Elaborations on the Masha Gessen Interview

 

Here are my two big takeaways from the Masha Gessen interview...

1.

The American people have been telling their leaders that “the system” isn’t working for them since 2016, when populists forced upsurged on the right (Trump) and left (Sanders). Those forces who moved to the right extreme given their life experiences, went for Trump. Others whose understandings of their place in the world pushed them to the left, opted for Sanders.

After three election cycles the political establishments who were okay with the status quo fared differently. The Republican establishment was routed by Trump’s MAGA political base and acceded to them. MAGA is now the Republican establishment.

In contrast, the Democratic establishment withstood populist pressures across all three cycles. The bad news for Democrats is that by failing to aggressively mobilize and turnout their base like the Republicans did, their turnout imploded and they handed the leadership of the world’s most powerful nation to white nationalists and fascists!

So what is it that inspires the political base on the right and left and which side if listened to offers more of what might be good for most Americans? I’ve already made clear what I think animates the far right. It’s racism, but for the rich on that side it’s also the prospect for a libertarian capitalism with as few tax and regulatory constraints as possible. That racism, which is centered around anti-immigrant/anti-Muslim sentiments and anti-Blackness is not realistic as a roadmap for policy in the country. The role of Brown people, many of whom are immigrants, in agriculture, meatpacking, healthcare and custodial services, etc. makes deporting them untenable for the economy,

 

 

On the other hand the people Trump calls lunatics on the left want public-private partnership to create affordable housing, universal healthcare, free college tuition (for those eligible, and only in public colleges), and a humane approach to immigration policy. The healthcare and college tuition issues are criticized as socialist, but I think they can be defended in any real debate once Americans take a look at how rich European countries (none as rich as us) do healthcare and higher education.

 

The border/immigration issue is the left’s Achilles heel, but in a differing way than for the right. The multiracial left is not put off by the browning of America. But as most Americans watch the fiasco at the southern border, they do believe stronger measures should be taken to control entry legally. That said, the border aside, I think left populism is more in line with a 21^st century American Dream than populism on the right.

 

2.

The other big takeaway from the Gessen interview was their discussion of the way that businesses, universities, other institutions and private individuals behave in the face of the Trumpian onslaught. Many actors of all sorts change their policies, scrub their websites, etc., in a rush to comply with Trump’s directives. Gessen points out that these responses are completely rational, given the ferocity with which Trump is moving.

 

But dictators are constantly testing society to see how far they can go. When organizations and individuals comply, the message is, ‘we can go further,’ or ‘we can move into other areas and try to impose our will on them too.’  That’s why institutions and individuals somewhere have to ‘refuse to obey’ and see how that works out for Trump and DOGE.

 

Trump is testing us. So let’s conduct our own experiment. Let’s see how it works out for them when we don’t obey! Sure! Things could get messy, and people could get hurt. But things are already messy, and many around us are already losing jobs and federal institutional funding. This ‘creeping compliance’ and sitting back and watching while other people get hurt is exactly what happened in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. 

 

People to Emulate

Janet Mills, Governor of Maine, who flouted Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Mills has said that if the federal government cuts off funding to the state’s universities, she would look into withholding revenues owed to the federal government. She’s also said she’d ‘see Mr. Trump in court.’

 

 

William Treanor, Dean of Georgetown University’s law school in response to the illegal detention of post-doctoral student of Indian Muslim descent Badar Khan Suri, AND a warning from the acting federal prosecutor in D.C. that they won’t consider Georgetown students for jobs, internships or fellowships until the law school ends diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Treanor replied that the law school continues to promote DEI and that the First Amendment protections for academic freedom make the prosecutor’s warnings unconstitutional.

 

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg who ruled that Trump could not deport over 200 immigrants they allege are members of Tren de Aragua, a notorious Venezuelan drug cartel. They were sent to be held in custody to El Salvador. The administration tried to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as cause for their deportation. But Judge Boasberg ruled that the use of the Act was inappropriate because it was meant for wartime purposes only. The case is now before the D.C. Court of Appeals. But Judge Boasberg's case is the first of many that may reach the Supreme Court soon. Thanks to Judge Boasberg and all he other jurist who are refusing to obey the wanna be dictator!

 

Costco Corporation, which continues to insist that DEI policies are good for business and help to build a welcoming workplace environment.

 

My heroes for this week ... Remember! Don’t comply in advance! Defend institutions! And then, let’s see how that works out for the Trump/Musk/MAGA team!

Right-Wing Populists Won Race to the Center

 

Masha Gessen is my hero! They are a Queer Russian Jewish immigrant who left Russia when Putin cracked down on LBGTQI+ folks. A journalist by trade, they made headlines in late 2023 as an early critic of the Israeli war in Gaza in late 2023.

Gessen was awarded the prestigious Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought in Germany. But the public event extending the award was canceled, over concerns to reactions to their views on Palestine in December 2023.

Listen to Gessen’s brief interview on NPR’s All Things Considered last month where they’re talking about why Donald Trump won the presidential election.

https://prod-www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302161/is-this-u-s-heading-for-autocracy

Listen and weep, perhaps for different reasons if you’re on the right, or the left! My elaborations will come in a separate post to follow.

 

 

A Tribute to Ralph Munro, A True Republican!

 

In Tribute to Ralph Munro: A traditional Republican and a Decent Human Being

Ralph Munro became Secretary of State in Washington in 1981, not long after I arrived in the state pursuing graduate studies at Washington State University. I never paid much attention to him. Secretary of State in state politics was an obscure position to me.

As I grew into my career as a scholar-activist I was recognized for my contributions in higher education by the Washington Education Association in 2003. Ralph Munro was also recognized for his strong advocacy for public K-12 education. We met at the awards dinner that day.

I still didn’t pay much attention to Ralph’s activities. But he was also a strong supporter of public higher education in the state and an alumnus of Western Washington University. After retirement Ralph founded the Munro Institute for Civic Education at Western. A graduate in education and political science, the institute is housed in the political science department.

I had the honor of directing the Munro Institute from 2015-21. Over those years I got to know Ralph a little. A centrist Republican who made a career of working both sides of the aisle, he knew he had planted his institute in the liberal bastion of the political science department at Western. During my first year at the institute, we held a conference themed “The Power of Civic Engagement.” Our keynote speaker was Pramila Jayapal, the liberal firebrand from Seattle who was then mounting her first campaign for Congress. The conference was a success attendance-wise and Ralph was a valuable audience member in a couple of the panels. He was happy that the conference went well, but as we planned subsequent programs, he would often privately counsel me, “remember Vernon! Not too liberal-biased. Make sure both sides get represented.” And indeed, over the years we did just that!   

I remember one year I had an institute table at the capitol in Olympia when nonprofit organizations were being featured. During lunchtime I walked around the capitol with Ralph. All kinds of people stopped to say hello and chat with him. I took note of a couple of people of color who greeted him warmly. They were people in civil rights and social services work in Seattle and Tacoma.

I came to learn more about Ralph’s commitment to dare I say, diversity, equity and inclusion over the years. He had befriended Terry Sullivan, a disabled child, while he was an aid to Washington Governor Dan Evans. In 1968 Evans visited the school for the disabled that Terry attended to dedicate a building. Ralph took the opportunity to introduce the governor to Terry. Sometime later Ralph got Evans to spend a day in a wheelchair to see what it was like.

Moved by the experience, Evans pushed for legislation to grant children with developmental disabilities the right to public school education. The Education for All” act passed in 1971. It was the first state legislation of its kind in the country.

Across his career in public life, Ralph would support orca protection in Puget Sound, expansion of voting, polio eradication in East Africa as well as Washington’s international trade.

Recognizing how far he seemed from the direction the Republican Party was drifting, I finally asked him why he remained a member of the party. He replied, “I’m still a Republican, because I want make sure somebody in those circles still has a conscience.”

The Latin root of Republican is “res publica.” It means the “public thing.” In contemporary political parlance it refers to public affairs, or the stewardship of the spaces we share in common. As we watch present-day Republicans slash government programs geared toward public welfare, we can say that they seem to have lost their way.

I raise a toast to the memory of Ralph Munro, a true Republican!