Corporate Media Are the Real 'Sanders Attack Machine'

The real Sanders attack machine isn’t the mythical machine run by Sanders to take down his opponents; it’s run by the establishment Democrats and their media counterparts.

by

Julie Hollar

"The liberal Bernie Sanders tightens his grip in Iowa." (Photo: Screenshot)

As the Iowa caucuses approach, corporate media are beginning to panic.

“Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity,” insisted  Jonathan Chait in New York magazine (1/28/20). The New York Times‘ Paul Krugman (1/20/20)—among many others (FAIR.org, 1/24/20)—revived the 2016 media trend of tarring Sanders as “Trumpian.”

Electability advice from the pundit who wrote “Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination” (New York, 2/5/16).

The Never Trumper holdouts—an increasingly endangered species—are as scared as the establishment Democrats. “Bernie Can’t Win,” David “Axis of Evil” Frum wrote pleadingly in the Atlantic (1/27/20). “Bernie Sanders’s Trump-Like Campaign Is a Disaster for Democrats,” cried the Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin (1/27/20). “Anyone But Trump? Not So Fast,” counseled the New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (1/24/20).

The Wall Street–funded Democratic think tank Third Way has also pulled out all the stops against Sanders’ rise—with media’s help. The group put out “A Warning” to Iowa Democrats (1/28/20), advising them that,

because of media negligence and the strategic calculation of his rivals, you have not seen much real exploration of the politically toxic background and ideas of the current polling leader in Iowa and a national co-frontrunner.

The memo proceeded to offer a lengthy list of ways Trump would attack Sanders—an easy list for them to compose, since some of them, such as that he’ll be called a socialist and that Medicare for All is unpopular, are ones the Third Way itself has used to attack Sanders.

The media have been happy to offer a platform for this message. The Washington Post recently gave Third Way an op-ed column (1/15/20) to make its case that “Bernie Sanders’s agenda makes him the definition of unelectable.” USA Today (1/29/20) likewise gave Third Way leaders space to charge, “Democrats Court Doom by Backing Bernie Sanders. His Ideas Are Toxic Outside Blue America.” And the group has been popping up in the latest round of centrist-source articles (among other usual suspects, like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville), in which establishment sources make unsubstantiated claims that reporters pass on without comment.

One of these ideas is that Sanders has flown under the radar, evading attacks or scrutiny from both his opponents and the media. “It’s past time for other Democrats to come off the sidelines and for the media to start doing its job to vet a serious contender for the nomination,” Third Way’s Matt Bennett told NBCNews.com (1/25/20) in an article headlined, “‘Oh My God, Sanders Can Win’: Democrats Grapple With Bernie Surge in Iowa.” In Politico (1/27/20), he ratcheted up the rhetoric: “[The media] let him get away with murder. They let him bluster past hard questions.”

Democrats are alarmed that too many Democrats want Bernie Sanders to be the nominee, NBC (1/25/20) reported.

Not all media observers agreed. In a bizarre “do they have an editor” moment, the Washington Post (1/26/20) published two news articles making opposite observations: “Bernie Sanders Faces Barrage of Attacks From Rivals as Polls Point to Surge in Early-Voting States” and “Rivals Aren’t Throwing a Lot of Roadblocks in Front of Sanders.” The former, by Chelsea Janes and Sean Sullivan, pointed to recent interviews and campaign messaging coming from Sanders’ opponents that target him. The latter, by David Weigel, reported on some of the same evidence, but came to the opposite conclusion, because some of the attacks were made in venues without a broad reach (a South Carolina newspaper, a campaign email) and some were ineffective. (Many “voters were unmoved” by Biden and Klobuchar’s attacks on Sanders as “upending the Obama legacy.”)

The Weigel piece argued that,

All of Sanders’s rivals spend time, sometimes after a worried voter asks for it, explaining how they will pay for their plans without busting the budget. Sanders does not get these questions and spent months at town halls where he asked voters to describe their crises — health-care bills, student debt — so he could explain why only an unfair economy would even allow the problems to exist.

To set the record straight: Sanders has gotten a great deal of media scrutiny and pushback, as FAIR noted back in 2016 (5/25/16) and David Sessions (New Republic, 1/28/20) has usefully updated. Sessions wrote:

The notion that Sanders is sailing toward primary victories with nary a soul bothering to pose a question about his record or electability is a relic of the 2016 Democratic primary, when Hillary Clinton and her supporters grew frustrated with his durable presence in the race and pundits puzzled over the fact that Sanders polled better against Donald Trump. The common explanation settled on was that Sanders’s popularity was a mirage resting on his lack of scrutiny. But it’s hard to square that conventional wisdom with the written record—a compendium of “vetting” so varied and substantial that it raises the question as to whether the people who need vetting the most are those who continue to call for it long after their needs have been met.

Another line of attack is the revival of the “Bernie Bro” as a means to discredit the Sanders campaign. A central trope of the 2016 campaign, based on anecdotal evidence and repeated endlessly by Clinton supporters and journalists, the idea that Sanders supporters are predominantly white, male and viciously offensive on social media lingers on—despite its utter lack of basis in reality.

As all journalists and most of the rest of the world know, the internet is awash in vile rhetoric coming from all directions, not just from a small subset of Sanders supporters. As Glenn Greenwald put it (Intercept, 1/31/16):

There are literally no polarizing views one can advocate online — including criticizing Democratic Party leaders such as Clinton or Barack Obama — that will not subject one to a torrent of intense anger and vile abuse…. Pretending that abusive or misogynistic behavior is unique to Sanders supporters is a blatant, manipulative scam.

In fact, a March 2016 study found that, among voters, Sanders supporters were perceived as much less “aggressive and/or threatening online” (16%) than were Clinton supporters (30%), who in turn were perceived as much less so than Trump supporters (57%).

And yet the media persist with the trope. In the New York Times ( 1/27/20), this came as a lengthy front-page article headlined:

Bernie Sanders and His Internet Army: At the Start of His 2020 Bid, the Vermont Senator Told His Supporters That He Condemned Bullying. Is It His Problem if Many Don’t Seem to Listen?

The New York Times ( 1/27/20) suggests that Sanders is responsible for his followers “venom” because he says things like, “I don’t go to the Hamptons to raise money from billionaires.”

In the Daily Beast (1/22/20), the headline was “Bernie Bros Are Loud, Proud, and  Toxic to Sanders’ Campaign.” And the headline of an NBCNews.com (1/19/20) column announced, “Trump’s MAGA Supporters and Twitter Bernie Bros Have This Ugly Tactic in Common: Bernie Twitter Operates Under the Self-Righteous Guise of Being the True Progressives of the Internet. But Their Harassing Tactics Are Anything but Progressive.”

These pieces continue the trend of cherry-picking evidence and moving seamlessly between accusations of death threats and examples that hardly qualify as abuse (The closing piece of evidence in the New York Times: “Some of you millionaires need to realize that many of us actually *need* Bernie Sanders to win the presidency,” one account replied. “We can’t just ‘chill.’”).

In the Times piece, reporters Matt Flegenheimer, Rebecca R. Ruiz and Nellie Bowles regurgitated the completely unsubstantiated claim of chair-throwing at the 2016 Nevada convention (rated “false” by Snopes, but eagerly repeated across the media) and combined it with “a torrent of menacing messages” to the state party chair to justify associating Sanders’ campaign with violence: “In person, serious violence has been avoided, it seems, though there have been occasional low-grade clashes.”

Meanwhile, rivals are given the opportunity to cast blame on Sanders, again with no evidence. For instance, a strategist for both Obama and Clinton is quoted saying that Sanders “had empowered aides and surrogates who ‘have a tendency to aggressively amplify things that a campaign would normally shut down amongst supporters.’”

No evidence is supplied, unless you count the example given later in the article in which prominent Sanders supporter Shaun King tweeted that the Warren campaign “leaked this attack against Bernie to the press for political gain,” and that Warren staffers had told him that Warren “routinely embellishes stories.” The outcome, according to the Times? The Sanders campaign manager told King to stop; “but by then, much of the Sanders-aligned internet was about to begin tweeting snakes at Ms. Warren and her supporters en masse.”

In other words, the campaign did not empower King; they shut him down. But notice how King’s tweets are nonetheless held responsible for “the Sanders-aligned internet” that was “about to begin” tweeting snakes—and then Sanders’ campaign is apparently held responsible by association.

Hillary Clinton jumped into the fray with guns blazing in the Hollywood Reporter (1/21/20). When asked if she would endorse and campaign for Sanders if he got the nomination, her response was evasive but decidedly antagonistic:

I’m not going to go there yet. We’re still in a very vigorous primary season. I will say, however, that it’s not only him, it’s the culture around him. It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women…. I don’t think we want to go down that road again where you campaign by insult and attack and maybe you try to get some distance from it, but you either don’t know what your campaign and supporters are doing, or you’re just giving them a wink and you want them to go after Kamala [Harris] or after Elizabeth [Warren]. I think that that’s a pattern that people should take into account when they make their decisions.

The Post‘s Rubin (1/21/20) drew on this quote and other excerpts from Clinton’s Hollywood Reporter interview to paint Sanders as having an “Attack Machine” centered on a “thinly veiled misogyny” that is now supposedly “com[ing] back to haunt him.”

The real Sanders attack machine isn’t the mythical machine run by Sanders to take down his opponents; it’s run by the establishment Democrats and their media counterparts to take down Sanders.

SIDEBAR:

'Menacing' Sanders 'Tightens Grip' by 'Threatening to Seize Control'

New York Times (1/27/20)

The New York Times, in a piece headlined “In Iowa, the ‘Not Sanders’ Democrats Find Voters Torn” (1/27/20), described Sanders’ rise in alarming terms:

Mr. Sanders is threatening to seize control in the early states, taking narrow but clear polling leads in Iowa and New Hampshire and increasingly menacing Mr. Biden’s advantage in national polls.

“The liberal Bernie Sanders tightens his grip in Iowa,” the piece’s subhead warned, using imagery more often used to convey the movement of hostile military forces than to report a politician’s favorable polling results.

Julie Hollar is the managing editor of FAIR's magazine, Extra!. Her work received an award from Project Censored in 2005, and she has been interviewed by such media outlets as the L.A. Times, Agence France-Presse and the San Francisco Chronicle. A graduate of Rice University, she has written for the Texas Observer and coordinated communications and activism at the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. Hollar also co-directed the 2006 documentary Boy I Am and was previously active in the Paper Tiger Television collective.

Sanders Team Weighing Executive Orders to Legalize Marijuana, Stop Trump Border Wall, Declare Climate Emergency, and More

"We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues, especially those like immigration where Trump has governed with racism and for his own corrupt benefit."

by

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, leaves a roundtable discussion early at the U.S. Capitol with actor Mark Ruffalo and Dr. Anna Reade, Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Scientist, on January 29, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders' staff is reportedly preparing dozens of potential executive orders addressing an array of pressing issues the Vermont senator has made central to his 2020 presidential campaign, from confronting the climate crisis to lowering prescription drug prices to reversing President Donald Trump's racist immigration policies.

The Washington Post's Jeff Stein, citing two anonymous people familiar with the campaign's plans and an internal document, reported Thursday that Sanders aides have presented the senator with a list of possible executive orders that would allow him to unilaterally:

• Declare a national climate emergency;
• Ban U.S. exports of crude oil;
• Import prescription drugs from Canada;
• Cancel federal contracts for companies that pay their workers less than $15 an hour;
• Direct the Department of Justice to legalize marijuana at the federal level;
• Reverse existing rules that bar the U.S. from funding organizations that provide abortion services;
• Immediately halt the construction of President Donald Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall;
• Lift the cap on the number of refugees the U.S. accepts each year; and
• Release billions in disaster aid to Puerto Rico that the Trump administration has withheld.

"The document reviewed by the Post shows how the Sanders campaign has already begun extensive planning for how the senator would lead the country in his first days as president if he won the Democratic nomination and defeated Trump in November," Stein reported. "Many of the proposals Sanders has floated on the campaign trail do not have support from congressional Republicans and are opposed by some Democrats, so a willingness to move forward without congressional approval could determine whether many of his policies are enacted."

According to Stein, Sanders is currently in the process of reviewing the list of executive orders but has not yet approved its official release.

"We cannot accept delays from Congress on some of the most pressing issues, especially those like immigration where Trump has governed with racism and for his own corrupt benefit," states the internal campaign document, according to the Post.

As Stein noted on Twitter, more than a dozen of the potential executive orders focus on reversing Trump's inhumane immigration policies as well as confronting longstanding problems with the U.S. immigration system, such as private detention facilities.

On immigration, Sanders internal list of potential EOs includes:

- Reinstate DACA, TPS

- Immediately end construction of "racist" border wall

- Rescind public charge rule

- Direct DHS to halt ICE raids

- Lift Trump's cap on refugees

- Ban private prisonshttps://t.co/8pSYOLJddD

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) January 30, 2020

News of the list of potential executive orders comes just days ahead of the Iowa caucuses on February 3—Monday. As Common Dreams reported, two recent polls showed Sanders leading the Democratic primary field in Iowa as he continues to gain momentum in other key states and nationally.

Mike Casca, a spokesperson for the Sanders campaign, declined the Post's request to comment on the potential executive orders, saying, "We're focused on organizing a huge voter turnout in Iowa on Monday."

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.

Government Debts as Class Swindles

The same politicians who facilitate tax reductions for banks, big corporations, and the wealthiest individuals likewise then facilitate government borrowing money from them.

The organization and manipulation of government debts (to finance budget deficits and development projects) have been core components of world capitalism’s real history for centuries. (Photo: Juan Barahona / Flickr)

by Richard Wolff 

In modern capitalism, governments routinely borrow money. They do this to finance budget deficits that occur when governments raise less in taxes than they spend. Governments also borrow to invest in long-term projects of economic development. The swindling occurs when the lenders and borrowers—usually private financiers and career politicians—negotiate loans that serve their own particular interests at the expense of the taxpayers who eventually cover the costs of repaying the government’s loans plus interest on them.

If governments raised enough taxes to cover their desired levels of spending, they would not need to borrow. Taxes imposed on the wealthiest corporations and individuals would be the most equitable strategy. The corporate wealthy protest, of course, threatening that if taxed, they might reduce their contributions to the economy (investing less, etc.). Most government politicians sympathize with those protests. Many come from the ranks of the wealthiest corporations and individuals (or aspire to join them). They share similar ideologies and depend on campaign donations from them. Compliant politicians typically exaggerate the negative aspects of taxing corporations and the rich. They rarely compare them to the negative effects of the alternatives: taxing middle and lower income people more or cutting government spending. 

Government borrowing to cover budget deficits has its own negative effects on the economy. Many variables influence the impacts of taxes and deficit borrowing. Because those variables’ effects cannot be known or measured for years into the future, no one can know which is better or worse for the economy in the long run. When the corporate rich and their political allies stress the negative effects of taxes on the rich they usually carefully neglect the other side of the story as when advertisers mention only the positive side of whatever they are paid to promote. Their goals are simply more profits and less taxes. 

The class swindle embedded in government borrowing is the none-too-subtle mechanism whereby the richest sectors of modern capitalism avoid or replace taxes levied on them with interest-bearing loans to the same government.

The class swindle goes deeper than one-sided untruths about taxes. This becomes clear when we identify who lends to borrowing governments. Banks, big corporations, the 5% wealthiest individuals and other governments are the chief lenders. They are the same economic groups (excepting foreign governments) that press for and get tax cuts such as the Trump/GOP tax reduction of December 2017. That particular tax cut increased the federal budget deficit to over $ 1 trillion in 2019. The same politicians who facilitate tax reductions for banks, big corporations, and the wealthiest individuals likewise then facilitate government borrowing money from them. 

The class swindle embedded in government borrowing is the none-too-subtle mechanism whereby the richest sectors of modern capitalism avoid or replace taxes levied on them with interest-bearing loans to the same government. What a deal for the rich who thus exchange taxes (assets lost) for loans (assets and income gained)! And what a deal for their political servants: leaders who can spend more to buy votes and secure donations without having to tax anybody because they can borrow instead. And by the time the mass of taxpayers watching all this grasps the swindle perpetrated on them, those leaders have moved up their political ladders. Their replacements will then respond to popular anger by ostentatiously raising taxes less or maybe even cutting them in favor of, yet again, borrowing. As this can gets kicked down the road, its explosive potential builds.

Deficit finance—the polite veneer for this swindle—deepens inequality in the United States and everywhere else it is practiced. It redistributes wealth from the mass of people (taxpayers) to the richest who “save” by means of lower taxes and then “invest” those “savings” in government loans. In transferring money from the many to a few, deficit finance operates like a lottery. 

A different but parallel sort of swindle occurs when governments, especially in “emerging economies” (Asia, Africa, Latin America, and so on), borrow from banks and other lenders in the “advanced industrial economies.” Here the perpetrators are, on the one side, bankers and other lenders eager to make profitable loans to foreign governments. On the other side are government politicians eager to borrow. The latters’ eagerness flows from two sources. The first is the need to secure their political careers by funding economic development projects that could not otherwise occur because those politicians fear the electoral results of using taxes to pay for the projects. The second is their ability to divert, legally or otherwise, sizable portions of the loans they procure to finance themselves and their parties in addition to (or even instead of) their development projects. 

These lenders and borrowers gather easily in expensive hotels to negotiate wondrous “development loans” nicely serving both their needs. The loans are backed, of course, by the borrowing country’s ability to tax its citizens and/or sell its natural resources and/or sell its government operations to pay off the loans and the interest on them. Given such loans’ high profitability, they can and often do run for years before outraged local citizens revolt and refuse to keep paying. Then the country declares bankruptcy amid threats and lamentations on all sides. Eventually, what remains of the loan is partly or wholly forgiven. No problem: the lenders’ profits were already reaped, the career benefits achieved. Soon the whole process begins again. 

The organization and manipulation of government debts (to finance budget deficits and development projects) have been core components of world capitalism’s real history for centuries. The system fosters those swindles. The system also rejects or ignores the critics of those swindles including Modern Monetary Theorists, Marxists, and “populists” of varying persuasions. Change comes when finally the swindle’s critics and its victims merge to end it.

Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a visiting professor in the graduate program in international affairs of the New School University, New York City. Richard also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. His books include: Capitalism's Crisis Deepens: Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown(2016); Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism (2012); Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism(2012); Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (2012); and Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It (2009). A full archive of Richard's work, including videos and podcasts, can be found on his site. Follow him on Twitter: @profwolff

New Study Details Overlooked Link Between Climate Breakdown and Violence Against Women

Women are often the "first to be targeted" when environmental shocks threaten natural resources, international conservation group says.

by

Julia Conley, staff writer 

 

Published on

Wednesday, January 29, 2020 

by

Common Dreams

Women work in a field in Uganda. (Photo: Maggie Roth for IUCN)

Climate action leaders have warned for years that marginalized frontline communities in poor countries are already facing the most destructive impacts of the climate crisis, and a new study confirms those fears, detailing how women in those regions are at greater risk for violence and abuse as the environment is degraded.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its study (pdf) on Wednesday after conducting more than 80 case studies and speaking to more than 300 sources over the course of a two-year project.

"This study shows that the damage humanity is inflicting on nature is also fueling violence against women around the world—a link that has so far been largely overlooked."
—Grethel Aguilar, IUCN"This study adds to the urgency of halting environmental degradation alongside action to stop gender-based violence in all its forms, and demonstrates that the two issues often need to be addressed together," said Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCN's acting director-general.

The study is the largest and most comprehensive to ever examine the gender-specific effects of the climate crisis, IUCN says.

Of the more than 300 responses IUCN compiled from international organizations working in developing countries, six in 10 respondents said they had observed gender-based violence directed at female environmental defenders, climate refugees and migrants, and an increase in such violence in areas where the climate crisis and global heating has put a strain on resources.

Abuses the organizations uncovered include child marriage and forced marriage, forced prostitution, sexual violence and assault, and human trafficking.

"As environmental degradation and stress on ecosystems increases, that in turn creates scarcity and stress for people, and the evidence shows that, where environmental pressures increase, gender-based violence increases," said Cate Owren, lead author of the report.

The publication was praised by women's rights advocates on social media.

"The fight against the climate crisis will have far more of an impact if represented by those most affected," tweeted the British Women's Equality Party.

One more illustration of the need to consider impact on #gender upfront in any policy.

Climate breakdown 'is increasing violence against women' https://t.co/uGptdlcGXf

— Melinda Simmons (@MelSimmonsFCO) January 29, 2020

The correlation between increasing #environmental stresses and #genderviolence highlights the imminent need to elect gender equal administrations. The fight against the #climatecrisis will have far more of an impact if represented by those most affected.https://t.co/bo3At6DTj8

— WomensEqualityUK (@WEP_UK) January 29, 2020

The study found that both human trafficking and forced child marriage are becoming increasingly common in places where chronic drought, flooding, and heatwaves have caused crop yields to suffer and brought on a scarcity of resources.

"When families struggle to meet basic needs, marrying off young daughters is seen as a way to lighten financial burdens," the report reads. "There is growing concern around reports of an increase in child marriage associated with conflict and natural disasters and environmental shocks."

According to The Guardian, about 12 million more young girls are believed to have been married off after extreme weather events increased, while human trafficking increases by 20 to 30% after weather disasters.

"In most parts of the world, women are already disadvantaged and lack land rights and legal rights, so are vulnerable to exploitation," wrote Fiona Harvey in The Guardian. "When the additional stresses caused by the climate crises bite, they are the first to be targeted."

"Environmental crimes degrade ecosystems, and also often bring new, worsening patterns of violence against women, minorities, and marginalized communities."
—Jenny Springer, IUCN

The destruction of the environment by extractive industries has significant effects on women's safety, as an influx of male miners, construction workers, and security guards is linked to an increase in gender-based and sexual violence, often with Indigenous women as targets.

"Mining areas, many of which are in Indigenous territories, have seen heavy military presence, resulting in various human rights violations, such as torture, psychological disturbance, destruction and divestment of properties (livestock and crops), as well as violence against women, including rape," reads the study in a section about the Mindanao region of the Philippines.

Sexual violence is also used to suppress women who attempt to defend their homes and environments from extractive industries, and to intimidate others who may come forward in protest.

"Environmental crimes degrade ecosystems, and also often bring new, worsening patterns of violence against women, minorities, and marginalized communities," said Jenny Springer, director of IUCN's global program on governance and rights. "Many Indigenous women in particular face gender-based and other violence as their communities act to defend their territories, resources and rights from such illegal activities."

Since women in many parts of the world are responsible for gathering water and provisions for their families, they are often at an increasingly greater risk for gender-based violence as they have to travel farther from home, as resources shrink.

IUCN surveyed the Danish Refugee Council, which conducted a study at Doro Refugee Camp in South Sudan regarding dangers faced by residents there. Women in the study identified collecting firewood outside the camp as the biggest risk they regularly took.

"Food insecurity and the lack of firewood forces women and girls to go outside of the camps to collect firewood despite the risks of suffering violence by militias, private forest owners, rangers or other unknown perpetrators," the report reads.  "Many...survey respondents also raised these concerns as one of the major threats in refugee camps as related to emergency responses and protracted crises."

IUCN's study was released a day after CARE International published its report "Suffering in Silence," showing how the climate crisis has exacerbated conflicts and economic and political instability across Africa, making the continent home to nine of the 10 most-overlooked humanitarian crises in the world.

"Environmental degradation now affects our lives in ways that are becoming impossible to ignore, from food to jobs to security," said Aguilar. "This study shows that the damage humanity is inflicting on nature is also fueling violence against women around the world—a link that has so far been largely overlooked."

'Get out of the country!' Mormons massacred by Mexican cartel face backlash from president’s supporters.

After a deadly November attack, Mormons who have spoken out against Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have drawn the ire of his backers

NOT LDS MORMONS BUT HERETICS, APOSTATES, POLYGAMISTS KICKED OUT OF UTAH

Supporters of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shout slogans at people participating in a march for peace in Mexico City, on January 26, 2020. - The march for peace, led by Mexican poet and activist Javier Sicilia and Mormon activist Julian LeBaron, reached the National Palace at Zocalo square to demand the government to modify its anti-crime strategy amid the wave of violent crimes that shakes Mexico.PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

Reuters and National Post Staff January 27, 2020

They were the focus of global sympathy in the wake of a deadly November attack that saw many family members killed. Now, though, Mexico’s Mormon community is coming under pressure from supporters of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who accuse them of backing his enemies.

November’s gangland attack on a remote stretch of road in northern Sonora state killed three mothers and six children from the LeBaron and Langford families, who settled in the region decades ago. Their vehicles came under heavy gunfire and were torched, with security experts saying evidence suggests the massacre was carried out by a Juarez Cartel faction known as La Linea, and may have a been a case of mistaken identity. Factions of the Sinaloa and Juarez armed groups fight over lucrative cross-border smuggling routes in the area in question.

In the attack’s aftermath, many local Mormons fled back to the U.S., unconvinced that Mexican authorities could guarantee their safety. Others, though, stayed and became vocal critics of both the cartels and Lopez Obrador, who is under increasing pressure amidst a surge in nationwide violence. On Sunday, the AP reported that a pilgrimage by relatives of murdered Mexicans, led in part by Mormon families, was accosted by backers of the president, who loudly heckled marchers.

Mormons Julian (L) and Adrian LeBaron, relatives of victims of an ambush in northern Mexico in November, take part in a march for peace and honour Mackenzie, a girl who survived another massacre in which three women and six children were killed, by taking off a shoe, in Mexico City, on January 26, 2020. PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

“Leave the country!” they shouted at the Mormon contingent of the Caravan for Truth, Justice and Peace. The caravan had intended to leave a letter for Lopez Obrador at the National Palace in Mexico City. Instead, his supporters accused caravan members of being in the pocket of the president’s opponents.

The AP reported that near Zocalo plaza, in the city centre, hundreds of Lopez Obrador supporters shouted at the peaceful protestors: “It’s an honour to be with Obrador” and “Get out!”

Among the marchers was Adrián LeBaron, whose daughter perished in the attack, as did four of his grandchildren. In recent months LeBaron and a handful of Mormons have become strident critics of government policy. Julian LeBaron, Adrián’s cousin, told the Guardian recently that the Mormons who dared to remain feel a degree of protection because of their links to the U.S. Nearly all of the family members are both U.S. and Mexican citizens, meaning they can easily travel, or relocate, between both countries.

However, the family’s critics have now apparently grown tired of their increasingly outspoken views, which — as dual citizens with freedom of movement — come from a position of relative privilege.

Female cartel boss known as 'Dame of Death' killed in shootout with Mexican state forces

Massacred American family may have been 'bait' in Mexican drug cartel fight, relatives fear

Twenty dead, including four cops, as Mexican cartel riding in skull-decorated trucks attacks town  

 

A supporter of Mexican Oresident Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shouts slogans at people participating in a march for peace in Mexico City, on January 26, 2020. 

PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

“We have dual citizenship. We have the protection of the FBI and Donald Trump’s tweets that scare the bejesus out of some people. Who the hell else is going to say something?” LeBaron told the Guardian. In the aftermath of the Mormon killings, Trump had tweeted that it was time to declare war on the drug cartels.

“They kill four women yesterday in Ciudad Juárez and tomorrow it’s not going to be news. (But) they killed three women and some kids from our family and it’s international news,” LeBaron said.

Earlier this month, Lopez Obrador pledged that those behind the massacre will be punished and that the truth surrounding the crime will eventually come out. But his fledgling administration has floundered amidst a renewed cartel bloodbath.

Mexico suffered its worst year for homicides in 2019, with a record 34,582 victims, official data shows, underscoring the challenge Lopez Obrador faces. He assumed the presidency in December 2018 pledging to pacify the country with a less confrontational approach to security, but violence has continued rising, with the number of homicide victims 2.5 per cent higher in 2019 than a year earlier, according to the security ministry data.

Adrian LeBaron (4-R), father of Rhonita Miller -one of the nine Mormon victims of an ambush the past November- speaks during a gathering after a march for peace at Zocalo square in Mexico City, on January 26, 2020. 

PEDRO PARDO/AFP via Getty Images

Mexico has used its military in a war on drug cartels since late 2006. But, despite the arrest or killing of leading capos, the campaign has not succeeded in reducing drug violence and has led to more killings as criminal groups fight among themselves. Already, Lopez Obrador has seen several spectacular security setbacks play out on his watch.

In a speech before extended Mormon family members near the U.S. border earlier this month, Lopez Obrador promised to keep relatives appraised of the investigation into the ambush.

“There will be justice,” he declared, addressing the small crowd from an outdoor stage set against the rugged mountains that surround the town of La Mora, home to the victims.

Lopez Obrador said the investigation was making progress, but did not give details. Earlier in the day, he met privately with relatives of the victims for about an hour, after traveling nearly four hours by car to the town.

Hundreds of mourners gather for the burial of a mother, her months-old twins and two other children on the fringes of a township founded by breakaway Mormons in Mexico, in a second funeral for the victims of a brazen armed ambush https://t.co/LPZBpNMozM pic.twitter.com/BI7WnSEqhg— Reuters India (@ReutersIndia) November 9, 2019

Founded

La Mora, like other northern Mexican settlements where relatives of the large families live, was founded decades ago by breakaway Mormon leaders who fled the U.S. seeking a safe haven for their polygamist beliefs. Lopez Obrador was warmly received during his visit.

“Thank you for being here at such a painful time,” said Margaret Langford in brief remarks in Spanish, describing her family as broken.

“I love this country,” she added, “and it hurts me to my soul that I can’t live here.”

Langford recently left La Mora, like many other relatives who have fled. Loretta Miller, grandmother to four of the children killed, estimates that 80 per cent of her brothers — and sisters-in-law and their families have left and do not plan to ever return.

Mexican authorities has so far arrested seven suspects in the case. At least two other arrests of suspects linked to La Linea have been made in the U.S., but it is unclear if they are connected to the massacre.

Two months after tragedy struck, beefed-up security has helped calm the holdout residents. Today, roads in and around La Mora are patrolled by hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers, helicopters buzzing overhead. But with only a few families staying put, at least one village is being hollowed out, with homes lying vacant. The ambush left a once-strong faith deeply shaken in the picturesque hamlets the families have called home for generations.

“La Mora will never be the same,” said 27-year-old Kendra Miller, whose brother Howard lost his wife Rhonita and their four children in the attack. “There are families that will come back to visit, but they’re not going to live here again because they don’t feel safe.”

Some locals complain that the police presence before November’s attack was almost non-existent, but since then army soldiers and National Guard troops have flooded in, along with FBI and Mexican investigators.

Members of the Lebaron family watch the burned car where some of the nine murdered members of the family were killed during an ambush in Bavispe, Sonora mountains, Mexico, on November 5, 2019. HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images

The large families that have populated this part of northern Mexico, nestled among rolling hills and gurgling rivers, stem from breakaway Mormon communities that began fleeing the U.S. more than a century ago in search of safe havens for their polygamist beliefs.

They built ranch-style homes with orchards where the young children of growing families could ride their bikes and play all day outside.

Like Miller, many wax nostalgic about care-free childhoods, even if their own kids might be raised elsewhere.

“I was set to get married one week after the massacre,” she said, “and now my fiance wants us to live in the United States.”  

 

Members of the LeBaron family watch the burned car in which some of the nine murdered members of the family were killed during an ambush in Bavispe, Sonora mountains, Mexico, on November 5, 2019. HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images

On an impromptu tour of the area, Miller points out the many homes that sit eerily empty, once tidy gardens overrun with weeds.

Other family members describe how kids suffer from recurring nightmares, and those relatives who have left fear coming back.

While they are a distinct minority, there are those among the families who argue against leaving.

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mateo Langford, whose sister was killed in the attack.

“Bad things happen in every corner of the world, including in the United States. We just can’t run away,” he said.

As he sorted pecans from last year’s harvest, Mateo’s brother Steve Langford, whose sister Christine was killed, said he will stay put as well. He said his immediate plans are to help his cousin David with the harvest, and try to convince him to stay too.

David lost his wife Dawna and two of their children in the attack.

Another remains hospitalized with a gun shot wound to the jaw.

“I’ll never leave here,” said Langford.