President with a pronoun problem

            Hear the distant rumble. Ram the ramparts. Hustle the muskets to the nearest landing strip.

            The sound you hear is not a summer storm but the rolling plunder of Donald Trump seeking further employment by us.

            Flanked by tanks, escorted by bomberooks -- with his presidential bullhorn he commends "unity" to a nation grown disorderly and just plain tired of him.

            By certain accounts he put on a great show at the feet of Lincoln July 4. Apologists in the pundit set certainly thought so. They exhaled a great gust of relief to see Trump stick to (fractured) American history and freebie points about our great military.

            Marc Thiessen raved that Trump had been "unifying" and scolded critics who expected something else.

            Pat Buchanan gushed that Trump displayed perfect pitch: "positive, patriotic, uplifting," oh, and "presidential."

            Imagine anyone needing to plead said case for Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Obama. Each of those presidents knew from Day One what the office demanded.

            Marc Thiessen raved that Trump had been "unifying," and scolded critics who expected something else.

            On behalf of those who expected a clown act from Trump, let me apologize for having paid attention over the last three years.

            Most Americans by now judge any "presidential" pretense to be a ruse from a man whose every other sentence is either a tall tale or a low blow aimed at any who eschew the hook-line-sinker fascination that is him.

            The headlines said a surprisingly stately Trump called on his audience to "stay true to our cause," but we all know (even his acolytes know) the only cause that truly motivates his movement is his pronoun: "me."

            Most Americans know that the "us" Trump mentions doesn't include them. They know that the "us" is really the folks with the VIP tickets to the big event – those conveniently fenced off from the rabble.

            Chain-link: the defining feature of the Trump presidency.

            People who visit the national parks should ask for a refund for their fees – raised under this administration – for the $2.5 million siphoned from the parks budget to pay for this campaign event.

            Those fees are not cheap anymore. And only one American can rely on the taxpayers to pay for all of his recreation, not to mention steal from the military budget when Congress won't fund his border fence.

            Actually, a judge just said he can't do that. As with a citizenship question on the census, Trump proceeds as if he doesn't hear.

            Trump, by review, wanted something much grander than what transpired July 4, something far more extensive and expensive, but got major blowback from the Pentagon.

            He wanted what they do in Moscow and what they do in Pyongyang. He wanted, with Lincoln and our flag as his backdrop, to do what dictators do.

            Tanks? Fighter jets? Civilian flights grounded? No big deal, said he. "We own those things," he said. All it costs is a little fuel.

            We all know what "we" Trump is using in that sentence, and it's not you and me.

            Regardless, we will continue to foot the bill for angry rallies of red-capped people who love it when Trump goes all against "them." Read the thought bubbles of those crowds: "Them" means Muslims, Mexicans, gays and lesbians, and of course liberals.

            Unity? Patriotism? Voters who have been watching this divisive presidency now know what pronoun Trump is all about -- it's not "us." And it's not at all what the first half of the initials "U.S." stand for: united.

            With polls showing most Americans disapproving of what he is and has done, Trump should brace for when voters will remind him that "we" get the final say.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

The Rs vs. the dreaded D -- demographics

            It's a race against time, and against diversity.

            For Republicans that foe was illustrated last week on stage in Miami -- brimming with Democrats running for president.

            It featured candidates of varied colors, fiery non-submissive women, a gay mayor. It represented something for which today's Republican Party isn't programmed: a world of difference.

            The Rs will protest that they have blacks and browns and quite a few women and even a smattering of gay people among them.

            The fact that Republicans can claim these things doesn't mean that they haven't made that D-word – diversity – their everyday enemy. Just look at a MAGA crowd and listen to their leader talk about "the other."

            More importantly, look at what the Supreme Court did that same week. It ruled that Republicans in power could continue to marginalize and undermine communities of diversity to make seats in Congress and the statehouse invulnerable.

            The Supreme Court will not intervene as the GOP seeks every day and in every way to negate the one-man-one-vote protections of the Voting Rights Act.

            The court will look the other way as the choices of black and brown voters are neutralized and tokenized.

            This will happen through vengeful gerrymandering and through guileful vote- suppression tactics aimed squarely at the poor and people of color.

            These clear intentions were built into the quest to include a citizenship question on the census. Reduce census participation by Latinos – the better to minimize them and under represent them.

            Texas Republicans were so dead-set on the citizenship question that they appeared willing to lose a congressional district or more even though the question would mean a population under count.

            No worry. Because gerrymandering now looms as large and destructive as ever, the district lost would be one that served those very Latino citizens.

            Right now Republicans are furiously counting all the black and brown bodies in each state they control so as to make those bodies count for less than before. 

            It really is a race against time, for this nation is getting more black and brown each day, and the Party of Trump is not.

            Throw in increasingly exasperated women and an increasingly active LGBTQ community, both segments of all colors, seeing Trumpism as a remnant of ages-old oppression.

            And then, again, there is race.

            I have said a time or two that racism, or at least racial exclusivity, will be the demise of the GOP. Now it appears that race – or the racial opportunism of gerrymandering and vote suppression, and the representative abomination that is the Electoral College -- stands to be the GOP's only means of enduring.

            It may work for a while, because GOP-controlled legislatures, not constrained by federal courts will strengthen their hand with unfair districts.

            But as said, this nation every day is becoming less like the Republican Party.

            Yes, look at that stage in Miami with all the brilliance and promise inherent.

            By the way, last week a federal judge sentenced Alex Fields Jr., a neo-Nazi, to prison for life for killing Heather Heyer when he drove his car into a crowd protesting a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, W.Va.

            President Trump showed his true colors after that vehicular horror. He spoke of "good people on both sides." The Republican hierarchy stood mute.

            Yes, this is what it has come to. We know good people on both partisan sides of the debate about the direction of this country, but so many on one side – the Trump side -- are so focused on maintaining their political advantages that they simply cannot change what they do and say about race.

            The political science aphorism is, "Demography is destiny." The Republican Party is going all-in on how to define who they are. There's no turning back now.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.

 

As Pride flag rises, sun sets on this bigotry

           Denver was awash in rainbows. Thousands had gathered for the annual Pride Fest, celebrating LBGTQ lives and advocating liberties.

            Jared Polis, the nation's first openly gay governor, was grand marshal.

            Among the throng: several Democrats running to take Republican incumbent Cory Gardner's U.S. Senate seat. Not among the crowd: the senator.

            Gardner wouldn't dare be there to embrace these people, his constituents -- not when soft-sell bigotry remains one of the foundational planks of the Republican Party.

            OK, there's nothing soft about it.

            Not when the Trump administration orders embassies not to fly the multi-colors of the Pride flag.

            Not when Mike Pence's cold, cold aortic structure (same-sex marriage signals "societal collapse" said he) is one beat away from the presidency.

            Not when every gesture of the Trump administration is sculpted to suit the bigoted urges of Franklin Graham and the religious right.

            Democrats in Congress have again gone to the mat on protections against discrimination by employers based on sexual orientation. Republicans in the Senate won't be playing along.

            They can't stomach human rights for human beings who are homosexual or transgender. So much for being "pro-life."

            Elizabeth Warren, the small presidential candidate with the big ideas, is promoting a law that will allow same-sex couples to amend their tax returns to get refunds for which they weren't eligible when federal law didn't recognize same-sex marriage.

            That would be a non-starter in Mitch McConnell's Senate, naturally. That just shows how tone-deaf Republican leaders are to the sea-swell of support of LGBTQ rights, particularly among young voters.

            It's why when people like McConnell are gone they will be gone for good.

            Ask around. Ask young Americans. They are so very accepting of LGBTQ rights, and of institutions like same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian adoption. It's not even an issue.

            Ultimately non-bigots will govern this country, and the religious right will stew in its corner.

            Massive Pride Month events across the country aren't the only indicator pointing to new days ahead.

            Local and national newscasts recounted the horrors that led to the Stonewall Riot 50 years ago. The protests that emerged had the feeling of Selma, Birmingham, and other heroic quests.

            PBS's stunning documentary "The Lavender Scare," recounted the Red Scare-era effort to purge the government of gays and lesbians fueled by whisper campaigns.

            Though it all seems so "back then," I well remember a few years ago in my Texas newspaper days when Republicans staged a not-so-whispery campaign that longtime bachelor, longtime Congressman Chet Edwards was gay.

            Ah, fake news. Today Edwards is happily married with two sons.

            It's sad to have to qualify a person's sexual status with facts. It's sort of like the lie that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Of course, neither claim should be considered a slur.

            Consider the mindset and how it might apply to you. If you don't think in an "approved" manner, your religion, sexual orientation or lack of children may be next up for discussion and dissection.

            Republicans once advertised themselves as having a "big tent." Actually, the first time I heard it was the 1992 GOP national convention, notorious for Pat Buchanan's horrible "family values" screed, packed with mostly anti-gay code in the early days of AIDS. It seems long ago, but the party has yet to change its stripes.

            I'm so proud that Pride Month is becoming an institution. The college at which I teach features it all over campus as I write this, pointing to activities to "fight prejudice and honor diversity." Amen.

            Ultimately those who tout discrimination against homosexuals and the transgender will face the unkind narrative that now accompanies long-ago segregationists and slave owners.

            On this count, Trump, Pence and enabling Republicans, firmly on the wrong side of history, are destined to reside in the dust with George Wallace, Lester Maddox and the Dixiecrats who made the denial of basic human rights a cause worthy of a last stand.

            Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.