The battle against ‘authoritarian’ Trumpism may not end with Trump’s presidency

December 18, 2020 By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Proud Boys rally in Washington, DC (screengrab).

The Lincoln Project and other Never Trump conservatives were hoping that the 2020 election would bring a blue tsunami so massive that Trumpism would be repudiated across the board, but it didn’t work out that way. Although President-elect Joe Biden enjoyed a decisive victory — winning 306 electoral votes and defeating Trump by more than 7 million in the popular vote — the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives will be smaller in 2021. And it remains to be seen whether Democrats or Republicans will be the majority in the U.S. Senate in 2021. Moreover, Trump’s MAGA base is still fired up. Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, discusses the future of Trumpism in an op-ed published by the Washington Post this week — and he warns that the battle against Trumpism will not end when Trump leaves the White House on January 20.

“While President Trump will leave office as a failed, one-term president, the fight against Trumpism is just beginning,” Galen explains. “A year ago, The Lincoln Project launched with two stated goals. First, Defeat Donald Trump at the ballot box. Second, ensure Trumpism failed alongside him. We are proud to have been a part of the broad and deep coalition that helped elect Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris to the White House. Trumpism, however, is far from extinction.”

Galen adds that since the election, “much of the Republican Party” has decided to “turn fully against American democracy” and keep Trump in the White House even though he clearly lost the election.

“Trump’s allies and abettors, including more than 100 lawmakers and 18 Republican state attorneys general, tried to poison our political system in the service of a personality cult,” Galen writes. “Theirs is a veneration driven not by high ideals but by fear, resentment and a transparent desire to maintain power for its own sake. Even now, many Republicans in Congress continue to try, by ludicrous and quixotic means, to overturn the will of more than 80 million voters. This week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) privately warned Republicans not to disrupt the official opening of electoral votes on January 6.”

Trumpism, Galen laments, is alive and well “despite Biden’s clear and overwhelming victory”—and that was evident when the Proud Boys recently “rampaged in Downtown Washington, reminding us that violence is their next iteration.”

“Trump’s camp followers, such as Stephen K. Bannon, Alex Jones, Fox News, OAN, Newsmax and many others, will not stop actively injecting disinformation into the country’s air supply,” Galen stresses. “They are highly skilled, and we must not underestimate their ability to pull us apart and keep us divided. Trump’s helpmates have called for honorable public officials to be beheaded, drawn and quartered and taken outside to be shot. They are living proof of what former President Ronald Reagan said: ‘Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

A wide variety of Trump critics rallied around Biden this year, from veteran conservatives like George Will, Carly Fiorina, Bill Kristol, Mona Charen and Cindy McCain to self-described “democratic socialists” like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — all of whom agreed that Trump’s presidency has been a disaster. And Galen wraps up his op-ed by emphasizing that in 2021, Democrats and Never Trumpers will need to join forces and remain vigilant against Trumpism, policy differences and all.

“Those of us who voted for Biden and Harris must remember that our coalition is our best offense and defense,” Galen writes. “Though we will not agree on everything, we must march forward together against the forces of authoritarianism.”

MAGA leaders call for the troops to keep Trump in office

A growing call to invoke the Insurrection Act shows how hard-edged MAGA ideology has become in the wake of Trump’s election loss.



The Insurrection Act has gained popularity among the far-right fringes, mainly as a way for President Donald Trump to solve all their problems. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images


By TINA NGUYEN

12/18/2020

An 1807 law invoked only in the most violent circumstances is now a rallying cry for the MAGA-ites most committed to the fantasy that Donald Trump will never leave office.

The law, the Insurrection Act, allows the president to deploy troops to suppress domestic uprisings — not to overturn elections.

But that hasn’t stopped the act from becoming a buzzword and cure-all for prominent MAGA figures like Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, two prominent pro-Trump attorneys leading efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and even one North Carolina state lawmaker. Others like Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser who was recently pardoned for lying to the FBI, have made adjacent calls for Trump to impose martial law. The ideas have circulated in pro-Trump outlets and were being discussed over the weekend among the thousands of MAGA protesters who descended on state capitols and the Supreme Court to falsely claim Trump had won the election.

At its core, the Insurrection Act gives the president authority to send military and National Guard troops to quell local rebellions and violence, offering an exemption to prohibitions against using military personnel to enforce domestic laws. Historically, it has been used in moments of extreme national strife — the Civil War, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, violent labor disputes, desegregation battles, rioting following Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.

Only once, however, has it been used in the wake of an election — and that was to stop a literal militia from seizing the Louisiana government on behalf of John McEnery, a former Confederate officer who had lost the 1872 governor’s race.

Nonetheless, in the minds of some authoritarian-leaning and conspiracy-minded Trump supporters, the Insurrection Act has become a needed step to prevent President-elect Joe Biden from assuming the presidency. Their evidence-deficient reasoning: Democrats illegally rigged the election and are attempting a coup, and Trump must send in the troops to undo this conspiracy.

The conviction shows how hard-edged MAGA ideology has become in the wake of Trump’s election loss. While scattered theories about a “deep state” arrayed against Trump have long circulated in MAGA circles, calls for troops to stop a democratically elected president from taking office have taken those ideas to a more conspiratorial and militaristic level. It also displays the exalted level to which Trump has been elevated among his most zealous fans as his departure looms.

MAGA-world may resist the vaccine, but it still wants Trump to get credit

“The central theme here is that there supposedly exists a network of nefarious actors trying to undermine Trump and destroy the United States, and that this is a tool that Trump could use to save the day,” said Jared Holt, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, who focuses on far-right extremism


The Insurrection Act has been rarely invoked since the civil unrest of the 1960s — the last time was to quell violence during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. And when it has been used over that period, it was always at the request of a state governor.

But over the past several years, it has gained popularity among the far-right fringes, mainly as a way for Trump to solve all their problems, from expelling undocumented migrants, to arresting generals and other “deep state” actors for allegedly plotting coups against Trump.

The idea has also become intertwined with the QAnon movement, the far-reaching and baseless conspiracy that Trump is secretly working to disrupt a cabal of pedophiliac, sex trafficking Democrats and global elite.

In May, a Q-drop — the name for the mysterious missives allegedly from a person at the center of the QAnon movement — floated the Insurrection Act for the first time as a way to solve “growing unrest” after George Floyd was killed by Minnesota police. “Call the ball,” Q said mysteriously.

Then, in June, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton brought the idea of the Insurrection Act into the national dialogue with a New York Times op-ed that called on Trump to invoke the law in response to rioting that was occurring amid largely peaceful protests over racial justice. Trump himself leaned into the idea, suggesting to a rally audience that he would use the act to put down “leftist thugs” protesting that summer.

From there, the Insurrection Act became a quick fix to everything among the more extreme MAGA figures.

Trump ally and convicted political operative Roger Stone brought it up on Infowars as a way for Trump to combat anything from coups to protests to election fraud.

“The president's authority is the Insurrection Act and his ability to declare martial law,” he told host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Stone added that Trump could also use the law to arrest anyone from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for election interference, to Democratic power couple Bill and Hillary Clinton — an interpretation that legal experts say strains credulity.

Jimmy Gurulé, a former Justice Department prosecutor now teaching at Notre Dame Law School, called the argument tenuous. While the Insurrection Act can be legally invoked as a response to a “conspiracy” that hinders people’s rights, there must actually be a conspiracy to justify sending in federal troops over the objection of local and state officials.

“I think that the key here is, 'Well, what the hell is that conspiracy?’” he said. “No one can articulate the participants in the conspiracy, the scope of the conspiracy, the object of the conspiracy. It’s all over the place.”

Still, Trump himself seemed keen to the idea, telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro that he would “put down [anti-Trump protests] very quickly” if they broke out after the election: “Look, it's called insurrection. We just send in and we do it very easy.”

Further out on the MAGA fringe, Trump supporters suggested the president jump the gun and simply arrest everyone — before the election.

And now, with the Electoral College confirming Biden’s win, recounts failing to change the results and courts at every level swatting down lawsuits challenging the outcome, some MAGA figures have latched on to the specific Insurrection Act clause granting the president authority to use the military to quash a “rebellion against the authority of the United States.” In their strained interpretation, the clause gives Trump the power to go after the Democrats and deep state actors conspiring to remove him from office. It’s a reading of the law experts immediately rejected.

“When you're talking about a group of conspiracy theorists, and others who lack any kind of legal knowledge, they'll just pull that arrow out of their quiver when the rest don’t work,” said Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

It seems nearly impossible Trump would actually invoke the law in this manner. But that hasn’t stopped prominent Trump supporters like Wood, one of the lawyers pushing unsubstantiated lawsuits through the courts, from suggesting Trump send the military into Georgia to break up a meeting of electors

And over the weekend, after the Supreme Court rejected a Trump-boosted lawsuit from Texas asking to overturn the election results in four other swing states, MAGA supporters took to the streets to demand, among other things, that Trump use the Insurrection Act to force an election do-over, or at the very least, stop Biden from taking office.

The Epoch Times itself ran an editorial on Monday arguing that it was time for Trump to invoke the act and send in the military to seize thousands of voting machines in order to find fraud: “Our system is in crisis. Trump would act to restore the rule of law.”

Gurulé, the former DOJ prosecutor, pointed out that even if Trump tried to invoke the Insurrection Act, there really is nothing for the military to suppress.

“I guess it’d be a voting fraud conspiracy, but how is the military going to suppress that?” he said. “By what, seizing all the ballots? By seizing all the voting machines? By then, what are they going to do, conduct the votes? It just doesn't make sense.”

The point, however, might just be to have the Insurrection Act as a talking point to keep the MAGA movement motivated. And Levin, the extremism researcher, feared a darker path if Trump — a man who already speaks in militaristic terms on a regular basis — continued to goad his base into thinking a Biden presidency is an insurrection.

“What is the heart of the Second Amendment, pro-militia, anti-government patriot movement? It's the insurrectionist theory of the Second Amendment,” he said. “It says people can rise up against a tyrannical government. To me, this looks like the last exit on the Jersey Turnpike before we get to that spot.”

‘Sadistic and amoral’: Mental health expert performs postmortem on the ‘pathological’ Trump presidency



 December 18, 2020 By Seth D. Norrholm


Unprecedented. Unhinged. Unbelievable. All of these terms have been used to describe the publicly observed and documented behavior of the 45th President of the United States, most notably over the 5 weeks since he lost the election to Joe Biden. After many of us have had time to process and digest the immediate reactions, thoughts, and feelings to Trump’s loss, there will be decades spent in classrooms, lecture halls, conference centers, books, OpEds, Zoom calls, and documentaries to unpack what we all just witnessed and experienced.

Casually, Trump has been given the usual labels that are associated with his oftentimes bizarre behavior – pundits routinely referred to the sitting U.S. President as “crazy,” “nuts,” or “out of his mind.” There has been much debate and discussion about Trump’s possible psychiatric diagnoses as they relate to the Goldwater Rule and the Duty to Warn placed upon mental health providers whose clients reveal harmful, malicious, or violent intentions. Diagnoses are labels often used to facilitate discussion between mental health researchers and clinicians and for billing purposes. A specific diagnostic category is the result of hours of meetings and discussions among mental health experts who then publish their classifications in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or DSM.

We do not need to pin a label or diagnosis on Donald Trump.

We can be clear, Donald Trump likely meets criteria for multiple psychopathologies and disordered personality types.

Experts and laymen alike can argue over which ones specifically and the degree to which his abnormal behavior is psychological, neurological/medical, or intentional in origin.

What we all can agree on is that he is out of touch with reality and dangerous.

Trump’s behavior since he lost to Biden has placed his psychopathology and disordered personality at center stage nearly every day since Election Day.

There are several main themes of Trump’s behavior that are consistent with, and likely reflections of, antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, psychopathy, Machiavellianism (see Dark Triad literature), sociopathy, sadism, and authoritarianism.

General Impressions – Trump is a 74-year old man who, based on thousands of pieces of audio, video, and written evidence, is not a complex individual. His thought process, written and speaking skills, and vocabulary are limited, immature, and concrete in nature. He often uses terms like “powerful” and “beautiful” for items and ideas that are abstract and not physically present. The content of his hundreds of rallies did not change substantively and were quite repetitive to the point of becoming overly trite. His emotional range is limited and largely “flat” with excitations seen in the form of anger, rage, and combativeness with positive emotions, as evidenced by laughing or smiling, in situations in which it is not appropriate (incongruent), sadistic, or as a result of narcissistic supply (i.e., someone has paid him a compliment or he is on a rally stage). In fact, it is in response to crowd chants such as “We love you!,” “Four more years,” and “Fight for Trump” that we see the biggest grins on Trump – in a manner very much akin to taking a drug “hit.”

Grandiosity – Trump has routinely and chronically displayed grandiosity or the sense that he is superior, special, and without equal. His most commonly used phrases show this grandiosity: “the likes of which you’ve never seen,” “[never/for the first time] in history,” “more than anyone thought possible.” Trump uses this type of language so often that it becomes meaningless and it lacks any specificity or substance. The claims are so vague that they are, as many reporters have noted, exceedingly difficult to debate.

Mendacity/Lying – Donald Trump has told over 20,000 lies since taking office in January of 2017 with PolitiFact recently naming the President’s lies about the deadly coronavirus (e.g., “we are rounding the corner on pandemic”) as the “lie of the year.” The sheer volume of lies, from little white lies to those with deadly consequences, shared by this President is enough to disorient and confuse the public. But, in general, these lies serve the purpose of creating and maintaining Trump’s narcissistic fantasyland. To be clear, while some are strategic and some are pathological, they are uttered in an in-the-moment-effort by Trump to “win” the moment, escape being cornered or exposed. As to whether he believes them or not, it depends on the circumstances. He only needs the slightest possibility of truth (i.e., that he was the victim of a deep state conspiracy) for the lie to soothe his fragile and often injured ego. Terrifyingly, most of the lies are not only untrue but the exact opposite of the truth. For example, we have had a 9/11’s worth of deaths daily for over a week; a statistic nowhere near “rounding the corner.”

Ego Protection/Delusion/False Narrative/Alternate Reality – The inability to admit mistakes or flaws is not mutually exclusive from the aforementioned lying as the two behaviors are interrelated. In this disordered personality, there can be no flaws and, as such, one’s followers, colleagues, and the public should never see flaws, ever. This strict “code” explains why Trump will add the word “and” or “or” in between a misspoken word or phrase and the correct one. During his first State of the Union, for example, Trump referred to a member of our Homeland Security force as “DJ” before adding “He goes by DJ. And CJ. He said call me either one.” In recent rallies, Trump has referred to new missiles that are both “hydrosonic and hypersonic.”

Appearing as without flaw also underlies Trump’s curtailing of any legal or public process that would expose him as a fraud. This has manifested itself in the form of hush money payments, non-disclosure agreements, ignored subpoenas, repeated civil litigation, and even a Sharpie-altered weather map to change the course of a hurricane.

One mechanism to appear flawless is to seek and obtain constant adulation and reinforcement. Sycophantic enablers will often bring laudatory news clippings or severely skewed statistics to shine a positive light on this President. For example, after the election of Joe Biden, Trump and his team relied on GOP primary numbers (during which he ran unopposed) and record-breaking voter numbers (“74,000,000;” “More votes than any sitting President in history”) without mentioning the other guy got 81,000,000+ votes.

In other words, somebody in his orbit puts together statistics, not matter how meaningless, to soothe him.

Trump will also “self-soothe” when he perceives ego injury. If you noticed during one of his post-Election speeches, he repeated some form of the phrase “can’t let it happen” “can’t accept it” at one point saying “you’ll never be able to look yourself in the mirror.” All of these statements were made to his audience members, but it doesn’t take an advanced degree in psychology to know to whom he was speaking.

This President has also used merging or conflation to protect his ego from injury. He repeatedly synonymized himself with America, patriotism, and the flag. By attaching himself to these terms and objects (in some cases actually hugging the flag), Trump can use attacks or criticisms of him the person as attacks on America, its flag, or its heroes. In a recent rally, he said that two Georgia Senate seats were “the last line of defense for America” but in many ways those seats represented a last defense for him.

Lastly, he will immerse himself in echo chambers, yes-men, and “safe zones” such as on for Fox News (as long as they are pro-Trump), OAN, or Newsmax with help from “friends” Hannity, Ingraham, Carlson, Pirro, Watters, Hesgeth, and others.

Projection – this is one of the most commonly discussed ego defense mechanism in psychology and psychodynamics and it is, simply put, accusing others of that which you are guilty. In the five weeks since Election Day, Trump has called Democrats “radical” when he was in fact pushing an illegal, extra-Constitutional overturning of an election adding that Democrats will “do anything to win,” “they’ll do anything to beat you. They don’t care. These people are sick. In addition, he recently claimed that “Democrats are vicious,” “Republicans are too nice,” and “the Democrats cheat at elections.”

Lack of Blame, Responsibility, Accountability – Again, the appearance of existing without flaw also requires Trump to deny any direct responsibility or accountability for the negative aspects of his behavior. In short, he takes no responsibility for failures (“Election was rigged”) and all responsibility for successes (“we got vaccine done in record time”). After initially claiming that the virus was a “Democrat hoax,” Trump went on to deflect responsibility for its raging outbreak and massive death in America by referring to it as a “freak” event that “should never have happened” as if it was an unexpected weather event with Pearl Harbor element of surprise. Trump’s own discussions with Bob Woodward show a completely different story.

Lack of Empathy/Cruelty/Sadism/Sociopathy – Trump is the first President in decades to intentionally place others in harm’s way with no remorse or foresight. This was seen in his stalwart belief that cities and states “should open up” despite spiraling infections and deaths; a policy recently revealed by one his appointees as “We want them infected.” This President consistently showed himself to be the President for his supporters and not for all Americans. He demonized others and used racism as a “currency” with which to engage his base. He mocked non-English speaking voters, the disabled, and those who showed public emotion (“Cryin’ Chuck Schumer”). In a combination of moves, he called COVID-19 the “China virus,” and something “that hit from China,” and, as such, shifting blame and using racist currency.

As an antisocial individual with no empathy for others nor a moral compass, Trump expected those loyal to him to break laws, ethics, norms, and precedent FOR him. For example, in his failed attempt to perpetrate a coup, Trump called on the Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia to have “courage to do what they have to do” which in this case was break the law and overturn the will of the voters. For Trump, laws don’t apply to him, checks and balances don’t apply to him, the U.S. system of government that has existed for 2 centuries doesn’t apply to him.

His antisocial, sadistic, and amoral ways were not limited to the living. Trump routinely spoke of the dead as criminals (e.g., dead people who allegedly voted for Democrats) but not as victims of a modern-day plague (e.g., those lost to COVID). Bizarrely, Trump also spoke for the dead – on different occasions he described a recently deceased person as looking down (presumably from heaven) to talk about him (e.g., a campaign staffer killed in car accident was “looking down and is pleased.” The late SEAL Ryan Owens and the murdered George Floyd were also included in Trump’s “heavenly praise.” In other words, Trump’s solipsistic manner (i.e., only Trump’s mind exists), has hijacked the eternal fate of the dead to serve his own ego-driven purposes.

Lastly, all of his relationships with other people are transactional. He uses you until you are no longer of use (for recent examples see William Barr and Georgia Governor Kemp who “should be ashamed of himself” for not overturning the election to Trump; a feat in Trump’s eyes that could be done “very easily if [Kemp] knew what the hell he was doing.”
And, of course, the Ridiculous:

The themes described above fall into general categories that underlie psychopathologies and disordered personality types that share common features and etiology. But this was not the case for all things Trump. In some cases, there were fantastical utterances whose origins and logic lay beyond our understanding. People were accused of wanting “to build buildings with no windows,” to “win back Christmas,” and to save animals and humans alike from the dangers of windmills. There is much to be written. I will stop here.

About the Author: Seth D. Norrholm, PhD (Twitter: @SethN12) is the Scientific Director of the Neuroscience Center for Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Wayne State School of Medicine in Detroit. Dr. Norrholm has spent 20 years studying trauma-, stressor-, anxiety-, depressive-, and substance use-related disorders and has published over 110 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters. The primary objective of his work is to develop “bench-to-bedside” clinical research methods to inform therapeutic interventions for fear and anxiety-related disorders and how they relate to human factors such as personality, genetics, and environmental influences. Dr. Norrholm has been. featured on NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN.com, Politico.com, The Atlantic, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, Yahoo.com, USA Today, WebMD, The History Channel, and Scientific American. In 2019, Dr. Norrholm was recognized as an Expertscape world expert in Fear and Posttraumatic Stress Disorders

Bush ethics lawyer: Trump is an ‘incompetent dictator’ — but a ‘shrewder’ plot might have worked



Published on December 18, 2020
By Chauncey Devega, Salon

Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was (once again) confirmed by the Electoral College on Monday. Congress will meet in early January to certify Biden’s victory, and on Jan. 20 he will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.

Donald Trump has been vanquished — but unfortunately, either does not believe that or refuses to admit it. As some general, somewhere, once observed in a war long forgotten, it is hard to truly defeat an enemy who does not know he has been beaten.

Trump’s coup attempt is on-going. Despite being rejected by state officials and the country’s highest courts, Trump and his agents are continuing their seditious and treasonous attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election — and, in effect, overthrow American democracy. These efforts to stop Biden from becoming president have extended to the use of stochastic terrorism and other provocations, to murmurs about martial law, political violence and a second civil war.

Because Trump yearns to be a neofascist strongman, his campaign to remain in power indefinitely will not stop. Michael D’Antonio, a CNN contributor and author of “The Truth About Trump”, warned Salon about this during a recent phone conversation:

There is no quit in him…. This is the reality that we’re going to face until he becomes disabled or deceased…. The storyline is going to be that there is a pretender in the White House and that Washington is more corrupt than it was when Trump arrived there, and that there needs to be a crusade to restore the leader. This is far from over.

Even after he is forced from office in January, Donald Trump will likely continue to claim that he is America’s “real president” and try to rule in “exile,” ginning up violence and other social upheaval by his political cult leaders and other deplorables. The power of this group of dead-enders to cause mayhem is not to be underestimated: Trump received 74 million votes in this election, 11 million more than in 2016.

The professional centrists and others desperate for a return to “normalcy” in the mainstream news media and the political class continue to downplay the damage already done by Donald Trump’s fascist and authoritarian regime and by the reality of his coup attempt.

Why is that happening? Because the hope-peddlers, stenographers of current events, and other members of the Church of the Savvy are emotionally, financially, cognitively and professionally committed to the fictions of American folk democracy. These include the disproved belief that the American people are fundamentally good, and that fascism is something that only happens “over there.” They are applying an outmoded and obsolete framework that fails to grasp how fascism and authoritarianism have evolved to fit 21st-century society.

Writing at the Atlantic, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explores the problematic terminology of this moment:

Coup may not quite capture what we’re witnessing in the United States right now, but there’s also a danger here: Punditry can tend to focus too much on decorum and terminology, like the overachieving students so many of us once were, conflating the ridiculous with the unserious. The incoherence and incompetence of the attempt do not change its nature, however, nor do those traits allow us to dismiss it or ignore it until it finally fails on account of that incompetence.

Our focus, she continues, should not be “a debate about the proper terminology,” but rather “the frightening substance of what we’re facing”:

If the Republican Party, itself entrenching minority rule on many levels, won’t stand up to Trump’s attempt to steal an election through lying and intimidation with the fury the situation demands; if the Democratic Party’s leadership remains solely focused on preparing for the presidency of Joe Biden rather than talking openly about what’s happening; and if ordinary citizens feel bewildered and disempowered, we may settle the terminological debate in the worst possible way: by accruing enough experience with illegitimate power grabs to evolve a more fine-grained vocabulary.

Act like this is your first coup, if you want to be sure that it’s also your last.

What will the long-term impact of Trump’s coup attempt be on American democracy and the rule of law? Is this attempted coup and abuse of the legal and political system a trial run for more effective and efficient efforts to overturn future elections? Are Trump and his allies guilty of sedition and treason as defined by the Constitution and the law? How should Joe Biden’s administration proceed in terms of investigating or prosecuting Trump and members of his administration?

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Richard Painter, a longtime Republican lawyer who was White House chief ethics counsel under George W. Bush. Painter’s new book, co-authored with Peter Golenbock, is “American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law, and Why Trump is the Worst Offender.”

Painter is a frequent political commentator and analyst on CNN, MSNBC and other news networks. He is also a professor of corporate law at the University of Minnesota

This conversation has been edited, as usual, for clarity and length.

Donald Trump has no respect the rule of law and has engaged in a coup attempt against democracy by trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Even if he fails, the precedent is a threat to the United States and a type of victory for fascism in this country. As an expert on constitutional law, how are you making sense of these events?

The jig is up. Trump is not going to try a real coup. But the message, the warning to the United States, is that we better get our act together pretty damn fast. The next person who follows Trump’s example is going to be much smarter. He’s an incompetent dictator. On Twitter, for example, he is always talking about himself well over half the time. Whereas a real dictator is always talking about “the people.” The next person who has Trump’s aspirations to power may be a lot shrewder, more manipulative and therefore more effective.

Trump is also transparent as a self-centered crybaby. As a country we have to figure out: Do we believe in facts? We can have ideological differences. We can have different preferences and different views on public policy. But we should be able to look at facts and then have an opinion based on roughly the same reality. Of course, there will be some differences of opinion. But are we going to have wild deviations from the truth? If we do, I believe that the United States is going to be very vulnerable to a dictatorship or a successful coup.

There’s all this celebration of the courts and the law and the country’s “institutions” because even Republican judges have dismissed Trump and his allies’ scheme to overturn the 2020 election. That is premature and misguided. They made those decisions not out of principle but out of pragmatism, because Biden won by such a large margin. If the election were closer, I have no doubt that Republican judges from the Supreme Court on down would have sided with Trump against Joe Biden.

What Trump and his attorneys have been trying is so ridiculous that I do not think even the most conservative court would have gone for it. What we are seeing is not a Bush v. Gore situation — and I do not agree with what the court did in Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court should have left it alone. But what Trump is trying with the 2020 election is so far out that you would have had to have Supreme Court justices who were subject to removal by the president, or in fear of the president, for it to have worked.

In a close-call election, however? Yes, they probably would have given the election to Trump and the Republicans. But they were not going to give him the 2020 election. If the country keeps going in this direction, we are going to have someone in the future who is much shrewder than Donald Trump, who gets more respect from the military and the like, who could engineer a coup quite easily. That is my ultimate concern.

Trump’s coup attempt is an effort to overthrow the people’s will in the context of a decades-long extremist push by the Republicans to take total control by ending democracy and replacing it with one-party rule. The Republican Party knows that they cannot win if they allow everyone to vote.

We’re either committed to democracy or we are not. We are committed to one person, one vote, or we are not. But what is happening now is that Trump and the Republicans are just trying to further polarize our society.

There are legal scholars, historians and other political observers who are warning that Trump’s coup attempt, however ridiculous it may look to some people, is a test run, a prototype for the future. Republicans and other elements of the right wing see what works now and then perfect it for later. What is your assessment?

What is happening is a test of how much can one get away with in the courts. Moreover, how much can one get away with in the court of public opinion by distorting facts and reality?

Donald Trump and his Republican Party’s coup attempt has been described by some people as sedition or treason. What does the law actually say on these matters?

I don’t think you can prosecute him. If you ask, “What is treason, in the broader sense of the word?” Donald Trump is betraying his country. He has held the highest office in the land for four years. If he were smart, Trump would consider that an honor. I think he wasted those four years. He is a narcissist with an obsession about himself and his own ego.

He tried to undermine and attack the government. I am not a big fan of using sedition statutes and so forth, because that is what Joe McCarthy did. The problem with Trump and the Republicans now is that we are dealing with people who really do believe that there is this “deep state.” They want to completely transform the United States government and country to make it conform to their ideology. This is all very dangerous, because through Trump they have power at the highest levels of the government.

Are Trump and his agents engaging in sedition as defined by the Constitution?

I would not use that kind of criminal statute. But I would certainly use obstruction of justice and the false statements statutes. I think there are crimes which are yet to be prosecuted. If you want to talk about what sedition is, in a broader sense, it is a repudiation of our republican form of government and of the country’s Constitution and history of constitutional rule.

Many House Republicans have participated in Trump’s coup attempt. Should Speaker Nancy Pelosi not allow them to be seated, under the 14th Amendment?

I would not do it. I would just go ahead and let them be seated and shoot their mouths off. The Republicans are trying to use the power that you have as president, and in other high government positions, to suppress dissent by the Democrats and others. This is what the Republican Party wants to stand for? Filing crazy lawsuits, writing crazy letters, and saying things that are completely false? We have had people in the Congress who have said crazy things in the past. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of them now.

Joe Biden wants there to be “healing.” He wants us to put this dark episode behind us. I fundamentally disagree. I am of the thinking that Trump and his administration, as well as their supporters and allies, should be investigated, and if merited, punished for their crimes. What advice would you give Biden on that question?

If Joe Biden wants to pardon Trump, he can pardon Trump. The only discretion the president has is a pardon. Otherwise, the Justice Department should prosecute anyone who committed a crime. I don’t care if it’s Donald Trump or if it’s the guy next door. We’re all equal. The mandate for the attorney general is that we prosecute anyone who committed crimes.

I think if there are accusations made against high-ranking people in the Trump administration, or high-ranking people in the Biden administration, or any members of the president’s family, have an independent counsel investigate it and make the professional decision with professional prosecutors. It should never be a political decision as to whether someone gets prosecuted or not.

Trump and his administration are actively trying to sabotage Biden’s presidency by putting key Trump agents in positions at the highest levels throughout the United States government. What can be done by Biden to remove them?

Many of these people are presidential appointees. Biden can remove an awful lot of people. Trump and his people are trying various games by putting people into career slots. It is called “burrowing,” where you take a political appointee and stick them into career slots. It is hard to get rid of them.

Why are the Republican attorneys general, members of Congress and others going along with Trump’s coup attempt? Especially since it appears doomed to fail in the short term.

It is money. Trump has raised a lot of money for them. It is all about ideology and appealing to the right wing and getting airtime on right-wing talk radio. They are going along to not be targeted by other right-wingers. Now Republicans will do one of two things. They’ll lay low and try to have nothing to do with it — those are the smart ones. There are other Republicans, such as Ted Cruz, who will play along and go for the ride. Cruz is trying to get Trump’s supporters to love him so he can be the leading candidate in 2024.

Should the attorneys general who tried to overturn the election be disbarred?

They may want to run for Senate. Texas Attorney General [Ken] Paxton, he probably wants to run for senator. State attorneys general always have political ambitions. It’s a steppingstone to the next and more powerful job. These attorneys general want attention. They know that they are not going to be disbarred. They probably should be, but the Texas bar is not going to disbar Paxton.

How do you think this coup attempt, and Trump’s authoritarian behavior more generally, has impacted the United States?

It is polarizing our country. We have got much work to do to bring the United States back together. I trust Joe Biden is going to be able to do that. I’m a political independent: Biden was never my favorite candidate in the primaries, but he is a good guy. We as Americans need to realize that we have so much more to benefit from being together in this country. We may disagree on some things, but our political system has worked for over 200 years.

Yes, we had the Civil War. Yes, we have been through great challenges. But we do have a system that works. I was never a big fan of Ronald Reagan, I was a moderate Republican. But the one thing I liked about Reagan was his optimism and how much he believed in America. Reagan never had the cynicism that underlies Trumpism with this idea of the “deep state” and that somehow “the establishment” is evil. With Trumpism, I see too many similarities with the fascist movements in Europe in the 1930s.

IT'S SEDITION PERIOD

'Bordering on sedition’: Dem senator calls for sanctioning GOP lawmakers trying to overturn election


Published on December 18, 2020
By Brad Reed

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) on Friday had some sharp criticism for Republican lawmakers still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

While being interviewed by CNN’s Jim Sciutto, Shaheen said it defied belief that so many GOP senators are still willing to throw Hail Mary passes to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s win even after Trump lost the popular vote, the electoral college vote, and 59 different election-related lawsuits.

“Each of us serving as senators took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States,” she said. “One of the most fundamental principles of the Constitution is the peaceful transition of power.”

She then laid out how dangerous it is for Republicans to refuse to accept the reality of Biden’s victory even after all legal options have been exhausted.

“These senators and members of Congress who have refused to acknowledge that we had a free and fair election, in which Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by over 7 million votes, are bordering on sedition and treason in thinking that they are going to overturn a duly elected president,” she said. “It is just unfathomable to me how these elected representatives can be refusing to accept the peaceful transition of power. I think they should be sanctioned.”

Watch the video below.

‘I’m stuck’: Stimulus debacle pushes unemployed Americans to the edge

Published on December 18, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Shuttershock/ By LightField Studios

First, they lost their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic, and now many of the more than 20 million people unemployed in the United States may lose something else: the government aid keeping them afloat through the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreak.

Congress could still act to extend the benefits provided under the CARES Act rescue package enacted in March, which will otherwise expire on December 26.

But for many of the jobless, lawmakers’ months of dithering — along with the indifference of the overstretched US unemployment systems — have already taken a toll:

– On hold –

Before the pandemic, Tamora Israel, 37, was a full-time goldsmith, part-time journalist and co-owner of an art gallery in Massachusetts who aspired to finish her degree and get into filmmaking.

Months later, she’s jobless, living in Georgia, sharing a house with her parents and younger brother and trying to figure out how a family of four can survive with only $2,000 a month and one licensed driver — which happens to be herself.

Her days once spent reporting community news or pursuing entrepreneurship are now filled with shuttling her mother to dialysis appointments and picking up groceries.

Then there’s the time spent on the phone with Massachusetts unemployment administrators to convince them to restart payments they stopped when she left the state — which Israel said should not have happened.

“I keep calling back everyday just to be annoying, and remind them I’m a person that needs money,” she said.

Life, she expects, will likely stay this way for a while. Her mother’s illnesses and need for care mean Israel can’t get another job right now.

A felony conviction on her father’s record means under Georgia law he isn’t eligible for food assistance that could ease the family’s financial stress.

“We’re all just spinning plates in the air because we don’t know what happens next. We’re ok for now, but if we get one unexpected bill, we’re screwed,” she said.

– Speaking up –

In a time of uncertainty, Grant McDonald is sure of one thing: he will be out of work for a long, long time.

A video director and designer for live events, McDonald, 31, figures the theaters and concert halls he works in will be among the last to reopen, meaning laid-off workers in his industry will need government aid for months more.

Believing Congress wasn’t hearing enough from unemployed persons like himself, he joined forces earlier this year with a colleague in the entertainment industry to create ExtendPUA.org

The group helps people lobby their representatives to renew the CARES Act’s provisions, including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the program keeping McDonald from having to move out of his apartment in New York and in with his father on the other side of the country.

But despite more than 30 video meetings with lawmakers and even a trip to Washington — a self-financed effort that further dwindled his limited cash — the agreement Congress appears close to reaching will likely exclude some of the assistance McDonald hoped for.

“This is literally the least that they could do, and the latest they could do it,” he said.

– Dream delayed –

If she wanted to make the most of her art history degree, Alisha Negron, 29, figured Washington, the site of the Smithsonian Institution and 1,500 miles from her home in the US territory of Puerto Rico, was the place to be.

But finding employment at one of the iconic galleries in the shadow of the Capitol building wasn’t easy, and so she took other work, most recently serving breakfast and bartending at a hotel in a suburb until the pandemic struck and hospitality workers like herself became the first victims of the mass layoff that followed.

Negron considers herself lucky: her family in Puerto Rico supports her and her shared apartment is affordable.

Yet she can’t help but be astounded by how she’s been treated by the government unemployment system.

She received weekly jobless aid for months, but a mysterious issue with her blood pressure forced her to spend a good portion of it paying the expensive premium on a health insurance plan.

Then, she lost that aid in November, when the government determined the unemployment rate in Virginia, where she lived, was too low for the state to offer the Extended Benefit program that supported her.

A stimulus deal in Congress could restore her benefits under an extended program, but until then, she’s left with credit card debt north of $5,000 and only the approximately $200 in food aid she gets each month to spend.

“I’m stuck right here, now,” she said.

© 2020

Naked handcuffing of innocent Black woman sparks outrage in Chicago

Published on December 18, 2020
By Agence France-Presse

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (AFP)

The authorities in the US city of Chicago are coming under fire after a video was released of police handcuffing a naked Black woman after raiding her home in a case of mistaken identity.

The police raid took place on February 21, 2019 but the disturbing video was only released recently.

Police body cameras show officers using a battering ram to break down the door of the home of Anjanette Young and putting the 50-year-old social worker in handcuffs while she stands naked in her living room.

“What is going on?” a terrified Young is heard telling police in the video aired by CBS 2 Chicago. “What are you looking for?

“You’ve got the wrong house,” Young repeatedly tells officers.

“Oh my god, this cannot be right,” she says. “How is this legal?”

Young told the television network that she had just returned from work and was undressing in her bedroom when police broke in.

“It happened so fast I didn’t have time to put on clothes,” she said. “I’m just standing there terrified, humiliated.”

Police eventually left after determining they had the wrong address. One officer apologized to Young while others tried to fix her broken door.

According to CBS 2, the suspect the police were searching for lived in the same apartment complex and an informant had provided them with the wrong address.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters she was “appalled” after viewing the video and described the raid as a “colossal failure.”

“That could have easily been me,” said Lightfoot, who is African American.

“We can do better and we will do better as a city,” she said.

City attorneys had sought to block the release of the video and Lightfoot said she had ordered a review of the release policy.

Young’s attorney, Keenan Saulter, who is filing a suit against the police department, said a young white woman would not have received the same treatment.

“They viewed Miss Young as less than human,” Saulter told CBS 2.

Young’s case has been compared to that of Breonna Taylor, a young Black woman who was shot dead in Louisville, Kentucky, in March in a botched raid on her home.

Taylor’s name became a rallying cry during protests against racial injustice this summer following the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May.

Government refusal to protect wolverines sparks lawsuit from conservation groups

The wolverine population has dwindled to just 300 in the 

contiguous U.S.

ByJulia Jacobo
15 December 2020


A coalition of conservation groups has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over its decision to not protect the population of wolverines in the contiguous United States.

The wolverine, a mammal that resembles a small bear with a bushy tail, typically lives in the western mountains throughout Alaska and Canada, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but they have also lived in habitats in the contiguous U.S.

MORE: Monarch butterfly fate on threatened species list to be decided by Trump administration

Less than 300 wolverines now remain in the lower 48 states, where they used to roam as far south as New Mexico. Now, small, fragmented populations exist in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming and northeast Oregon, according to a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to withhold protection for the wolverine population under the Endangered Species Act will impede the conservation efforts needed to prevent extinction of the species as a result of climate change, habitat fragmentation and lack of genetic diversity, according to the groups' lawsuit.


Universal Images Group via Getty Images
An aggressive wolverine shows its teeth on the subarctic tundra in Sweden.

The government "has stonewalled" federal protections for the wolverine for decades, said Dave Werntz, the science and conservation director at Conservation Northwest.
MORE: 31 species now extinct, according to ICUN's Red List of threatened species

A petition to include wolverines under the Endangered Species Act, which protects and recovers imperiled species and the ecosystems on which they depend, was filed in 2000. In 2007, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would review the status for the species.

Over the past 20 years since the petition was filed, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been sued five separate times, twice for inaction in decision-making and three times for failing to properly consider science when denying protection under the Environmental Protection Act, said Katie Bilodeau, attorney for Idaho-based conservation group Friends of the Clearwater. In each lawsuit, the court found the agency’s decision unlawful, or the agency chose not to defend its decision, Bilodeau said in a statement.

While the Fish and Wildlife Service did propose to list the wolverine species in the contiguous United States as "threatened" in 2013, the agency withdrew that proposal this October, saying the species does not face an imminent threat due to climate change.

"New research and analysis show that wolverine populations in the American Northwest remain stable," the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement that month.

MORE: Animal conservation groups to sue federal government over dwindling giraffe population

But the conservation groups say climate change is causing the mountain snowpack that wolverines rely on as their primary habitat to melt away.


Benoit Doppagne/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images
Two wolverine cubs look on in their enclosure ahead of the reopening of the zoo 

"The wolverine is a famously tough creature that doesn’t back down from anything, but even the wolverine can’t overcome climate change by itself," Amanda Galvan, an attorney for the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, said in a statement. "To survive, the wolverine needs the protections that only the Endangered Species Act can provide."

In addition, wolverine populations are at risk from trapping and human disturbance, according to the conservation groups that filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed Monday also accuses the agency of ignoring and failing to utilize the "best available scientific information" in its decision, court documents show. The lawsuit seeks an order for the Fish and Wildlife Service to publish "a new final listing determination" within six months.

MORE: How advocates say Trump’s endangered species rules could threaten conservation

The other groups involved in the lawsuit include Defenders of Wildlife, Idaho Conservation League, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Sierra Club and Rocky Mountain Wild.

The USFWS defended its decision in a statement to ABC News.

"We stand by our decision to withdraw the listing proposal," the statement read. "The best available science shows that the factors affecting wolverine populations are not as significant as believed in 2013 when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the wolverine found in the contiguous United States as threatened. New research and analysis show that wolverine populations in the American Northwest remain stable, and individuals are moving across the Canadian border in both directions and returning to former territories. The species, therefore, does not meet the definition of threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act."

Paris court convicts former Vatican envoy of sexual assault
A Paris court has convicted a former Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019, and handed him a suspended 8-month prison sentence

By MASHA MACPHERSON Associated Press
16 December 2020



PARIS -- A Paris court on Wednesday convicted a former Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019, and handed him a suspended 8-month prison sentence.

Retired Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 76 — who was not present in court — was “shattered” by the verdict, according to his lawyer, Solange Doumic. She said she was uncertain whether he would lodge an appeal because the procedure “has been extremely painful for him.”

Ventura has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. Sexual assault is punishable in France by up to five years’ imprisonment and fines in France.

The path for the prosecution of Ventura was cleared after the Vatican lifted his immunity in July 2019. His trial in absentia was held Nov. 10.

The sentence imposed Wednesday was more lenient than the suspended 10 months the prosecution had sought.

Doumic said her client had “explained himself multiple times," over what the defense has described as “minor" accusations.

But the court decision “shows he wasn’t heard, despite a 7-hour hearing on gestures which are simple, light,” she said after the verdict.

Five men alleged that they had suffered Ventura’s “hands on the buttocks” during his public diplomatic duties in France. The case erupted in February 2019 amid multiple sex scandals affecting the Catholic Church.

Among the accusers was a former seminarian, Mahe Thouvenel, who said he was grabbed repeatedly by the clergyman when they celebrated Mass in December 2018. Another, Mathieu De La Souchere, alleged that Ventura touched his behind repeatedly during a reception at Paris City Hall.

Thouvenel said his seminary kicked him out after he filed a police complaint. Under questioning from Ventura’s lawyer, he put his right hand on the top of his right buttock to show one of the spots where he was allegedly groped.

“It’s violent,” Thouvenel said during the trial. “It sticks in your memory.”

The judge said at the time that, during prior questioning, Ventura had explained his behavior by saying he had a “Latin” temperament and that there was nothing sexual about his gestures.

“These types of verdicts, when it involves a Vatican ambassador, can give other victims the courage to come forward in other cases potentially involving the church," said Antoinette Frety, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "They know now that they will be heard no matter what the rank of the aggressor is within the church. And that’s very important.”

Another lawyer for the plaintiffs, Edmond-Claude Frety, said the verdict should encourage potential victims not to give up.

“It means that victims have to be brave, have to leave the silence and to talk," he said. Ventura "will not be in jail tonight, of course, but it’s quite an important conviction because it means that these facts are now considered very severely by the courts.”

The former envoy had produced a doctor’s note saying it was too dangerous for him to travel from Rome to Paris for the November trial amid France’s resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic.

———

Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed to this report.

Family of Tuskegee Syphilis Study participant say they’ll take COVID-19 vaccine but understand the distrust

The study charted syphilis progression in unknowing Black men.

WITH NO CURE 

ByAyanna Gill,Knez Walker, andAnthony Rivas
17 December 2020


COVID-19 vaccines recall decades of deception and pain for Black Americans
In 1932, 623 Black men were unknowingly recruited for a syphilis study but were kept from a cure

Lillie Tyson Head and her daughter, Carmen Head Thornton, have reason to be skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine. After all, it was Head’s father, Freddie Lee Tyson, who was unknowingly recruited into the now-infamous Syphilis Study at Tuskegee.

A sharecropper in Alabama in 1932, Tyson was one of 623 Black men recruited for the U.S. Public Health study at the Tuskegee Institute. The study was meant to record the natural progression of syphilis infection in Black men, but the researchers didn’t tell those who signed on. Tyson, who had congenital syphilis, was only told he’d be receiving free health care.

“They did not tell them they had syphilis, and the only thing they told them was they had bad blood and they were treating the bad blood,” Head told “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts. “But they were not. They were lying to the people about that. They were deceiving them.”


ABC
Lillie Tyson Head pictured with family photos.

The experiment lasted 40 years. During that time, the American government made efforts to ensure the participants in the study never knew the true intentions of the researchers. Even when they discovered penicillin was a reliable treatment for the infection, the participants were actively kept from receiving it.


ABC
Freddie Lee Tyson pictured on his wedding day courtesy of Lillie Tyson-Head.

Thornton says she was only a child when her grandfather answered the call from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to tell him what had really happened. Head said her father was a gentle, kind and wise man, but that call made him upset and disappointed.

“My father was a proud man and he was honest,” Head said. “For someone to call and tell him that he had been part of something for 40 years and had never been told the truth, and he was not aware of that, then that would also bring some shame. And you also have to understand that syphilis wasn’t something that people were proud of having.”

Although Tyson died in 1988, Head and Thornton have been carrying on his legacy in hopes that something like the experiment never happens again. In memory of the men who unknowingly contributed their bodies to the study, they started the Voices for Our Fathers Legacy Foundation, which aims to change the narrative surrounding the experiment and its participants and connect their descendants across the generations.


Courtesy of Carmen Head Thornton
Carmen Head Thornton, the daughter of Lillie Tyson Head, said she remembers her grandfather...

“There is a desire and need for us, through our foundation and through my professional work, to want to move this story of the syphilis study to one that speaks toward being a victim to being a victor, for moving from trauma to triumph,” said Thornton, who works as the director of research, grants, workforce and development at the National Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

MORE: Minority communities’ distrust of COVID-19 vaccine poses challenge

Both women say they understand why there is skepticism among Black Americans to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Although 27% of the public say they probably or definitely would not get vaccinated, 35% of Black adults say the same, despite being disproportionately affected by the virus, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“History has not been kind to African Americans,” Thornton said. “It has not been kind, and because of misperceptions that are connected to what happened in the study … I think it helps to grow mistrust, and that’s one of the things that we deal with.”


National Archives via AP
A black man has blood drawn by a doctor during a syphilis in Tuskegee, Ala. in this 1950's file photo

Among the misconceptions surrounding the syphilis experiment, Head said many people believe the participants in the study were injected with the virus. “They were not,” she said, but rather given blood tests frequently.

Thornton said that to rebuild this trust, there needs to be more people of color in the medical field. Her mother said that while there are more people of color in these positions now, and that “things have changed, things have gotten better,” they could still improve more.

“I am committed to spending my life in public health and in working in the way that I do because we need that representation,” Thornton said. “That’s the reason why the syphilis study happened to begin with because there wasn’t that representation. There wasn’t those voices around the table. And so, we really do need to have that representation engaged in science, engaged in research and engaged in respectful health care.”

When asked if they’d take the COVID-19 vaccine themselves, they both said yes.

“Without hesitation,” Head said. “As soon as the vaccine is available for me, I’m taking it.”


ABC
Lillie Tyson Head said her father was an unwitting participant in the now infamous Syphilis study...

Citing other health disparities prevalent within communities of color, Head also implored people to take charge of their health.

“I want people of color to be able to look at situations, especially when it comes to protecting their health, and do their due diligence in finding out the necessary information so that they can make the right decisions and not be afraid,” she said. “We have to step forward and not be afraid to make our lives better.”