It was only a matter of time.

It was only a matter of time before a rightwing extremist rose to prominence in the American political arena. There is only so long bigoted and authoritarian musings can be entertained on far right media like Fox News or Rush Limbaugh Live before a candidate casts aside any facade of decency and appeals to the basest, most vile instincts of human beings.        

Donald Trump was the candidate extremists were waiting for.

Trump recently called for the U.S. to block all Muslims from entering, turning stereotyping into national policy, widening our dangerous problem of racial profiling to a massive, never before seen scale. He used American detention of German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants during World War II as justification, turning draconian sins generally looked back upon with embarrassment as shining examples of sensible security measures.

Neo-nazis called him a “glorious leader” and “ultimate savior” for this, adding, “Heil Donald Trump” for good measure. In 1990, Trump’s ex-wife said Trump sometimes read a book of Hitler’s speeches, My New Order, which covers propaganda and speaking style, a blueprint for fear-mongering and race-baiting. Trump first confirmed this, then denied it.

Trump also called for the surveillance of American mosques, a database of Muslim Americans, and/or special religion identification cards for Islamists. In essence, the eradication of Constitutional religious freedom protections and the establishment of authoritarian anti-privacy and discriminatory policies that echo the Third Reich.

One man at a town hall meeting told Trump that President Obama is a Muslim, “not even an American,” that “we have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims,” and asked, “When can we get rid of them?” While it was unclear if the man meant all American Muslims or just Islamic extremists, Trump didn’t question any of it, instead saying, “You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We’re going to be looking at that and many other things.”

Despite being unable to provide a shred of evidence, Trump insists he saw American Muslims cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11, fomenting anti-Muslim hatred.

Activists believe Trump’s rhetoric is contributing to the rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes that began even before the deadly ISIS attacks in Paris and the San Bernardino shooting.

Trump vilified undocumented Mexican immigrants, generalizing them as criminals, drug dealers, rapists, and killers. He stokes nativist fears about Hispanics stealing jobs, spreading unemployment, lowering wages, “destroying the Middle Class.” He wants to build a “gorgeous wall” akin to the Great Wall of China, while rounding up 11 million people (many of whom were born in the U.S. and are thus American citizens by law), and trucking them out of the country. This despite the fact that amnesty is the least expensive, most effective, and most humane way to end the problems associated with illegal immigration. 

Invoking Trump’s name and his deportation plan, two white men beat a homeless Hispanic man in Boston with a pipe and then urinated on him. Trump heard about this and explained that his followers are “passionate” people who “love their country,” only later writing he would “never condone violence.” Other Trump supporters beat an Hispanic protester at a rally, chanting “USA! USA!”

Trump believes the government should censor the Internet to curb access to radical Islamic literature and websites. He said, “Somebody will say, ‘Oh, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ Those are foolish people.” This despite the extensive erosion of civil liberties and massive increase of domestic spying since George W. Bush.

He heartlessly mocked both the voice and physical motions of a disabled reporter, mocked Asian business partners using broken English, and ridiculed political rival Carly Fiorina, saying, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?” He may or may not have suggested Megyn Kelly was asking “ridiculous” questions of him during a debate because she was menstruating.  

He’s called one woman a “big, fat pig,” “disgusting,” a “slob” and an “animal”; another he called a “dog”; another he wrote had an “ugly face and body.” On the other hand, he’s often joked about his daughter’s body and that he would date her if he wasn’t her father. He likes having “a young and beautiful piece of ass” on his arm, and sometimes insinuates women are successful only if beautiful.

He joked Hillary Clinton would not be an ineffective president because she couldn’t “satisfy her husband.”  

Trump thinks the U.S. war against terror is ineffective because it’s a “politically correct war.” To fight ISIS, Trump says, the U.S. must “take out their families” and bring back torture techniques like waterboarding, saying, “If it doesn’t work, they deserve it anyway for what they’re doing to us.” This despite the fact that 90% of drone victims are already innocent bystanders, and the fact it is just such actions that radicalize people and breed more terror attacks.

He wanted U.S. forces to stay in Iraq and “keep the oil.” He insulted former prisoner of war Senator John McCain, saying, “He’s not a war hero… I like people who weren’t captured.” He also believes his time in the New York Military Academy gave him “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.” He said an army deserter should be executed.

His foreign policy positions usually amount to aggressive intimidation. He promises to “beat China” in trade deals. “I beat China all the time. All the time.” To keep oil prices low, he would simply tell OPEC, “…you’re not going to raise that fucking price.” As for ISIS: “I would bomb the shit out of them… There would be nothing left.”

He believes he can sign an executive order that will overrule all state laws, decreeing that anyone who kills a police officer will be executed. He also wants police forces nationwide to maintain the use of military-grade weapons and vehicles.

He constantly talks about his wealth and power, mercilessly showcasing his narcissism. “Women find his power almost as much a turn-on as his money,” Trump said of himself. “I’m really rich,” he often brags. He was insulted and outraged when Forbes valued his net worth at only $4.5 billion, writing, “I don’t look good, to be honest. I mean, I look better if I’m worth $10 billion than if I’m worth $4 billion.” He also boasts of a high I.Q.

Yet he has not the wit to check the validity of his sources. He tweeted a graphic falsely claiming that the vast majority of white Americans were killed by blacks in 2015, a graphic that may have originated with a neo-Nazi. Trump refused to apologize for or take down the lies.

According to one source, Trump once said, “Laziness is a trait in blacks” and that he didn’t want black men counting his money; he once took out full-page ads in New York papers calling for the death penalty for black teens who allegedly raped a white woman (they were later declared innocent); and he was once sued for not renting to African Americans. He was a leader of the “birther” movement that sought to prove Obama was not a U.S. citizen.

After a Black Lives Matter protester interrupted one of Trump’s speeches, supporters physically assaulted the man, as Trump yelled, “Get him the hell out of here!” While a spokesperson later said Trump’s campaign does not condone violence, Trump himself said, “Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” Elsewhere, Trump has threatened to attack Black Lives Matter protesters personally.

There is evidence Trump’s father was a Klansman. Even after all this, Trump insists he will get the African American vote, and claims his Muslim friends think banning Muslim immigration is a good idea.  

The majority of Trump’s supporters are working-class whites. Surveys indicate only 2% of Trump supporters are under 30, only 50% have a high school diploma, and only 19% have a college degree.

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Hillary Clinton sat before the House committee on Thursday, her face a mix of bemusement, boredom, and defiance, suffering through a seemingly eternal interrogation.

The committee has spent 18 months and over $4.5 million investigating the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the American State Department outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a U.S. ambassador, two CIA contractors, and one other diplomat, yet another violent reaction to U.S. foreign policy.

As Clinton was Secretary of State at the time, the GOP has led a relentless assault to assign her the blame and destroy her political career, with some Democrats dragged along against their will. The committee is made up of seven Republicans and five Democrats.

Clinton took responsibility for the tragedy in January 2013.

The committee questioned why security wasn’t stronger, why the outpost wasn’t abandoned if it couldn’t be protected in a volatile area, and why the U.S. intervened in Libya in the first place.

Republican Peter Roskam called Clinton the “chief architect” of the intervention in Libya, the one who “drove it” and “persuaded people” to go along with her “plan.” As this seemed to border on questioning the legitimacy of U.S. military intervention in Africa, Roskam was quickly sushed by Democrat Adam Smith, who said such talk wasn’t relevant and that this was a hearing, not a foreign policy debate. Thus the real reason behind the attacks and the casualties–the U.S. presence in Libya itself–was neatly swept under the rug.

Further, the committee asked why the State Department covered up certain details of the event by censoring the CIA.

Indeed, the CIA reports to Congress concerning the attack were “extensively edited” by Clinton’s State Department. As ABC News reported:

The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.    

A State Department spokesperson worried in an email that being truthful about Al Qaeda affiliate involvement and warnings of possible terrorist threats “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that…?”

The Obama administration lied when it claimed the report to Congress was put together by the intelligence community and that the White House only changed one word, according to the ABC News report.

Apparently the CIA warnings were real enough for the State Department to wipe from the CIA report, but not real enough for Clinton to admit to; she consistently denied any intelligence warnings about a potential attack.

This is plausible deniability, a useful tool in the political handbook. Clinton can simply deny warnings existed or, barring that, that they ever reached her ears, a truly unbelievable notion.

This kind of corruption–distorting intelligence reports to protect the image of government officials–must be prosecuted and eliminated.

But one might wonder where this intense criticism of government departments and officials was in the Republican Party after the far more deadly terrorist attack eleven years to the day before Benghazi.

After all, the 9/11 terrorists were motivated by U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Central Asia, according to Osama bin Laden and U.S. intelligence officials. Foreign military incursion breeds extremism, whether in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, or Libya. Perhaps Roskam wasn’t seriously questioning U.S. involvement in Libya, just the way it was managed–or mismanaged–by Clinton.

Unfortunately, the painfully obvious fact that the attack never would have occurred had U.S. military and intelligence personnel not been in Libya was left unexamined, in the same way most Americans–and Congress–left unexamined how our military and intelligence presence in other nations led to an attack on U.S. soil in 2001.

In another parallel, 9/11 was not solely an intelligence failure, but a failure of officials to act on intelligence. Donald Trump, the offensive and usually misinformed Republican presidential candidate, pointed this out to Jeb Bush recently, and Republicans have gone berserk over it.

Intelligence briefers reported to President George W. Bush in August 2001 that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the U.S. by hijacking planes (see also The Concise Untold History of the United States, Stone and Kuznick). These warnings were ignored.

Stone and Kuznick write that

Bush disdainfully told his CIA briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Yet with a straight face, Bush told a news conference in April 2004, “Had I any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country.”

Again, plausible deniability. A fancy phrase meaning “lies.”

If citizens care about transparency, the GOP’s assault on Clinton is doing us a favor. It is simply unfortunate that 9/11 birthed blindly patriotic sheep among Republicans and Democrats alike, who rallied behind Bush and granted him the power to do virtually whatever he wished at home and abroad, through war resolutions and the Patriot Act. He was the “chief architect” of two invasions, which resulted in a catastrophic death toll of innocent civilians, and the loss of many U.S. servicemen and women.

Where was the firestorm of criticism from the GOP–or the Democrats, at least, after 9/11? Where was the 18 month investigation? When will there be harsh punishment for officials who lie, by omission or otherwise, about what they knew, and when will more politicians acknowledge the root causes of anti-American terrorism?

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Republicans and conservatives are usually the quickest to insist the police must be respected, that “Blue Lives Matter,” and that officers should be allowed to do their jobs without pesky protests against the deaths of unarmed black males or other forms of unnecessary force. (The rightwing insinuation that one can’t respect officers for their bravery in a dangerous line of work, or want police officers to be safe, and oppose police harassment, brutality, and corruption is so obviously absurd it requires no further comment.) Conservatives are proud to have law enforcement’s back, even blindly at times. But when it comes to gun rights, it seems any deviance from mainstream conservative ideology on the part of police departments is simply ignored.

The Missouri gun bill — SB 656 — is a good example. On Wednesday, the Missouri Senate overrode Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of SB 656. In one month, Missourians will no longer need to pass a criminal background check, take a gun safety class, or get a permit to carry a concealed weapon (it is already legal in Missouri to openly carry without a permit or safety training).

The police backlash against this measure was immense.

The Missouri Police Chiefs Association is against the Missouri gun bill. Its president, Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams, said, “Someone who would have been prevented from carrying a concealed weapon before, they would be permitted to carry a weapon under this law. That creates a danger for law enforcement officers when they encounter those individuals on the street.”

Williams said the association is “at a loss for why we would want to do away with something that is working.”

The Missouri Fraternal Order of Police is against it. Its legislative director, Sergeant Kevin Ahlbrand, said:

The system we have in place works well now. Local sheriffs are the best people to recognize who in their communities should and should not carry firearms. Most of the other states with this type of legislation are mostly rural states. There’s a big difference between what happens in rural Missouri, Montana and Vermont and what happens in urban Kansas City and St. Louis.

As far as open carry in Kansas City and St. Louis, open carry is not supported by local ordinance unless people have a Concealed Carry Weapon permit. Sheriffs are the best ones to determine who should be able to carry a concealed weapon… This is a danger to public safety and it will be an increased danger to law enforcement because, quite frankly, we will have to assume everyone is armed.

The Springfield Police Officers Association is against it. President Mike Evans said:

I can tell you that a weapon in the hand of a properly trained individual can be life saving. I can also tell you that a weapon in the hand of an untrained or misguided individual can be devastating.

For those who want to take on the responsibility to carry concealed, under the pretense of being the first line of defense for themselves or possibly others, is it really too much to ask that you demonstrate you can use the weapon and have a basic understanding of the justifications for when force can be used?

The Kansas City Police Department is against it. Deputy Chief Cheryl Rose said before Wednesday’s vote, “We join law enforcement across Missouri in urging the Legislature to uphold the veto of Senate Bill 656.” Further,

Police are very concerned that if this law goes into effect, it will make it easier for many more people to perpetrate gun violence, which is a considerable problem in Kansas City. It also could make it extremely difficult for law enforcement to get guns out of the hands of people who would use them to commit violent acts.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Sharp is against it. He said, “The public should understand that Jackson County has declined over 900 requests for a conceal and carry permit since the existing law has been in effect. We need to continue to take guns out of the hands of people who are going to be harmful to our community. If overridden, SB 656 would give those rejected 900 people the ability to own a gun.”

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson is against it, going so far as to write an op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, urging Missouri to “put public safety first and let SB 656 remain where it belongs: in the graveyard of bad ideas.” He declared:

SB 656 would end Missouri’s concealed carry permit requirement, which is one of just a few remaining checks and balances we have against the arming of violent criminals. It’s already too easy for lawless people to carry lethal weapons. This bill would make it even easier, and in the process, make things that much harder for peace officers who work to keep our communities safe…

Just as a driver’s license acts as a handy proof of one’s competence to lawfully drive a car, concealed carry permits help legal gun owners readily identify themselves to the police. Removing the permit requirement would also remove that clarity, needlessly increasing the risk of confusion in encounters between armed citizens and armed officers…

Even with our current permit requirement in place, police officers routinely find themselves in harm’s way doing the job we ask them to do: to protect St. Louis from a deadly gun violence epidemic. Overriding SB 656 would be a clear step in the wrong direction. It would increase the risks officers face on the job, it would make their work even more difficult and it would, without question, leave all of us less safe.

The National Rife Association made the Missouri gun bill its “top national priority,” according to the Missouri Times, lobbying hard for Nixon’s veto to be overruled. And when the NRA says jump, Republicans ask how high, regardless of whether they’ll stomp on the police on the way down.

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In July 2016, on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, a small group of Republican delegates made a final stand against Donald Trump, pushing in vain for a roll call vote on the convention rules, an idea party leaders shot down.

The #FreeTheDelegates and #NeverTrump supporters, led by Colorado delegate and high school teacher Kendal Unruh, aimed to change the convention rules to allow the 1,447 delegates that are required to vote for Trump (in accordance with state voting results) to vote for whomever they wish, which could potentially stop a Trump nomination. The Rules Committee previously voted down the suggestion by an 87-12 margin — and that, and the decision not to hold a roll call vote, should be viewed as the right decision by all people, whether far right, far left, or somewhere in between.

Make no mistake, Donald Trump is a monster, and it is encouraging that some conservatives oppose him. Yet to those who care about democracy, and believe voting should not be a masquerade, the #FreeTheDelegates idea is immensely foolish.

As common citizens, the only political power we have is the ballot. We elect local, state, and national leaders to represent our interests, even if they fail to live up to their assignments. There are few interests every person agrees on, but surely two of them are that if you cast a ballot it should be counted and the candidate with the most votes should get the job. This is not complex and should not in any way be controversial.

Yet here we are, with people in Cleveland and around the country who actually believe that the person with the most votes (and the required minimum number of delegates, 1,237) should not be the party nominee! Had Trump not earned the required number of delegates, this would be a slightly different conversation, though this writer also questions how democratic it is when a candidate earned the most delegates, but didn’t hit the magic number, and through the convention process was not the victor.

We have Americans who actually think a small group of 100 people on a committee, or a small group of about 1,500 delegates, should be able to “do what’s in the best interests of the people” and throw out the candidate who won fair and square — directly contradicting the interests of the people as expressed by the ballot. What that is, dear reader, is centralized control rather than decentralized control, power to the few instead of power to the people, authoritarianism over democracy.

That is not how voting should work. That is not how a democracy (nor a republic) should operate.

When the few can throw out a victor they think is wicked or not actually what’s best for all the silly voters, they can likewise throw out a victor that you think is just what this nation needs. Would you not feel your vote a fraud, democracy itself under attack, had your chosen candidate won fairly and then been turned away by the few? A candidate you thought could do tremendous good, but authoritarians thought would do tremendous harm?

There was fear on the left that this very thing would happen to Bernie Sanders — that he would win fairly but the Democratic superdelegates would hand the election to Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, that did not occur. Clinton won fairly, and though I am disappointed, as a Sanders supporter, I am pleased democracy won the day.

The very possibility of the few overruling the votes of the many, whether it’s superdelegates, a rules committee, or regular delegates, should not exist. A small group should not be able to decide voters were wrong.

Yes, democracy is messy at times. Sometimes voters choose a monster, someone dangerous and wicked. Yet it is the people’s mistake to make. Not that of a centralized committee or convention. That’s why democracy is important. If a small group makes an horrific mistake or grows corrupt, the consequences are inflicted upon the people against their will. If the people make the mistake, there is no one to blame but ourselves, and we will have to work to change the political views of our neighbors and the ideologies of our parties. The burden of the failure lies with those who have power — a power we should refuse to yield no matter how heavy the burden. That’s democracy.

All this is not to say we get rid of checks and balances, impeachment proceedings, term limits, and anything else that can get a madman out of office. It is not to say we, whether conservative or liberal, stop fighting people like Trump. It is only to say that a candidate who fairly wins the primaries, as Trump did, should be the nominee.

Anything else means the one thing ordinary people have power over is gone.

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What a remarkable sentence to write: liberals and conservatives actually agree on something.

Currently, Democrats in Congress are staging a sit-in to push for gun policy reforms, such as expanding background checks for gun buyers to cover the large percentage of sales that don’t include one and banning people on terror watchlists, like the no-fly list, from purchasing guns. The first policy is enormously popular among the citizenry: some 90% of Americans favor universal background checks (including 85% of gun owners). The second policy also has mass support: about 85% of Americans think banning individuals on federal watchlists from buying firearms is a proper regulation.

Yet there also exists common ground among liberals and conservatives concerned with the watchlists themselves. Take Gawker — no conservative enclave — which opined that “The Democrats Are Boldly Fighting For a Bad, Stupid Bill”:

The no-fly list is a civil rights disaster by every conceivable standard. It is secret, it disproportionately affects Arab-Americans, it is error-prone, there is no due process or effective recourse for people placed on the list, and it constantly and relentlessly expands. As of 2014, the government had a master watchlist of 680,000 people, forty percent of whom had “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.”

The ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), which has long opposed federal watchlists (for which conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called the liberal civil rights organization a “terrorist group”), declared that “The Use of Error-Prone and Unfair Watchlists Is Not the Way to Regulate Guns in America,” writing:

Regulation of firearms and individual gun ownership or use must be consistent with civil liberties principles, such as due process, equal protection, freedom from unlawful searches, and privacy…

It may sound appealing to regulate firearms by using the government’s blacklisting system for what it calls “known or suspected terrorists,” but we have long experience analyzing the myriad problems with that system, and based on what we know, it needs major overhaul…

Our nation’s watchlisting system is error-prone and unreliable because it uses vague and overbroad criteria and secret evidence to place individuals on blacklists without a meaningful process to correct government error and clear their names.

That’s why we have argued that if the government chooses to blacklist people, the standards it uses must be appropriately narrow, the information it relies on must be accurate and credible, and its use of watchlists must be consistent with the presumption of innocence and the right to due process.

Compare this with the words of the National Rifle Association. The NRA said in a statement:

The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing. If an investigation uncovers evidence of terrorist activity or involvement, the government should be allowed to immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist. At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed.

House Speaker Paul Ryan stressed at a press conference:

We do not take away a citizen’s rights without their due process. And so, if you had a quick idea in the heat of the moment that says, “Let’s take away a person’s rights without their due process,” we’re going to stand up and defend the Constitution.

The ultraconservative Federalist, in an article entitled “Democrats: We Shall Overcome the Constitution,” wrote that the Democrats’

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