It's Not About Right Or Left. It's About Right Or Wrong
I’ll begin with an admission of guilt! My last post referred to George Wallace as the former governor of Georgia. Not true. He’s the former governor of Alabama. Thanks for the catch, Brian. But I don’t feel too bad. I had two editors on that piece and neither of them caught it either! You’re fired!
The last couple of days have been interesting and have provided a bit of uplifting news for those who believe the American democracy is being destroyed. Last November the American people, for better or worse, elected Donald Trump to lead them. They did not, however, elect Elon Musk who many now refer to as Trump’s co-president, to any position whatsoever and never have. Musk uses his money to get what he wants. He wanted Trump to become president and he wanted to play a prominent role in his administration. Two hundred million dollars later he had the two things he wanted.
A third thing he wanted was to kill all diversity initiatives and make America white again and he seems to be getting his way with that as well. A fourth thing Musk wanted was for conservative Wisconsin County Judge Brad Schimel to become a Wisconsin state supreme court and for the more liberal leaning County Judge Susan Crawford to lose her bid for the same job.
At risk were things near and dear to Musk that have national implications and, like so much here in America, are race-related; voter ID, DEI, and gerrymandering. Musk wanted Schimel on the bench to maintain order and keep the racial status quo. But this time, Musk’s money – reportedly 25 million dollars – did not buy him what he wanted. Susan Crawford will be sworn in as Wisconsin’s next Supreme Court justice. As she put it, “As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin!” Well she did, and she won. After that and two closer-than-expected losses in Florida, the Wall Journal wrote, “The MAGA majority may have a shorter run than advertised.”
Also in the “Amazing’’ category is NJ Senator Cory Booker who stood on his feet without so much as a bathroom break for over 25 hours, to proclaim the collective power of the American people, the greatness of American democracy, and to make his concern about America’s current direction well and powerfully known. He succeeded.
Again and again he mentioned the late Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who had been one of the original Freedom Riders challenging racial segregation in 1961 and whose skull law enforcement officers cracked open on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 as Lewis joined the marchers on their way to Montgomery to demand their voting rights be protected. He reminded listeners that Lewis was famous for telling people to “get in good trouble, necessary trouble. “Tonight I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.
“These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such. This is our moral moment. This is when the most precious ideas of our country are being tested…. Where does the Constitution live, on paper or in our hearts? This is a moral moment. It’s not right or left, it's right or wrong.”
As Booker, who is a Black American, mentioned John Lewis, I was reminded of how often it has been Black Americans who have stood up, stood for, and demanded the best from America. Just as Cory did two days ago.
Booker broke the record for longest time on his feet set by Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957. Thurmond had been filibustering to maintain the racial Jim Crow laws and customs in place at that time by preventing the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. He failed.
A few days ago in “How Did We Get Here?” I mentioned Trump and the Smithsonian. “Trump took aim at America’s National Museum, the Smithsonian, when he issued an executive order criticizing the Smithsonian Institution for peddling what he described as a ‘divisive, race-centered ideology and that it promotes narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive’ and instructed the museum to restore itself to ‘its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.’”
Lonnie Bunch, another Black American and the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, has a track record of working with officials from both sides of the aisle. Sam Brownback, then a Republican Senator from Kansas, sponsored the museum’s founding legislation, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Mr. Bunch rose to become the secretary of the Smithsonian in 2019 during Mr. Trump’s first term as president.
Though the men do not share a personal relationship, Mr. Bunch did give Mr. Trump a tour of the museum in 2017, after which the President online called the museum “A great job done by amazing people!”
That was then. This is now. “Asked directly on Tuesday whether Mr. Trump supported the institution’s leadership, specifically Mr. Bunch, the White House in a statement said, “President Trump is ensuring that we are celebrating true American history and ingenuity instead of corrupting it in the name of left-wing ideology.”
Then later on the same day, asked to comment on how a book by Mr. Bunch depicted his 2017 tour with Mr. Trump of the African American history museum, Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, responded: ‘Lonnie Bunch is a Democrat donor and rabid partisan who manufactured lies out of thin air in order to boost sales of his miserable book. Fortunately, he, along with his garbage book, are complete failures.’”[1]
Pretty much the crude, un-civil language that we have come to expect from this administration.
And that brings me around to an opinion piece by Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse that showed up yesterday and pushes back on Trump’s new anti-Smithsonianism. It’s short-ish and you can read it here. It’s a great, eye-opening read that I highly recommend. If you cannot open the Post, I’ll publish it tomorrow.
And finally, under the banner of, “Yikes!! What a surprise”, Christy Walton, heir to the Walmart fortune, and at a net worth of almost 16 billion dollars, one of the world’s wealthiest woman, took out a full page add in the NY Times that seemed to take aim at Donald Trump by urging people to get involved in the political process.
The ad features an image of the Statue of Liberty with the heading USA, USA, USA. And then highlights several values, including standing by allies, defending the constitution, and opposing dictator ships.
We are a people of principle and honor.
We honor our commitments and standby our allies.
We defend against aggression by dictators.
We uphold and defend the constitution.
We care for veterans and children.
We respect our neighbors and trading partners.
We support a healthy national and international economy, community, and environment.
We are the world leader trusted, uphold the stability of the rule of law.
We are the people of the United States of America the honor, dignity, integrity. Our country is not for sale. Show up, attend you town halls, be civil.
Sources
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/02/trump-art-corrosive-smithsonian-executive-order/
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/arts/design/smithsonian-trump-executive-order.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I found this podcast from NPR to be interesti g. https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101909416/is-the-nerd-reich-taking-over-the-government