Victimhood is essential to the fascist worldview
Thom Hartmann
March 04, 2023

Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) (L) fist-bumps Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) (R) during a hearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee.

 (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)


Today’s Republican Party, intentionally or unwittingly, is following a script.

Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem begins with, “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” But, in fact, first they came for the queer people.

A year before Nazis began attacking union leaders and socialists, a full five years before attacking Jewish-owned stores on Kristallnacht, the Nazis came for the trans people at the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin.

In 1930, the Institute had pioneered the first gender-affirming surgery in modern Europe. It’s director, Magnus Hirschfeld, had compiled the largest library of books and scientific papers on the LGBTQ spectrum in the world and was internationally recognized in the field of sexual and gender studies.

Being gay, lesbian, or trans was widely tolerated in Germany, at least in the big cities, when Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, and the German queer community was his first explicit target. Within weeks, the Nazis began a campaign to demonize queer people — with especially vitriolic attacks on trans people — across German media.

German states put into law bans on gender-affirming care, drag shows, and any sort of “public display of deviance,” enforcing a long-moribund German law, Paragraph 175, first put into the nation’s penal code in 1871, that outlawed homosexuality. Books and magazines telling stories of gay men and lesbians were removed from schools and libraries.

Thus, a mere five months after Hitler came to power, on May 6, 1933, Nazis showed up at the Institute and hauled over 20,000 books and manuscripts about gender and sexuality out in the street to burn, creating a massive bonfire.

It was the first major Nazi book-burning and was celebrated with newsreels played in theaters across the nation.

The Party leaders said, by burning books and literature about gay, lesbian, and trans people that dated back centuries and even millennia, they were consigning to the flames “the intellectual garbage of the past” and were “protecting Germany’s youth from deviance.”

It wouldn’t be the last book burning.

Fascists always start by declaring themselves the victims of others. Victimhood is essential to the fascist worldview; it’s at its core. And it’s their excuse for destroying other peoples lives.

They then cast the weakest and least popular minorities in a society as the victimizers of the fascists. Fascism is never directed against the rich or powerful, but always against those least able to defend themselves. It’s bullying turned into a political movement.

When fascists throughout history have looked for victims, they almost always begin with queer people. That minority has the smallest circle of people (compared to racial and religious minorities) who personally know and accept them, who will stand up and defend them, and who will speak out against their persecution.

From there, fascists move on to demonizing and politically disenfranchising racial and religious minorities, suppressing the rights of women, celebrating masculinity and guns, the seizure of major political parties and the courts, and then the takeover of the nation itself.

The formula is documented as far back as ancient Rome: in 326 CE, Constantine the Great, who converted the nation to Christianity, put into place the death penalty for homosexual acts. Long before Mussolini invented the word in the 1920s, fascism was a well-known and well-established way of seizing power over a nation.

And now it’s here and following the same well-trod path.

Yesterday, Kevin McCarthy tried to federally one-up Ron DeSantis on the previously state-based queer-hating fascist-meter by introducing a “parental rights” bill of his own.

In Texas and Florida today, state authorities are coming for the parents of trans kids. Red states that have been seized by fascist demagogues are purging libraries and schools of books, banning drag shows, and outlawing women’s rights to abortion and contraception.

Sexuality, race, and religion are universally weaponized by fascists. But it usually begins with sexuality/gender.

The ACLU is tracking 371 anti-trans bills across the United States: every one was introduced by Republicans. Most all include draconian criminal penalties. Erin Reed has compiled a map of them on Substack. Many are promoted as being necessary to “protect the children.”

That would be the same children who die by bullets every 2 hours and 26 minutes every day in America. Are injured every 10 to 15 minutes.

No laws to regulate the bullets or guns, though. Fascists love guns. Displaying weapons in public makes them feel more masculine, more powerful, less frightened. Wielding the ultimate power, the ability to control life or death with the tiny motion of a finger inside a trigger guard.

After Florida passed their “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law, Human Rights Watch reported a 400% surge in social media-based hate speech directed at queer people nationwide. What starts in Florida doesn’t stay in Florida.

The FBI released a report in 2021 showing a shocking sevenfold increase in hate crimes against lesbians; crimes against gay men and trans people were up as well. Given how aggressively they’re being demonized by Republicans for political gain, by the end of this year there will be reports of a new explosion of documented hate crimes against trans people.

Suicide among queer youth is exploding with 45% reporting last year they’d considered that final act. Republicans know this, but don’t care; they’re reveling in the current fascist climate. Every new law brings more wannabee fascist voters to their side.

And they’re doing things that were unimaginable just a decade ago.

Republican or Republican-associated fascists have tried to murder the Governor of Michigan, the Vice President of the United States, and the Speaker of the House. They’ve sent bombs to dozens of high-profile Democratic politicians. They’ve killed multiple police officers and civilians in several states, as well as at the Capitol on January 6th. They’ve infiltrated the FBI and police agencies across the country.

The largest slaughter of American Jews in modern history was carried out by a fascist right-winger after Donald Trump said:

“Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks, to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global interest powers, her special interest friends, and her donors.”

You don’t even need the special Nazi decoder ring to know what Trump was talking about. Like when Republicans constantly mention George Soros and “international” Jews, as they are this week in ads running on TV and Facebook about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

We learned just this week that another American fascist was planning to murder Jews in the Midwest including Michigan’s openly lesbian Attorney General. Five people in a fascist group from Fresno were also arrested this week for seven terrorist bombings in that area.

Meanwhile, the hottest topic among Republicans is starting a second Civil War through Red states seceding from the union. A national divorce. And if they can’t get that, they’ll just rig elections. It’s what fascists do.

Republican-controlled states across the nation are aggressively purging Black voters from their rolls — an estimated 17 million before five Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized the practice in 2018 and tens of millions more since — to hang onto power in Red states with large Black populations.

In Florida and Texas the governors of those states have had Black ex-felons who thought they could legally vote arrested and paraded before news cameras to intimidate other Black people considering voting.

Billboards saying “Voter Fraud Is A Felony!” with pictures of white police officers or a judge’s gavel popped up across Red states in both 2020 and 2022, leading to a drop in Black voting in many places, particularly Florida.

Fascists, after all, think of democracy as old-fashioned and quaint: something to give lip service but not to seriously practice.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump recently proposed legislation outlawing trans people altogether, his very own Paragraph 175.

It’s become an unending parade of horribles, that are accelerating.

A married woman in Florida with a deformed fetus can’t get an abortion because Ron DeSantis has successfully intimidated every doctor in the state: she’s being forced to give birth to a baby that will die in minutes.

And in Florida, Channel 8 News reports:
“Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.”

These are not isolated events that exist separate from each other. They’re part of a whole.

And we all must speak up, before it’s too late. We must call this what it is: fascism.

Today’s Republican Party, intentionally or unwittingly, is following a script. And Americans damn well better wake up soon, or there won’t be a recognizable America in the next few years.

Rishi Sunak's 'half-baked' immigration plan 'will punish desperate refugees'

Critics have warned proposed legislation banning people who come here on small boats from making asylum claims will bring chaos while failing to end the dangerous Channel crossings

Legislation aimed at stopping Channel crossings will be unveiled this week 

By
John Stevens

Political Editor
5 Mar 2023

Rishi Sunak’s “half-baked” plans to tackle illegal immigration will punish desperate refugees rather than criminal gangs, it has been warned.

Ministers will unveil legislation next week banning people who cross the Channel on small boats from making asylum claims here.

But critics have warned the proposals will bring chaos while failing to end the dangerous crossings.

Mr Sunak has vowed to put an end to "immoral" illegal migration, while Home Secretary Suella Braverman said "enough is enough".

A proposed new law would see a duty placed on the Home Secretary to remove "as soon as reasonably practicable" anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or a "safe third country".

Arrivals will also be prevented from claiming asylum while in the UK, with plans also to ban them from returning once removed.


Boris Johnson flogs London home for £200k under asking price as he buys country mansion

Jonathan Ashworth accused ministers of failing to stop smuggling gangs (
Image: PA)

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth cast doubt on whether the government’s latest plans to change the law will tackle the problem of dangerous Channel crossings.

The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary said: “We were told in the past that they've got plans and legislation that was going to deal with this problem and their promises came to nothing.

"Actually, we've seen more boat crossings and the criminal gangs getting away with more and more.”

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "The Conservatives are responsible for an abysmal failure to tackle the huge increase in dangerous small boat crossings and the criminal gangs who are putting lives at risk and undermining border security.

“Ministers have made countless claims and promises yet the facts show their last law badly failed and made things worse. Instead of learning lessons, it looks like they are still recycling the same rhetoric and failure.

“Labour is calling urgently for a major new cross-border police unit to go after the criminal gangs, fast track asylum decisions and returns, and a new agreement with France and Belgium that can stop the dangerous crossings.”

Almost 3,000 people have already arrived across the Channel this year 

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Alistair Carmichael of the Liberal Democrat said: "This is another half baked plan that will punish the victims of human trafficking instead of the evil gangs who profit from these crossings.

"We all want to see these dangerous crossings stop, but there are currently no safe and legal routes for asylum seekers. Creating these needs to be the priority.

The latest Home Office figures show 2,950 migrants have crossed the Channel already this year.

Today it emerged deportation flights to Rwanda, which are central to the plan, may not happen until March 2024.

The controversial scheme has been mired in legal challenges and so far no planes have departed.

Advice provided to the Home Office by the Government Legal Service has warned it is "most likely" it will be tied up in the courts for more than a year.

Yvette Cooper accused the Tories of recycling old ideas (
Image: Getty Images)DON'T MISS

It came as trade unions warned that ministers are “complicit” in far-right organised violence and intimidation against refugees.

Protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers have been held in recent weeks.

In a statement organised by the Fire Brigades Union, the leaders of 14 unions said "the answer is solidarity, not scapegoating" to help deprived refugee communities.

"The Government is complicit in these attacks,” they warned. “The Rwanda policy does not make sense as a means of stopping small boat crossings - and it is failing on its own terms - but it fits with a long-running campaign of rhetoric and demonisation.

"Anti-migrant politics are an attempt to divide working class people against each other."

Signatories included Matt Wrack of the FBU, Unison president Andrea Egan, Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney of the National Education Union and Mick Lynch of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union.

UK plans to tackle Channel crisis pushes 'boundaries of international law’

New law will see anyone who arrives in the UK on a small boat removed to Rwanda or a 'safe third country'

Migrants are taken ashore in Dungeness, Kent, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel in November 2021. AFP

Soraya Ebrahimi

Mar 06, 2023

New legislation to deal with small boats carrying migrants across the Channel has “pushed the boundaries of international law”, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said.

Plans to remove and ban asylum seekers from re-entry if they arrive in the UK through unauthorised means are set to be unveiled by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Ms Braverman on Tuesday.

The new Bill is one of Mr Sunak's five priorities for his premiership.

READ MORE

UN says UK's asylum-seeker policy must comply with international law

But critics have warned that the proposals are “unworkable” and will leave thousands of migrants in limbo by banning them from ever claiming British citizenship again.

Despite plans such as forcibly removing asylum seekers to Rwanda being mired in legal challenges, ministers were expected to approach the limits of the European Convention on Human Rights with the new legislation.

“We must stop the boats and that’s what our bill will do," Ms Braverman wrote in The Telegraph. "No more sticking plasters or shying away from the difficult decisions.

“Myself and the Prime Minister have been working tirelessly to ensure we have a bill that works — we’ve pushed the boundaries of international law to solve this crisis.

“If you come here illegally it must be that you cannot stay.

A life boat returns to the Port of Dover in England amid a rescue operation of a missing migrant boat. Reuters

A duty will be placed on the Home Secretary to remove “as soon as reasonably practicable” anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or a “safe third country”.

And arrivals will be prevented from claiming asylum while in the UK, with plans also to ban them from returning once removed.

Mr Sunak spoke to Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame before unveiling his plans, and pledged to continue working with him to ensure their stalled project works.

The government has paid more than £140 million ($168m) to Rwanda but no flights forcibly carrying migrants to the capital Kigali have taken off because of legal challenges.

“The leaders committed to continue working together to ensure this important partnership is delivered successfully," a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

Mr Sunak will meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to discuss further co-operation that will be required to reduce boat crossings.

Migrants at immigration processing centre in Manston - in pictures





A person gestures through a fence at the immigration processing centre in Manston, Kent in southern England. Reuters

Mr Sunak admitted voters “have heard promises before” without seeing results, but insisted his legislation “will mean that those who come here on small boats can’t claim asylum here”.

“This new law will send a clear signal that if you come to this country illegally, you will be swiftly removed,” he wrote in The Sun.

Mr Sunak said it was a plan “to do what’s fair for those at home and those who have a legitimate claim to asylum — a plan to take back control of our borders once and for all”.

The Immigration Services Union representing border staff said the plans were “quite confusing” and did not seem “possible” without the Rwanda policy functioning.

Lucy Moreton, the union’s professional officer, also suggested on BBC Radio 4 that smuggling gangs will tell people “quick, cross now before anything changes”, risking an increase in the number of crossings.

Labour leader Keir Starmer raised doubts about the legality and feasibility of the plans after the last one failed “to get us very far”.

“Now we’ve got the next bit of legislation with almost the same billing, I don’t think that putting forward unworkable proposals is going to get us very far,” Mr Starmer told LBC radio.

Asked if the plan was legally feasible, the Labour leader said: “I don’t know that it is and I think we’ve got to be very careful with international law here.”

Afghan migrant documents dangerous journey across Channel - video

Afghan migrant documents dangerous journey across Channel

Mr Sunak has been under pressure to tackle the issue amid dire polling figures for the Conservatives.

Almost 3,000 migrants have made unauthorised crossings of the English Channel this year.

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the plans “shatter the UK’s long-standing commitment under the UN Convention to give people a fair hearing, regardless of the path they have taken to reach our shores”.

“The government’s flawed legislation will not stop the boats but result in tens of thousands locked up in detention at huge cost, permanently in limbo and being treated as criminals simply for seeking refuge,” he added.

“It’s unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats.”

How D.C. Swamp Money Made Trains More Dangerous

I CHOO-CHOOSE YOU

The Norfolk Southern crash has brought renewed focus on how the rail industry has evaded some regulations. That story has been playing out for decades.


Roger Sollenberger
Political Reporter
Updated Mar. 05, 2023

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images, James St. John/Wikimedia Commons, and Public Domain

After the catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, it didn’t take long for the supercharged partisan atmosphere in Washington to morph the disaster into a political blame game.

Republicans castigated President Joe Biden’s administration for falling asleep at the switch. Biden officials pointed to deregulation under former President Donald Trump. And all the while, the rail industry knew that, even though new safety regulations would seem like an obvious response to the crash and subsequent release of toxic chemicals into the air, new regulations were far from a given.

Although it’s far from the most influential lobby in Washington, the rail industry has spent more than $700 million in the last 25 years, according to data maintained by OpenSecrets. And it’s those hundreds of millions spent pushing back against government safety regulations—primarily but not exclusively through Republicans—that has purchased considerable influence in the U.S. Capitol.

A review by The Daily Beast of lobbying and campaign finance filings tells a story of a decades-long ideological push and pull. The review shows that, while it’s sometimes difficult to draw straight lines between an acute event and its cause, entrenched corporate and political cultures still have an overwhelming influence.


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For instance, one major requirement now on the books—an automated braking technology called “positive train control” (PTC)—debuted on the National Transportation Safety Board’s “most wanted” list in 1990. But under industry pressure, PTC wasn’t fully implemented for 30 years.

As the dust, debris, and various poisons settle from this Norfolk Southern crash, it appears the Trump administration’s specific anti-regulatory moves may not be directly responsible for the wreck, which the National Transportation Safety Bureau’s preliminary report blamed on an overheated wheel bearing.

But that finding itself doesn’t necessarily shift the blame back to Biden. In fact, it puts more pressure on Republicans to do something they’ve resisted for years—expand rail safety regulations, such as updating outdated track detection technology.

That’s perhaps the most profound revelation to emerge from the financial data: meaningful changes are almost always reactive, in response to catastrophes instead of anticipating and preventing them before they happen.

In the wake of the crash, federal regulators disclosed that there have been five similar derailments since 2021, two involving Norfolk Southern, the American Journal of Transportation reported on Thursday. The article also said that current track monitoring relies on “antiquated technology” with “a mixed record of preventing accidents.”

But it’s difficult to rein in an industry that’s as vital to everyday American life as railroads are, let alone convince the industry to support forward-looking regulations that would eat into its bottom line. It’s hard to overstate the leverage that this special interest group wields—if railroads stop working, America stops eating.

And yet, the railroad industry’s culture of resistance is most immediately and easily identified in the money.

Over the years, the industry has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into blocking and stalling new rules and legislation, including measures designed to strengthen and modernize rail safety. But a side-by-side comparison of rail lobby spending and government action also suggests that money alone doesn’t explain everything. Instead, the larger baked-in political ideology of the governing party appears to have carried the day on key issues.

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This is reflected in the fact that the rail industry’s lobbying expenditures soared under Barack Obama—most specifically his first term—and then fell, most notably after Obama unilaterally enacted key safety regulations in 2015. The spending stayed at those same lower levels after Trump took office, and have continued at that rate under Biden.

According to OpenSecrets data, the railroad industry shelled out nearly $185 million on lobbying during Obama’s first four years. During Trump’s one term in office, that spending totaled around $107 million. (Rail lobbying during Obama’s second term was about $127 million, according to OpenSecrets.) And railroad lobbyists are far more likely to have direct connections to Capitol Hill than almost any other group

Filings further show that the money was largely aimed at blocking government regulation.

The Association of American Railroads—the industry’s top lobbying group—spent heavily to push back against safety, labor, and antitrust proposals during the Obama years, according to an OpenSecrets database of lobbying disclosures. Under Trump, the partisan winds became friendlier, and spending tailed off.

While Obama didn’t exactly stick it to the railroads—his early visions of overarching antitrust and labor reforms never came to fruition—he did use his executive power to impose some key safety regulations in the face of all that cash. But Trump quickly scrapped those rules with the stroke of a Sharpie, and the railroad companies apparently didn’t feel they had to kick up their spending to convince him and his allies to act in their favor.

That’s not to say they stopped spending. Lobbyists know they have to maintain their relevance, and over Trump’s term, the rail lobby—led by AAR—spent millions of dollars renting the ears of lawmakers.

Many of those expenses went to combat the Safe Freight Act. That bill would have enshrined the two-member crew minimum into law, and was introduced in 2017 by a Republican—the late Rep. Don Young of Alaska, who’s the longest serving Republican in Congress of all time.

Norfolk Southern alone spent about $4.5 million on lobbying between 2017 and 2018, according to the company’s federal lobbying disclosures.

A Norfolk Southern representative referred The Daily Beast to “our extensive Government Relations’ Political Activity and Political Contributions overview” and their statement on the NTSB findings.

“We are taking further actions to improve the safety processes and technology we currently have in place while we await the final results of the NTSB investigation,” the representative said, pointing to $1 billion annual investments in safety technology, equipment, and infrastructure and several corporate commitments.

GOP Demands Rail Safety Fixes After Ignoring Rail Safety
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Sam Bodey


Asked for comment, an AAR spokesperson sent a 228-word statement saying that “any assertion that railroads broadly opposed increased safety regulations is patently false,” pointing to a “a long, consistent record.” The spokesperson gave one concrete example, “pushing the Department of Transportation” in 2015 to raise standards for tank cars carrying flammable liquids, including a petition on the matter to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. (Those negotiations were more nuanced, according to the DOT’s final rulemaking and the PHMSA’s response to the petition.)

The statement also directed The Daily Beast to the AAR’s statement this week on newly released Federal Railroad Administration safety data, and touted “$20 billion in annual private investments” towards broadly “maintaining the network” and “deploying technology to enhance safety.”

When Trump landed in the White House, he quickly tanked several of the targeted Obama policies. One rule—which briefly came back into the news after the Norfolk Southern derailment—mandated new brake technology for trains carrying volatile and hazardous materials. Trump also killed a rail safety audit program, along with another proposed Obama rule requiring trains to operate with two-man crews, which had already begun to languish. Those repeals and others under Trump appear either minimally or entirely unrelated to the Norfolk Southern derailment, according to a Washington Post fact check.

Generally speaking, the rail industry’s political giving has always favored the GOP. According to OpenSecrets, the industry has spent about $108.6 million to influence elections since 1990, with PACs giving more than individual employees.

Republicans have received the majority of those donations in every election, with two exceptions—the 1990 and 2010 midterms. And some of the recent top GOP recipients, such as Sens. Sam Graves, Jerry Moran, and John Thune, hold leadership positions with influence over that industry.

Contributions from Norfolk Southern employees and its corporate PAC have also historically curved towards Republicans, the data shows, though the company favored Democratic candidates in both 2020 and 2022.

In one curious case, the money went the other way.

Between 2017 and 2021, then-Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) rented office space from Norfolk Southern for both his campaign committee and leadership PAC, FEC records show. Over that period, Blunt’s committees paid Norfolk Southern approximately $76,000 in rent. (In 2015, Blunt introduced a bill with bipartisan co-sponsors that would extend the deadline for adopting PTC.)

Still, it’s clear that Obama’s actions—no matter how debatable their relevance to the Norfolk Southern disaster, or the Democrats’ failure to deliver on antitrust issues—appear to have overcome an onslaught of cash. But he and liberal allies also weren’t able to rally enough support to fully overcome Republican and industry resistance.

It’s instructive to note that the anti-regulatory lobbying push actually started the year before Obama took office, under a Republican administration.

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That year, the railroad industry spent almost $43 million lobbying inside the beltway as Congress negotiated the bipartisan Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which introduced positive train control. President George W. Bush signed it into law that October.

But the pendulum quickly swung the other way.

After the RSIA was passed, the industry dug in hard against some of those new rules, including the PTC requirement, which at that point had already been on the government’s wishlist for 18 years.

Over the next several years, the rail lobby successfully convinced lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to delay the mandate, citing cost and time constraints.

Obama himself signed a bill delaying PTC in 2015—the same year he put forward the new braking requirement that Trump tossed—and the rule was only fully adopted at the end of 2020.

The biggest revelation in the data is still not about money’s effect on the speed of progress, or even partisanship per se. Again, it’s that the most significant advancements are almost never proactive. Industry interests are powerful, and it takes a catastrophe like East Palestine to sharpen the focus on safety.

For instance, the RSIA of 2008, with its long-awaited PTC mandate, came only after a commuter train collision in Southern California killed 25 people. At the time, the Association of American Railroads put out a press release backing the bill. But according to the Internet Archive, the page disappeared from the organization’s website sometime between 2012 and 2013.

Around that same time, the industry convinced the Obama administration to extend the timeline for the PTC rule. Three years later, however, a fatal Philadelphia Amtrak wreck brought rail safety front and center again. In response, Obama enacted federal regulations without the help of Congress, while agreeing to delay PTC. The next year, however, another deadly passenger train crash put the heat back on the railroad lobby.

The Norfolk Southern freighter that derailed last month had positive train control. According to the NTSB’s preliminary report, the train’s PTC system was not to blame, as it was “enabled and operating at the time of the derailment.”

That’s put a new albeit reactive focus on another safety mechanism: old detection technology that may not be up for the task.

At a press conference addressing the report, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters that track monitoring is “something we have to look at.”

“Roller bearings fail,” Homendy said. “But it’s absolutely critical for problems to be identified and addressed early so these aren’t run until failure.”

#StopWillow is taking TikTok by storm. Can it actually work?

By Ella Nilsen, CNN
 Sun March 5, 2023


From left, Elise Joshi, Alex Haraus and Alaina Wood raise awareness of the Willow Project through TikTok.

From Elise Joshi/Alex Haraus/Alaina Wood/TikTok

CNN —

When Elise Joshi posted a TikTok video about the Alaska oil drilling project known as Willow in early February, she didn’t have high hopes it would go viral.

Joshi, 20, posts often about climate issues on TikTok for the account Gen-Z for Change, as well as her personal account. She’s well aware “climate doesn’t trend very often,” as she told CNN. But Joshi’s video about Willow was very different. It took just a few days to accumulate more than 100,000 views, eventually surpassing 300,000.

“It’s my most-viewed video in months,” Joshi told CNN. “This is the entire internet advocating against Willow; [President Joe Biden’s] voter base, that trusted him to act on climate.”

Biden’s administration is expected to finalize its decision on whether to approve the ConocoPhillips Willow Project next week. If it goes through, the decadeslong oil drilling venture in the on the North Slope of Alaska would create thousands of jobs and establish a new source of revenue for the region.

But it would also generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year, by the federal government’s estimate, about the same as adding 2 million cars to the roads.

While the project has both supporters and opponents in its home state, it has become a lightning rod on social media. Over the past week, TikTok users in particular have galvanized around halting the project, with a staggering number of people watching and posting on the topic.

Videos with anti-Willow hashtags like #StopWillow have amassed close to 50 million views in the last week, and on Friday, Willow was on the site’s top 10 trending list, behind celebrities Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. Much of the spike in interest has come in the last week alone.

The online activism has resulted in more than one million letters being written to the White House protesting the project, as well as a Change.org petition with 2.8 million signatures and counting.

“If that doesn’t emphasize the fact that it’s everyday Americans pushing back, I don’t know what does,” said Alex Haraus, 25, a TikTok creator whose Willow videos have garnered millions of views. “This is not an environmental movement, it’s much larger than that. It’s the American public that can vote.”

The sudden growth of #StopWillow

Climate advocates gather to protest the Willow Project in Lafayette Square in front of the White House on January 10.

Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

TikTok creators and climate groups CNN spoke to said the sudden surge in online activism around Willow has largely been organic, and much larger than any other climate issue on the app before.

Some climate and anti-fossil fuel groups have been working with specific TikTok creators and accounts around Willow, but no one group has spearheaded the online movement around the project. Similar TikTok campaigns have sprung up in the past few years around banning oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and stopping the Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, but few have captured as much attention as Willow.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s very rare to see a climate issue go viral,” said Alaina Wood, 26, a scientist, climate activist and TikTok creator.

Wood told CNN she thinks the profile of climate has grown on apps frequented by younger generations, especially given Biden’s climate law passed last year. But there is also a lot of anxiety and fear about the climate crisis on TikTok – sentiments the Willow Project has captured and amplified.

“Anytime a project like this goes viral, the climate doom also goes viral,” Wood said, adding she’s made videos to try to counter the climate doomerism proliferating among some young people. “A lot of young people are under the impression that if Willow gets passed, climate change will be irreversible. We still need to fight Willow, but your life isn’t over if it’s passed.”

The growth of #StopWillow TikTok has both befuddled and delighted legacy climate groups, some of which were wondering why it took so long for Willow to get noticed. Even though Biden has already cemented part of his legacy on climate by working with Congress to pass the most ambitious climate bill in generations, activists who fought Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline during the Obama administration say one thing remains constant: massive fossil fuel projects tend to fire people up.

“Specific fights galvanize public attention way more than policy does,” said Jamie Henn, the director of nonprofit Fossil Free Media and a former co-founder of the environmental organization 350.org. “These are the issues that capture the public imagination. It is really foolhardy to ignore that.”

The White House has shown it cares about reaching TikTok’s vast, young audience. White House officials have invited TikTok creators to the White House multiple times, including for a meeting with Biden himself about the Inflation Reduction Act in October.

“I think Democrats and the Biden administration would do well to pay attention to these trends,” said Lena Moffitt, chief of staff for climate group Evergreen Action. “Young people increasingly want climate action from their elected officials and they’re going to demand it.”

Can a grassroots, digital campaign work?

Nutaaq Simmonds of Utqiagvik, Alaska, speaks at a protest against the Willow Project in front of the White House on Friday.

Ella Nilsen/CNN

Protests against Willow aren’t just happening on TikTok. On Friday, a group of about 100 people gathered in front of the White House in frigid drizzle to demonstrate against the project.

TikTok creators were thin on the ground. Those who had braved the chilly March weather included Alaska Natives and elders who had flown over 10 hours from Anchorage and villages on the North Slope to DC. Robert Thompson is one elder who made the grueling journey from his home village of Kaktovik.

Thompson told CNN he had wanted to speak about the effects of climate change on the region’s animals and spoke of over 200 caribou found dead near his home.

“We could see them from our house, it’s sad,” Thompson said, tearing up. “I was in Vietnam and saw a lot of things that were sad, but I never thought I’d see it at my home. I don’t know how you can accept it.”

This 2019 photo shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow Project on Alaska's North Slope.

ConocoPhillips/AP

Willow’s supporters – including a coalition of Alaska Natives on the North Slope – say Willow could be a much-needed new source of revenue for the region and help fund schools, health care and other basic services.

“Willow presents an opportunity to continue that investment in the communities,” Nagruk Harcharek, president of the advocacy group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, told CNN. “Without that money and revenue stream, we’re reliant on the state and the feds.”

But others living closer to the planned project, including city officials and tribal members in the Native village of Nuiqsut, are concerned about the health and environmental impacts of a major oil development.

“We are saying that you are not allowed to make decisions that are going to make our world unlivable,” Siqiniq Maupin, executive director of the Indigenous activist group Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, told CNN. “We are concerned about climate change, but we’re also concerned about Indigenous rights and human rights.”

Maupin and Thompson said they will continue to fight Willow through the courts if the Biden administration approves the project. Environmental legal group Earthjustice has also been preparing a lawsuit against the project if it is approved.

“We plan to do everything in our power to stop ConocoPhillips from doing construction in Nuiqsut this winter,” Maupin said. “We are going to continue to fight this by legal means, by direct action.”

As for whether the surge of online activism will work to halt or delay the project, TikTok creators themselves aren’t sure. If the project is approved, several told CNN they will continue to post about the project – detailing ways their followers can support Indigenous groups in Alaska and keep speaking out about Willow.

“We’re coordinated enough to do whatever makes the most sense,” Haraus told CNN. “If that’s in-person protesting, then we will happily do that. This is an issue that we will be voting on and will remember at the ballot box.

“Millions of people are waiting for the White House’s move.”

Opinion
‘History months’ celebrate those who were written out of the story

By E.J. Dionne Jr.

Columnist|
March 5, 2023

How we see the past shapes how we see our present and future — even as our contemporary insights, biases and preoccupations affect our interpretation of what happened before we got here. That’s what makes history controversial. It is inevitably a revisionist enterprise that helps us understand how and why our society has changed.

“In each era, we see the past differently, according to how we see ourselves and our own experiences,” historian Benjamin Carter Hett wrote in his book on the collapse of the Weimar Republic in 1930s Germany. “One era will notice things about the past that another will not. This is one reason why history is, and has to be, constantly rewritten.”

This ongoing revisionism is what leads to “history months” — Black History Month in February is followed by Women’s History Month in March. It also explains why the many fights we’re now having over school curriculums are understandable, even if efforts to censor books and repress ideas are counterproductive to learning and reasoned discussion.

The annual observance of these months is the fruit of egalitarian movements in the 1960s and 1970s that pushed new generations of historians to rebel against the exclusion of whole classes of people from our national story.
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Admirers of what was seen as more traditional history grumbled over the lifting up of “race, class and gender” as Black and working-class Americans, women, and immigrants at long last became the subjects of extensive scholarship. Traditionalists asked: What happened to recounting the exploits and achievement of the leading political figures in our history, almost all of whom were White men?

Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, Lincoln and FDR never disappeared — and Lincoln has always been a special figure of fascination. By one count, made about a decade ago, some 15,000 books had been written about Lincoln. But it’s true that, for a while, political history lagged behind the new bottom-up social history.

In recent years, political history has made a comeback, but it’s a history far more mindful of the role of Black Americans, women and workers, and far more aware of racism, sexism and elitism.

As both a lover of political history and a sympathizer with the egalitarian impulse, I appreciate the new synthesis. Bringing the two together can help us notice the roots of political change and its extent. One example is the remarkable trajectory of women in our nation’s political life.

The change in the right direction is unmistakable, even as the process took way too long and still has a long way to go. In 1916, Jeannette Rankin became the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. A Republican from Montana, Rankin pushed for the 19th Amendment that enfranchised women across the country four years later.

In a Congress whose size is set at 535, it was not until 1961 that even 20 of the members of the House and Senate were women, and their numbers retreated for several elections. The 1990s were the first big breakthrough. The number of women in Congress rose from 33 to 54 after the “year of the woman” election of 1992. The numbers have steadily risen since, finally rising above 100 (to 101) in 2013.

The 2018 and 2020 elections were breakthroughs comparable to 1992. The number of women who are voting members in one of the chambers of Congress hit a new high of 149 after the 2022 elections — 106 Democrats, 42 Republicans and one independent, according to the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.

We should celebrate the achievement — and also ask why our democracy still lags far behind many others in electing women. While 28 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are women, women make up between 40 to 50 percent of the parliamentarians in such democracies as France, Iceland, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. We’re definitely not No. 1.

The role of women in our public life is an excellent case study of how the questions we ask of history change over time. Precisely because the politically subordinate role of women was taken for granted by earlier generations of historians, it was not an issue they even thought of addressing. Examining the role of women in our history occurs to us now because of social and political changes that most of us welcome.

Does this mean that history has been “politicized?” The answer is “yes” only in the sense that political change always affects how we see history.

The better view is that history is more accurate and more complete when we ask new questions, include more people’s experiences and, as Hett says, notice things our forebears didn’t. It’s why everyone has an interest in celebrating months in honor of those who were once written out of history altogether.



Opinion by E.J. DionneE.J. Dionne Jr. writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book, with Miles Rapoport, is “100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting.” Twitter

A Reflection: Black Trans People and the Pandemic

It is clear that the pandemic  had a devastating effect on the Black trans community, and it is incumbent upon all of us to help create an environment of acceptance and support for all members of the community.

March 5, 2023 by Stephen G. Hall, PhD 

by TS Candii

TS Candii is a transgendered woman and  founder of Black Trans Nation (BTN) a national nob-profit 501 3 (c) organization  advocating, educating, and motivating the public into collective action on behalf of the Black and POC Transgender community. With a core mission to end discrimination Black Trans Nation strives to accomplish this, by driving policymakers to enact policies that will Destigmatize, Decriminalize, and Decarcerate our community. And by organizing and implementing outreach initiatives and providing access to vital resources in the form of housing, health, recovery, employment, legal immigration, and other critical social services. She has also been involved in efforts to decriminalize sex work.  This reality inspired her to become active in the legislation to “Decriminalize Sex Work” most recently the successful repeal of “Walking While Trans” – the unofficial civil rights violating, policing practices dating back to 1976. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Cuomo on Feb 2, 2021. This resulted in over 10,000 cases being dismissed and approximately 800 unlicensed massage parlors dismissed. She is also the author of the best-selling memoir Becomonig Candii

The global pandemic subsumed the world from 2020  up through the end of 2021. More than 1 million people died from COVID-19 and the pandemic exposed gross inequities in the public health system, especially for minorities and other underserved and underprivileged populations. No population was more vulnerable than Black transgender people. Our guest columnist reminds our readers of the challenges faced by this population. Black Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives deserve special attention. 

1. How Black Trans People Are Affected by the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic had an enormous impact on people around the world, and there is an especially large concern for Black trans people, who face an even more severe impact of the pandemic. This is because the already huge healthcare disparities faced by Black trans people are compounded by the effects of the pandemic, making it even more difficult to access the healthcare and other resources they need. In addition, Black trans people are more likely to experience job loss and housing insecurity, putting them at greater risk of poverty during the pandemic.

2. How Limited Access to Healthcare Exacerbates the Crisis

The shutdown of hospitals and medical centers due to the pandemic  made it even more difficult for Black trans people to access the medical care they need. Access to proper medical care is already limited due to discrimination and stigma, but the pandemic has only made the situation worse. Many non-essential medical procedures have been put on hold, and access to gender-affirming surgeries is even more limited. This has had a devastating effect on Black trans people, as they are unable to access the healthcare they need to feel safe and accepted in their bodies.

3. The Consequences of Job Loss

The economic downturn caused by the pandemic  had a particularly devastating effect on Black trans people, who are already more likely to experience job loss than the general population. Many Black trans people work in the service industry, which has been heavily impacted by the pandemic, leaving many of them without a job or any financial security. This has led to an increased risk of poverty and homelessness, which are already disproportionately high among the Black trans community.

4. The Challenge of Finding Safe Housing

The pandemic  had a profound impact on the already limited housing options available to Black trans people. Many of them face discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase homes, making it very difficult to find a safe and secure place to live in the first place. The pandemic has added an additional layer of difficulty as people are less likely to move and renting units become more expensive due to decreased demand. This has left many Black trans people without access to safe and secure housing, putting them in even greater risk of homelessness and poverty.

5. The Need for Advocacy and Support

It is clear that the pandemic  had a devastating effect on the Black trans community, and it is incumbent upon all of us to help create an environment of acceptance and support for all members of the community. There needs to be more advocacy and action taken to provide access to healthcare and housing, to support those struggling with job loss and economic insecurity, and to help protect the rights and dignity of Black trans people. This is a time of great uncertainty, but with the right proactive efforts, we can ensure that the Black trans community comes out of the pandemic with their rights and humanity still intact.

Previously Published on Historian Speaks