Trump Updates to the Midterms:

• Trump has established a beachhead on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) with his sole appointment of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench. Its recent judgments have cemented his control of the federal government.

• A series of recent SCOTUS decisions has given Trump’s base a shot of political adrenalin heading into the midterms: Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission; a remanding of racially prejudicial redistricting cases in Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin to lower courts; and an upholding of Trump’s revised Muslim travel ban.

• SCOTUS’s recent Janus decision has eliminated public sector unions’ ability to charge representation fees to non-members in the 22 states that allow the practice, which will have a particularly devastating impact on teachers unions’ membership.

• In the aftermath of these SCOTUS verdicts, Trump is becoming even more aggressive in establishing an imperial and authoritarian Presidency paralleling those of his four amigos: Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, and North Korea’s Leader Kim Jong-un.

Donald Trump has created an ‘All American’ winning strategy to prevail during the 2018 midterms and to be reelected President in 2020 if he can survive being forced out of office by the ongoing investigation of Russian collusion with his 2016 campaign and other related crimes. But Trump and his consiglieres, Rudy Giuliani, one of his lawyers in the Russia inquiry, and Stephen Miller, his senior White House Advisor, are quietly planning a Saturday night-type massacre of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Special Counsel Robert Mueller whom they view as Trump’s primary tormentors. They believe they have conned the public enough to get away with it. And Trump already has an impeachment proof Senate.

Last week, when Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) went to the Texas-Mexican border to review the crisis of the Trump administration’s separation of immigrant parents from their infants and children and the border agents’ threats against parents in order for them to be re-united with their children, she urged citizens to engage in civil disobedience against Trump cabinet members when they were in public places which were already in process. I agree with New York Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, that this public shaming of Trump officials is “… less a result of a breakdown in civility than a breakdown of democracy.”

Her trip followed protests against Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen and White House Advisor Stephen Miller who had gone out to dine on Mexican food in Washington, D.C. and Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her dinner party who were turned away at the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, 200 miles away. Meanwhile, their minions were oppressing Hispanics at the Mexican border. Congresswoman Waters was quickly condemned for her advocacy by both Democrats and Republicans - by Republicans for allegedly encouraging violence (which was an unmitigated lie) and by Democrats for being uncivil and taking the low road.

As Trump has indulged in escalating levels of general racism, white nationalism, misogyny, and attacks on immigrants from non-white countries, Democratic bosses, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, are demanding that Democrats remain civil in the face of Trump’s personal attacks on minorities, athletes, and our democracy. His ‘All American’ political outreach is designed to rev up his supporters and to intimidate Democrats into submission and to continually take what Michelle Obama characterized as “… going low” while Democrats “go high.” Trump’s approach seems to be working at this time.

As I reflect upon the criticisms of Congresswoman Waters by her erstwhile Democratic allies, I am reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s epic sermon against the Viet Nam War at New York City’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, one year before his assassination in Memphis. His stance was rebuked by his inner circle at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization he founded; the heads of the National NAACP and the National Urban League; President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), who was prosecuting the Viet Nam War; the nation’s major newspapers; and a majority of middle-class African Americans and the nation’s rank and file citizens.

It should be noted that the then famous black novelist, Ralph Ellison, wrote essays in support of LBJ and the Viet Nam War and also lobbied in the 1980s to block the admission of the esteemed African American novelist, Toni Morrison, who would later become the first black to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, to New York City’s Century Club, a prestigious, previously all-male institution. Its members were artists, novelists, academics, and philanthropists, and Ellison was the first black admitted and desired to remain the only one.

We have seen other black athletes, politicians, and activists stand up for social and racial justice: Muhammad Ali; the late Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.; Dr. Harry Edwards, Professor Emeritus of the University of California, Berkeley; more recently Colin Kaepernick; and others who faced the virulent animosity and financial retribution of the political and economic elite.

Trump’s persists in his unprecedented attacks on America’s long-term allies, France, Germany, Canada, and England, and his economic assaults on low-income members of his political base via tax cuts for the wealthy and tariffs on imports that eliminate their jobs and that undermine the businesses of his corporate backers, most recently Harley-Davidson. He is running amuck while Democrats are apparently deciding to be civil, akin to bringing a butter knife to a gun fight.

Congresswoman Waters’ strong advocacy against the Trump administration is much more polite than that of the Republican Tea Parties who stood outside venues where President Obama spoke with AK-47s, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) who tweeted a picture of a watermelon patch as the lawn in front of the White House, and conservative author and political pundit Ann Coulter who called President Obama a monkey on Fox News’s Sean Hannity’s show with no apology. In none of these instances did Rep. Pelosi and Sen. Schumer go to the House or Senate floors to condemn these vile actions, but both quickly chastised Congresswoman Waters’ call for civil disobedience.

Yet the Democratic base is energized by her fighting back against the immoral and degrading Trump Presidency, especially the progressives whom the Democrats will need to turn out if they have any hopes of taking back the House. Their kowtowing to Trump and his “Republican poodles” (to quote the syndicated columnist, George Will) may result in another defeat for the Democratic Party in the midterms and beyond. Democratic leaders’ incessant need to reach out to Trump voters is ill-conceived and out-of-step with the views of the multi-cultural and multiracial constituents they claim to represent.

Indications of this diversity were revealed in the Democrats triumphs in the 2017 Virginia races for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General and the Mississippi U.S. Senate race where Progressive Democrats turned out in impressive number to ensure the victories. African American women were the pivotal factors in these elections, and the majority of them hold a favorable view of Congresswoman Waters. They will be essential to any Democratic midterm successes.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year-old Progressive Democratic Socialist and a first-time candidate for any office, defeated ten term Democratic incumbent Congressman Joe Crowley in a Staten Island primary last Tuesday. Crowley, Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, outspent her 10:1. He was also the Queens County Democratic Party boss. Ocasio-Cortez is virtually guaranteed to be elected to Congress given the overwhelming Democratic registrations in the district. Nearby Democratic incumbent Yvette Clark narrowly won her primary by a thousand votes against another Progressive. This may be a harbinger of things to come

The Democrats need to accept the fact that they are not going to attract Trump voters by being politically mealy mouthed because the only way they attract Trump voters is to join them and champion their ideology. To carry on this idiotic practice while the majority of the Party is headed in a center-left direction is political suicide. The Democratic National Leadership needs to get on board with its base. Donald Trump’s base and his Republican Party poodles are certainly on board with him and his ‘All American’ winning strategy.