Left Voice on Trump's Tulsa Rally

I made some changes to This Blog's Beat, i.e., the list of blogs in the right sidebar I promise to cover fairly regularly. I deleted Counterpunch and the Freedom Socialist Party--the former because apart from Louis Proyect's articles I almost never read it, and the latter because it's boring and useless.

Meanwhile, I've added Left Voice (h/t Louis Proyect) which proves to be an interesting rag full of great discussion topics. I previously described it as "published by a collective of New York City college professors virtue-signalling their revolutionary socialism." That was slightly unfair: they're not all professors, some of them are adjuncts, others teachers, then there are grad students, and at least one taxi driver who's probably fallen off the academic ladder somewhere. But they're all educated, intelligent people who have something to say.

The article for today is entitled The Great American Comeback? Trump Resumes His Re-Election Campaign With Bizarre Speech in Tulsa. The author is Ezra Brain, "a NYC based theatre artist and teacher."

Mr. Brain echoes the MSM that Trump is likely to lose in November. The polls are against him, and now even the betting markets are against him. I will point out that both MSM and the polls were wrong in 2016--but being wrong once doesn't mean they're always wrong. I find Biden to be a singularly unfeasible candidate--an incompetent, senile reincarnation of Hillary Clinton. MSM notwithstanding, I can't believe he'll win the election. So I'm still putting my money on Trump.

Mr. Brain mentions Covid:

The rally was controversial from its announcement. To begin with, experts almost universally agree that holding a rally with thousands of people during the current pandemic poses significant risk to all participants.

I agree with him that holding the rally was a risky proposition. I was shocked and disappointed that most attendees were not wearing masks--it makes them look stupid. I'll also note (as Mr. Brain does not) that the arena was only half full, and that the overflow crowd was mostly nonexistent. There are three theories for why:

1. People were afraid of the virus and therefore stayed away. I know I would not have attended.
2. AOC has a theory that a TikTok mob post went viral and inspired folks to reserve tickets without any intention of attending the rally.
3. Scott Adams goes along with the TikTok theory, but suggests it was a Chinese plot--TikTok is a Chinese company.

I dunno--I think virus fear is the most likely culprit. But some version of TikTok foul play may also be possible.

Mr. Brain is obsessed with "dog whistles." These are words and phrases that are presumably used to communicate "racism" to the intended audience, while leaving the rest of us ignorant. But Mr. Brain is on to the scheme, and so acutely sensitive is he to these dog whistles that he thinks he understands Mr. Trump's motivations even better than Trump himself.

For example, Mr. Brain thinks "thug" is a racial term--a connotation that even I, a retired academic and dedicated right-winger, never realized. Thug is defined as "a violent person, especially a criminal." Mr. Trump has almost exclusively blamed white thugs for the looting and violence--first and foremost Antifa, and more recently also white supremacists. He even blamed the white, elderly bozo from Buffalo who got himself knocked over by the cops. I can't recall Trump ever blaming Black street gangs for the problems, even though they were obviously also involved.

Mr. Brain accuses Trump of using "Juneteenth" as a racist dog whistle. By originally scheduling the rally for that day, and then a few days before rescheduling it, Trump has somehow revealed his inner racism. Huh? If he was so racist, why didn't he insist on holding rally on Juneteenth just out of principle?

Then Trump held the rally in Tulsa--site of a racist pogrom against Black people in March, 1921. The problem with Trump is not racism, but rather ignorance--he doesn't read. All his information comes from cable news, and until Juneteenth and the pogrom hit the news networks he knew nothing about them. This is not dog whistling.

It's not just Trump, but also Joe Biden.

The contradictions in Trump’s rhetoric on the uprisings built to a head when he launched a hypocritical full-on assault on Biden’s record on race. Making a series of shockingly salient points, he pointed out Biden’s personal affinity for segregationists, his terrible voting record, and how the economic policies that Biden has long-supported have impoverished Black Americans. The climax of the attack came with Trump declaring, seemingly unaware of the irony that the statement could just as easily apply to himself, that “racial justice begins when Joe Biden retires from public life.” That Donald Trump, with his decades-long history of racism, was able to mount such a valid attack against his opponent is as clear a sign as any that many of the differences between the two parties are cosmetic. Both Biden and Trump are racists ...

I don't see "Donald Trump's decades-long history of racism." Nowhere has Trump demanded a return to Jim Crow. He doesn't advocate the repeal of the voting rights act. He'd oppose any change in the public accommodations law. Unlike Biden, he's never hung out with avowed segregationists. I've never even heard him criticizing affirmative action! Apart from largely imaginary "dog whistles", Mr. Brain has no evidence of Trump's enduring racism.

I don't think Biden is a racist, either--he's just a Democrat. Democrats are fundamentally unprincipled and don't believe in anything except "higher taxes" and "bigger government." Mr. Biden will go whichever way the wind blows on race. He once hung out with segregationists; today he wants to "defund the police."

Neither Donald nor Joe are more racist than the average septuagenarian white guy.

Mr. Brain writes:

It was on statues that Trump most clearly stoked white nationalist sentiment. After first referencing the Confederate statue in DC that had been taken down and burned by protesters the night before, Trump began to make a series of statements about “our heritage.” These remarks directly played to the most radicalized sectors of his base ...He also said the radical left wants to “tear down our statues and punish and cancel anyone who does not conform to their demands.” 

Some statues should be torn down, and some shouldn't be. The distinction needs to be deliberate and sensitive, and the process legal. What is unacceptable is for a mob of Antifa thugs to tear down statues as an act of violence.

He also made the intentionally vague declaration that “We used to have things, we don’t anymore, because we want to be open.” What exactly these things that we can’t have anymore because we want to be open are, he never clarified.

We used to have football games and tailgate parties. We used to go to concerts and theaters. We used to eat in restaurants. Yet Mr. Brain puts this all into his "dog whistle" category. He really is dense--bordering on kookiness.

Of all people, Mr. Brain should hope that Trump's rally is successful. If only a few people get sick, then likely we can open up theaters sooner rather than later. As a theater person Mr. Brain should appreciate that.

Further Reading:

• Trotskyists on Reopening
• Louis Proyect and the More-Poverty Solution
• Our President is a Pacifist