough to come out in droves this fall and finally rid our body politic of these blood-sucking ticks. We can only hope for the best but expect the worst.

November 8th. "Be there. Will be wild."

Expand full comment

As we've studied mental health, it's obvious that "you are only as sick as your secrets". And, the fact that America has a huge racial component to its illness has gone viral. The cat's out of the bag, the toothpaste is out of the tube, etc....

We are not going back to the 50's, no matter how much some disgusting people in office think they can force us to return. That phony buttoned up concept of "polite society" is GONE. We talk about EVERYTHING.

Who knew being rude, crude and socially unacceptable could be so valuable to the advancement of mankind? So, I am all for Republicans showing us who they are. Let the fools walk out while history is being made. America is working on its mental health without them or their delusions.

Expand full comment

My quibble would be, rude & crude turned out fine with a lot of our fellow citizens. Too many. You may say "socially unacceptable," but there's a heck of a cheering section, and they are the ones who will be selected to vote come Nov. The only hope is women. Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason) had a vast oevre from 1931 into the 60's, unconsciously giving a window onto, especially, social ideas about women. Glory be, women are not going back to the 50's. (abortion subject set aside, for the moment)

Expand full comment

It's the wisdom of ages: When someone tells you who they are by their own words and actions, believe them.

Expand full comment

I wish I shared your optimism.

Expand full comment

Yes, it's hard to see the rational majority prevailing in the face of the conscienceless manipulation of the election system now in force. John Dean's book was titled "Conservatives Without Conscience." There's tragedy worthy of Shakespeare in the mass failure of what were supposed to be the best American ideals, character and values. Honesty. Fairness. Square dealing. Trustworthiness. In public service, to serve the public. The Senators who walked out will live out their lives under a black cloud of shame, to themselves and shame on America. But they don't care. Their psychology is like bitter spouses in a divorce, who revel in being unreasonable and vengeful. The "Gotcha!" is the only standard of virtue. Terrible, in divorce court. Worldwide mass hazard when that is the ruling spirit of a nation.

Expand full comment

Word of the Day (Decade? Generation?):

Kakistocracy - government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.

Expand full comment

You mean Murkowski and Tim Scott and Susan Collins did not applaud?

Expand full comment

Unfortunately I do not share your optimism. Even if the public is waking up gerrymandering will make progress against racism a big yawn.

Expand full comment

As usual, Mr. Hartman's research is impeccable, though his choice of words may be less than effective overall. Historically, the US 1760-1960 was settled by immigrants from the European area, a predominantly caucasian ethnicity cohort. According to all social and economic data they did a pretty decent job, though they brought along, as well, some of the European inclinations.

And the US population grew from approximately 700,000 to to 203 million. Then the immigration laws were changed to reflect someone's desire to balance the ethnic composition of the US' future population and its population growth sky-rocketed to over 334 million Anno 2022 https://www.thoughtco.com/us-population-through-history-1435268, with projected foreign born population growth of 58% by 2016 https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.pdf. This may cause a lot of people anxiety, and it may, in historical balance be an unreasonably large and explosive change of the social fabric of America.

It is understandable to understand how people are reacting to this change, and whether extreme factions react remarkably, in general most people may simply feel it's too much, and they don't call each other 'racists' because they want to change immigration laws back to 1960.

Mr. Hartman's citation:

The high-visibility hyper-virulent militia-inspiring racism that’s erupting across white America today is ancient, but its current most visible incarnation of white-people-freak-out has its modern roots in the Hart-Cellar Act’s change to our immigration laws in 1965.

Prior to that, our immigration laws explicitly said that immigration must maintain the racial balance that the US had in 1921, which kept white people in the driver’s seat pretty much everywhere in the country.

Hart-Cellar ended that racial barrier to immigration, so we went from white Europeans/Canadians being 84 percent of all immigrants in 1960 to white European/Canadian immigrants being only 13.2 percent of all immigrants by 2017.

The result is that now, only 57 years later, fewer than half of all our children are white. Just search “white births” and the top hits are generally Nazi, white supremacist, or “conservative” sites complaining about this very reality.

Expand full comment

White Europeans "reacted remarkably" persecuting and committing genocide against Native Americans and African Americans -- "a pretty decent job." The quicker fcking racists and white nationalists are "replaced" by decent human beings the better. Or is that "choice of words ... less than effective"?

Expand full comment

There is something left out in this paragraph: "Of the 115 people who’ve served on the Supreme Court since 1789, for example, only three were not white men: Marshall, Thomas and Sotomayor. As America’s most conservative (in the literal meaning of the word) government institution, it has been the slowest to change. " So does that mean that O'Connor and Ginsberg were white men?

Expand full comment

Check out this paragraph, surely it has something missing. "Of the 115 people who’ve served on the Supreme Court since 1789, for example, only three were not white men: Marshall, Thomas and Sotomayor. As America’s most conservative (in the literal meaning of the word) government institution, it has been the slowest to change." Are Ginsberg and O'Coner white men? N J Lewis

Expand full comment