It's worth recalling the days when Lyndon Johnson dreaded Time Magazine turning against him on the Vietnam War or Republican Presidents worried about displeasing widely read conservative journalists and columnists. Today's leading conservative columnists tear into Trump regularly (Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, Bret Stephens, Michael Gerson, George Will, etc.) and Trump doesn't even shrug. Perhaps this is partly because they largely avoid the conclusions of their own convictions it is time to demand Trump's resignation.
7. Labor Unions Union membership since the 1980s is down to 10% from 35% of the labor force. Organized labor is weakening from automation, the gig economy, and globalization. Its leaders are frightened by the third of their membership voting for Trump. With the headquarters of the AFL-CIO a block from the White House, one would have thought that the House of Labor could have arranged for many demonstrations at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The AFL-CIO should be filing lawsuits and mounting legislative efforts to counter this anti-labor champion of Wall Street over Main Street. Instead, Trump largely gets a free ride except for some tough speeches and online criticism from unions. Trump doesn't lose any sleep over union chiefs who don't even use Labor Day media to make labor's case against Trump. Union members who are Trumpsters are not embracing the union message about Trump's colossal betrayal of his campaign promises whether its wages, pensions, job security, workplace safety, and labor standards for collective bargaining gutted by his stacked NLRB. Trump ignores unions because he knows they're scared into inaction toward him. The expectations of a broad and dramatic attack by AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka on Donald Trump and his anti-worker policies never materialized.
8. Organized Lawyers These "officers of the court" and their bar associations should be first responders to this arrogant usurper of the rule of law and constitutional observances. Trump says, "I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president" and acts daily on that impeachable boast. The American Bar Association (ABA), is asleep. Today's American Bar Association (ABA) reminded that in 2005-2006, they sent three white papers to the Bush/Cheney regime citing their unconstitutional actions, was asked by me and constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, to continue in that tradition. But the ABA continues to do nothing. In the face of daily massive law-breaking, this is a knowing and astonishing abdication! The ABA should look to the lawyers working with the ACLU, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights or the Brennan Center for Justice for examples of what the legal professionals should be doing. Another recent encouraging initiative came from nearly 2,000 former U.S. Department of Justice employees, many of these lawyers, who called for Attorney General William Barr to resign.
9. Organized Religion Historically, split internally between supporting changes for or against justice, the National Council of Churches' leadership has been fretting about taking on Trump (he violates seven of the Ten Commandments). They fear losing some of their southern congregations that have to cope with the more organized hypocritical evangelical leaders. Many of these evangelical leaders are willing to overlook Trump's unchristian actions and position because he nominates anti-choice judges, who favor reducing separations of church and state.
When I asked the National Council of Churches about this immoral savage serial predator, who boasts and lies and has paid hush money to silence his accusers: Isn't Trump's immorality racism, and bigotry enough for you, the custodians of the society's moral standards, troubling? They do not disagree, but they do nothing to oppose Trump. This was the once liberal church that opposed Vietnam and Iraq wars and was on the frontlines during the civil rights movements, now, is frightened into inaction.
10. Organized Women Knowing that a CNN poll last November reported 61% of women favored the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump as President, where are the activists from MeToo, Time's Up and many other advocates who supported the eviction of Democratic Congressman John Conyers, Senator Al Franken and New York Governor Elliot Spitzer for doing one percent of what Republican Trump has done? Where are the reporters and editorial writers, who dug deep into super predator Trump, but have declined to make such violent behavior a major campaign issue? Where are the members of Congress, led by Senator Gillibrand, who have gone cold on these serious assault charges by over 20 women?
Trump fears Congressional hearings, more than the several tort lawsuits dragging on indefinitely in the courts. All 89 Democratic women in the House of Representatives declined to respond to my lengthy letter of early February (which I hand-delivered to their offices) requesting a House inquiry. Total silence from Nancy Pelosi on down, including male legislators who are happy to pass such responsibilities on to their female counterparts.
Isn't it time for organized women to take on Trump in this election year?
11. University World Once feared by Nixon, the campuses are AWOL, with few exceptions. Speakers at packed rallies and auditoriums that launched civic movements in the past decades are not even invited by today's celebrity-driven, iPhone obsessed, and identity politics-focused students. Once the incubator of major uprisings civil rights, women's liberation, anti-war, nuclear arms control, and safeguarding the environment today's faculty and students, with few exceptions, scarcely are interested in how their predecessors galvanized and changed our country for the better.
12. Organized Science Never has there been a more anti-science President, cutting budgets, even for work on possible pandemics, letting his henchmen in regulatory agencies override or push scientists out of the civil service. Trump forbids the use of the words "climate change" at the EPA and Centers for Disease Control (CDC). He plays a quack doctor in his news briefings talking about bleach or dangerous, untested drugs to treat COVID-19.
It is true that scientists mounted a large demonstration by the White House in the spring of 2017, but the follow-up faded away. Trump is gravely unstable and so ego-consumed that he can hurl empty contradictions of science at man-caused climate disruption, asserts that wind power causes cancer, contradicts scientific knowledge about COVID-19, and the necessity for early alerts and caution. He has played quack nutritionist permitting more junk food in school lunches fueling the child obesity epidemic. From this invincible arrogance and ignorance (giving himself an obscene score of a perfect 10 for handling the COVID-19 pandemic) hundreds of thousands of Americans have died, gotten very sick and the rest left starkly defenseless and unprepared for future dangers by the White House.
Scientists and their many institutions, such as the AAAS, have a very strong case to make before the American people that Trump is a national security danger. However, they have kept their dread and outrage largely to themselves. Even when Democrats controlled Congress in 2009-2010. the professional associations of scientists were unable to revive the key Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), that Newt Gingrich defunded. Based on its record, OTA would now be checking junk corporate science, boondoggle weapons systems, climate denials by Trumpian type quackery, and informing policy makers and the public about the problems with the technologies of Silicon Valley, to name just a few areas where political fiction eclipses facts.
13. Big Business The plutocrats of Wall Street have ways of objecting to maniacal sociopaths in the White House. Big business CEO's hate unpredictability. They secure their nominees in key positions to steady the raving arms of erratic politicians who threaten instability. But Trump knows their weaknesses, in particular their short-term thinking. To shut them up, Trump gets rid of health, safety, and economic regulations that protect people. He appoints destroyers to key executive branch positions and the courts. He gives the fat cats huge tax escapes beyond their dreams of avarice. And Trump signals that crony capitalism of the corporate welfare state will keep expanding. Add the Federal Reserve juicing the stock markets and the customary opportunistic business leaders moves into partnership with Trump's corporate state is sealed. None of this excuses some enlightened super-rich, who despise Trumpism, from organizing collective action or funding civic groups to challenge monstrous activities of the White House.
14. More Progressive Allied Countries By extolling brutal dictators by name, musing out loud that he would like their power, Trump has alienated and directly insulted allied leaders like Justin Trudeau of Canada and Angela Merkel of Germany. He has rebuffed world leaders on climate disruption and pandemic cooperation, taking a nihilistic, mocking position that has lowered our country's esteem in the world. Trump has declared himself the man of perfection, "a stable genius," who never makes mistakes, and has nothing to learn from other heads of state on any matter, including the Trump enhanced COVID-19 catastrophes. U.S. allies appear intimidated by the raging bull with his unlawful sanctions and careening trade restrictions.
15. The Fired Influentials Trump has fired key cabinet and other high officials he once praised and unleashed a torrent of foul-mouthed insults against those he has exiled from his administration. Instead of mounting with their prolific contacts, a "Stop to Trump Movement," from the conservative right, that could include retired influential military and business executives, most have largely receded into a life of economic comfort and dejection. These fireds include National Security Administrator Jim Mathis, Trump chief of staff General John Kelly, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who have told friends they believe the delusionary ignorant, unstable moronic Trump is a clear danger to our country. Nonetheless, apart from a few op-eds, Trump's ongoing intimidation and humiliation practices and tweets seem to have daunted them and many others from organizing to defend our democracy. However, after Trump's gross behavior calling in the military to stop peaceful domestic protests, prominent retired generals have taken Trump to task loudly and clearly.
16. The Civic Community Leading citizen advocacy groups like the ACLU, NAACP, the Brennan Center for Justice, Public Citizen, Common Cause, People for the American Way, and many other national and local associations have gone after Trump with hammer and tongs. Several lawsuits have blocked or delayed some of Trump's deregulatory and discriminatory ravages. But they have not stopped Trump's wrecking crew of corporatists and clenched-jaw ideologues from giving our government wholesale and boastfully to the corporate supremacists from Wall Street to Houston. They have been unable to up the ante such as in developing new strategic confrontations, effective provocations, and mass rallies against Trump at every turn. They need the energy of the streets and its non-wonkish vernacular to give Trump his own rhetorical medicine, including roars of "lock him up" at rallies, nicknames that bullies like Trump deal out but can't take and exposing his harmful betrayals of all the people. Some of Trump's "anybody but Hillary" voters who after nearly four years of non-stop perfidy and fabrications are ready for "anybody but Trump."
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