Questions for Vice-President Kamala Harris by Jamelle Bouie

 

If the goal of the CNN interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was to relitigate the campaign controversies of the last month — to get the candidates to talk about the major narratives of the election so far — then it was a rousing success.

Harris easily dispatched questions about her identity and gave a strong defense of President Biden’s record. Walz, likewise, made short work of the charge that he had misled the public when he spoke about using one fertility treatment when it was actually another, similar treatment.

But if the goal was to learn something about a prospective President Harris — to gain insight into how she might make decisions, order priorities and approach the job of chief executive — then I think the interview was not a success. Not so much for Harris or the viewing public.

It might be interesting to journalists to know how Harris explains her changing views from 2019, when she ran for the Democratic nomination, to now, when she is the nominee. But it is not at all clear to me that it is interesting to viewers, who may be less concerned with how she deals with the question and more concerned with the actual substance of what she wants to do as president.

A soft-focus question about a photograph, however iconic, seems less valuable than a question about Harris’s view of the presidency now that she’s spent almost four years in the passenger’s seat as vice president.

Speaking for myself, I am less interested in hearing candidates navigate controversies or speak to narratives than I am in hearing them talk, for lack of a better term, about their theory of the office. How does a candidate for president conceptualize the presidency? What would she prioritize in office and how would she handle an endless onslaught of crises and issues that may, or may not, demand her attention? How does she imagine her relationship with Congress and how would she try to achieve her goals in the face of an opposition legislature? How does she imagine her relationship with the public and what value does she place on communication and the bully pulpit? Are there presidents she most admires — and why? Are there presidential accomplishments that stand out and how so? What are the worst mistakes a president can make? Why do you want this job in the first place?

I can think of other questions along these lines, but you get the gist. To know what candidates for president think about the office and their role in it is, I believe, a better guide to what they may do in the White House than almost anything else. The only thing better is prior experience. These kinds of questions may not make for the most scintillating television, but I think they could provide the kind of insights that could actually help Americans decide what they want out of a national leader.

-New York Times

A Chorus of Music Icons Fighting Trump's Use of Their Songs

 

Rocker Jack White joined the chorus of music icons fighting Donald Trump’s use of their songs on Thursday and said he was going to sue the former president. White shared a video posted by campaign official Margo Martin that showed Trump and used “Seven Nation Army” from White’s former band The White Stripes.

“Oh....Don’t even think about using my music you fascists,” White wrote on Instagram. “Law suit coming from my lawyers about this (to add to your 5 thousand others.) Have a great day at work today Margo Martin.”

Martin deleted the video. Then, White offered a direct message to the former president.

“And as long as I’m here, a double fuck you DonOLD for insulting our nation’s veterans at Arlington you scum,” he wrote. “You should lose every military family’s vote immediately from that if ANYTHING makes sense anymore.”

He was referring to an altercation at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony this week. NPR reported that Trump campaign staff members “verbally abused and pushed” a cemetery official. The U.S. Army confirmed the incident, saying a campaign staff member “abruptly pushed aside” a cemetery official trying to enforce rules against filming for political purposes.

White hasn’t been shy about his dislike of the former president and last year put celebs who support Trump on blast by name.

“Anybody who ‘normalizes’ or treats this disgusting fascist, racist, con man, disgusting piece of shit Trump with any level of respect is ALSO disgusting in my book,” White wrote. “That’s you Joe Rogan, you Mel Gibson, you Mark Wahlberg, you Guy Fieri.”

His Third Man Records shop has been selling shirts, pins and bumper stickers that say “Icky Trump,” a play on “Icky Thump,” the name of a White Stripes song and the title of the band’s final studio album.

White is the latest artist ticked at Trump over music use. In just the past few weeks, ABBA, Foo Fighters, Celine Dion and Beyonce have all hit back at Trump after he used their music.

The Rolling Stones, Rihanna, Neil Young, Guns N’ Roses and the estates of Tom Petty and Isaac Hayes, among others, have all slammed Trump ― and in some cases filed legal action ― over his campaign’s use of their music.

-Ed Mazza, Huffpost

Trump the Grifter, "a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff"

...Yesterday, Trump began the day by posting an advertisement for the fourth “series of Trump digital trading cards,” or NFTs (which are unique digital tokens) featuring heroic images of Trump. People who buy 15 or more of them—at $99 apiece—get a physical trading card as well. Trump said that the physical card has a piece of the suit he wore at the presidential debate, and Trump promises to sign five of them, randomly. Up to 25 people who buy $25,750 worth of the cards with cryptocurrency will be invited to a gala next month at his Jupiter, Florida, golf club.

In the ad, Trump made it a point to emphasize his enthusiasm for cryptocurrency, an emphasis that dovetails with Trump’s recent promotion of an “official” cryptocurrency project. He linked to a Telegram channel run by his sons Don Jr. and Eric that, at the time, was called “The DeFiant Ones [sic]” but has been renamed “World Liberty Financial.” While there is little public information about the project, the channel has almost 50,000 subscribers.  

Hawking merchandise was an odd move for a presidential candidate, and it suggested his focus is elsewhere than on the election. Also today, Trump announced that he plans to make former Democrats Robert Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom have endorsed him, honorary members of his transition team. Kennedy told right-wing personality Tucker Carlson that he would “help pick the people who will be running the government.” 

That afternoon, Trump announced that the terms for the September 10 presidential debate had been set, but the fact it came from him alone suggested he was trying to get his way by simply declaring he had won. Indeed, the Harris campaign said the issue hadn’t been settled, and ABC News, which is holding the debate, did not comment. 

Late that afternoon, special counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump in the federal criminal case concerning Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. After the Supreme Court decided on July 1, 2024, in the aptly named case of Donald J. Trump v. United States, that Trump cannot be charged with crimes committed as part of his official duties, the criminal case Smith had filed against him for his attempt to steal the election had to be reworked to eliminate those actions the court deemed official. 

A new grand jury heard the evidence for this indictment, avoiding concerns that the previous grand jury might be swayed by evidence that they had heard before but was no longer admissible. The new indictment removes those matters but retains the four original charges and clarifies that they concern actions that are not official duties. Legal analyst Joyce White Vance of Civil Discourse notes that while the old indictment referred to Trump as a former president, this one refers to him as “a candidate for president.” 

Trump greeted the announcement with a long, unhinged rant on his social media company, saying that “[t]he people of our country will see what is happening with all of these corrupt lawsuits against me, and will REJECT them by giving me an overwhelming Victory on November 5th for President of the United States….”

“For those counting,” legal analyst Andrew Weismann wrote, “FIVE separate grand juries (scores of citizens) have now found probable cause that Trump committed multiple felonies.” 

That evening, Quil Lawrence and Tom Bowman of NPR explained the story behind the surprising photos of Trump on Monday giving a thumbs-up over a grave in Arlington National Cemetery. The reporters wrote that “[t]wo members of Donald Trump's campaign staff had a verbal and physical altercation Monday with an official” at the cemetery, where “[f]ederal law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities.” When a cemetery official tried to prevent Trump campaign staff from entering the section where the grave was located, “campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside.” A Trump campaign spokesperson said the official who tried to prevent the staff from holding a political event in the cemetery was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.” 

And now the U.S. Army has weighed in on the scandal surrounding Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery for a campaign photo op, after which his team shared a campaign video it had filmed. The Army said that the cemetery hosts almost 3,000 public wreath-laying ceremonies a year without incident and that Trump and his staff “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and [Department of Defense] policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.” 

It went on to say that a cemetery employee “who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside…. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the… employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. [Arlington National Cemetery] is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve.” 

“I don’t think I can adequately explain what a massive deal it is for the Army to make a statement like this,” political writer and veteran Allison Gill of Mueller, She Wrote, noted. “The Pentagon avoids statements like this at all costs. But a draft dodging traitor decided to lie about our armed forces staff, so they went to paper.”

The deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Department of Defense is “aware of the statement that the Army issued, and we support what the Army said.” Hours later, Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita reposted the offending video on X and, tagging the official account for Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, said he was “hoping to trigger the hacks” in her office. 

In Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall reported that the Trump campaign’s plan was to lay a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the 13 members of the U.S. military killed in the suicide bombing during the evacuation of Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021. They intended to film the event and then attack Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden for not “showing up” for the event, which they intended to portray as an “established memorial.”

                                                              *****

The elephant in the room these days is that most Republicans, along with many pundits, are pretending that Trump is a normal presidential candidate. They are ignoring his mental lapses, calls for authoritarianism, grifting, lack of grasp on any sort of policy, and criminality, even as he has hollowed out the once grand Republican Party and threatens American democracy itself.

It’s hard to look away from the reality that the Republican senators could have stopped this catastrophe at many points in Trump’s term, at the very least by voting to convict Trump at his first impeachment trial. At the time, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, “Out of one hundred senators, you have zero who believe you that there was no quid pro quo. None. There’s not a single one.” Republican senators nonetheless stood behind Trump. “This is not about this president. It’s not about anything he’s been accused of doing,” then–majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told his colleagues. “It has always been about November 3, 2020. It’s about flipping the Senate.”

When the Framers wrote the Constitution, they did not foresee senators abandoning the principles of the country in order to support a president they thought would enhance their own careers. Assuming that lawmakers would jealously guard their own power, the Framers gave to the members of the House of Representatives the power to impeach a president. To the members of the Senate, they gave the sole power to try impeachments. They assumed that lawmakers, who had just fought a war to break free of a monarch, would understand that their own interests would always require stopping the rise of an authoritarian leader. 

But the Framers did not foresee the rise of political partisanship. 

In the modern era, extreme partisanship has led to voter suppression to keep Republicans in power, the weaponization of the filibuster to stop Democratic legislation, and gerrymandering to enable Republicans to take far more legislative seats than they have earned. The demands of this extreme partisanship also mean that members of one of the nation’s major political parties have lined up behind a man whom, where he running this sort of a campaign even ten years ago, they would have dismissed with derision. 

Finally, devastatingly, the partisanship that made senators keep Trump in office enabled him to name to the Supreme Court three justices. Those three justices were key to making up the majority that overturned the nation’s fundamental principle that all people must be equal before the law. In July 2024 they ruled that unlike anyone else, a president is above it.  

In May 2016, South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham famously observed: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.”

—Heather Cox Richardson

Notes:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trumps-campaign-spends-tens-of-thousands-to-air-ads-in-mar-a-lago

https://www.wrbl.com/news/youll-pay-the-most-for-coffee-in-these-states-new-report-finds/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/08/27/trump-selling-more-nft-trading-cards-as-he-courts-crypto-voters/

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/27/us/harris-trump-election

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/08/27/us/harris-trump-election#trump-transition-rfk-tulsi-gabbard

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/27/politics/trump-superseding-indictment-january-6/index.html

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/27/nx-s1-5090925/trump-indictment-jan6

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.228.0_1.pdf

 

Special counsel challenges Trump classified documents case dismissal

 

Special counsel prosecutors have asked a federal appeals court to bring back the criminal case against Donald Trump over his retention of classified files, arguing the judge was mistaken in dismissing the charges.

Prosecutors argued that the US district judge Aileen Cannon was wrong to do so in July on the grounds that the special counsel, Jack Smith, was illegally appointed, maintaining that Cannon ignored previous rulings and misread at least four statutes that allowed his appointment.

Cannon’s grounds for dismissing the case rested on the fact that Smith had been brought in externally and was not a Senate-confirmed justice department official when he was named to lead the Trump cases. But prosecutors argued that this was a moot point, as the attorney general has the authority to appoint prosecutors under federal law.

What could this mean? The appeal to reinstate the case marks the beginning of what will likely be a drawn-out legal battle that could reach the US supreme court – expect a timeline of months, if not years.

-The Guardian

"Frantically Posting" Trump

 

The Democratic National Convention buoyed the Democrats. Thirty-four million dollars’ worth of donations came into ActBlue on the night of Vice President Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech. That money added to the other donations pouring in to make a record-breaking total of $540 million since July 22, when Harris’s campaign launched. 

Analyzing voter registrations in Michigan, pollster Tom Bonier found an immediate increase in young women registering to vote in the week of July 21, and his models suggest a 20-point Democratic advantage among those new registrants. FiveThirtyEight shows Harris up 2.7 points over Trump in the national polling average, a six-point improvement from Biden’s last day as a candidate. Across the country, the campaign has 400,000 volunteers.

Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz will cross southern Georgia by bus next week to build on the momentum of the convention, working with the 35,000 volunteers, 174 staffers, and 24 campaign offices across the state. 

Trump and the MAGA Republicans have not taken the Democrats’ momentum quietly. Trump has been frantically posting. 

On Thursday morning he assured readers on his social media channel that “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights,” although he has boasted about ending the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protected women’s access to abortion and suggested that women who obtain abortions should be punished. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times wrote that his posts “were too ridiculous even for Trump,” and she wondered if his account had been hacked by Iranians. 

Then Trump went to Montezuma Pass, Arizona, to praise a section of border wall constructed there. A Border Patrol union leader called it the “Trump Wall,” and Isaac Arnsdorf, Marianne LeVine and Erin Patrick O'Connor of the Washington Post wrote that Trump’s visit was designed to recapture the storyline of this presidential race from Harris. But it turned out that the section he visited was actually built under President Barack Obama.

The nearby Trump portion was unfinished and cost at least $35 million per mile. As president, the reporters note, “Trump spent more than $11 billion to finish more than 450 miles of wall along the almost 2,000-mile southern border, one of the most expensive federal infrastructure projects in history.” 

Harris’s acceptance speech had Trump apparently beside himself. During her 38-minute speech he posted 59 times on his social media platform, saying, among other things, “WHERE’S HUNTER?”  referring to President Joe Biden’s son. After the speech ended, he called in to the Fox News Channel to rant, in what Dowd called a “scream-of-consciousness,” in which he insisted he is “doing very well in the polls,” until host Bret Baier cut him off. So he turned to right-wing media outlet Newsmax, where he continued his diatribe.  

That night, apparently increasingly concerned about his chances of election, Trump—or his team, because it didn’t really sound like him—reached out on social media to Georgia governor Brian Kemp, whom he has lambasted since 2021 for refusing to help him steal the 2020 election. As recently as August 3, Trump went after Kemp, but on Thursday he thanked the governor “for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country. I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo commented: “Nothing tells you Trump is in full panic more than seeing him crawl back to nemesis Brian Kemp begging for help in Georgia.” “Kemp wanted a public groveling,” Ron Filipkowski wrote, “and that’s what Trump did tonight.” 

It wasn’t just Trump who was concerned about the Democratic National Convention. A number of prominent Republicans who will be voting for Harris spoke there, providing a permission structure for other Republicans to shift their support to Harris and Walz. But that message did not make it through to viewers of the Fox News Channel. Media Matters, which monitors right-wing media, reported that the Fox News Channel did not air any of the Republicans’ DNC speeches. 

In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan complained that Democrats “stole traditional Republican themes (faith, patriotism) and claimed them as their own”—as if somehow Democrats shouldn’t be able to claim either faith or patriotism—and worried that Trump “is famously off his game.” His “old insult shtick isn’t working,” and when he tries to read from a teleprompter, “he talks like a tranquilized robot.” Because he has insulted everything, when he now disparages something, she wrote, “it seems part of his act.”  

Recognizing the momentum of the Harris-Walz campaign, the Trump-Vance campaign on Saturday sent out a memo predicting a post-convention bump for Harris-Walz but promising the bump would be temporary. It also did not mention that Trump and Vance did not get the normal post-convention bounce after their 2024 convention in July. 

Friday brought more bad news for the Trump campaign when twelve Republican lawyers who served in the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush wrote an open letter endorsing Harris because they believe Trump is a threat to American democracy and the rule of law. They continued: "[W]e urge all patriotic Republicans, former Republicans, conservative and center-right citizens, and independent voters to place love of country above party and ideology and join us in supporting Kamala Harris."  

They join conservative jurist J. Michael Luttig, who endorsed Harris on Wednesday and wrote: “In voting for Vice President Harris, I assume that her public policy views are vastly different from my own, but I am indifferent in this election on any issues other than America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law, as I believe all Americans should be.” […]

Finally, in a post on his social media site tonight, Trump appears to be hinting that he will pull out of the planned debate between him and Vice President Harris scheduled for September 10. “I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning,” he wrote, “and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network?... Stay tuned!!!” […]

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

State Terrorism in the Age of Killing Zones by Henry Giroux

What sets Israel’s war on Gaza apart is not only its violent military operations, marked by the indiscriminate killing of women and children, but also its relentless assault on dissent, criticism, and even the mildest opposition to its internationally condemned human rights violations and war crimes. Israel’s ongoing and brutal military campaign, coupled with its “policies of extreme inhumanity against the Palestinian people,” is inextricably linked to a state-sanctioned effort to legitimize and normalize its actions in Gaza.[1] 

This includes waging an ideological war of censorship and defamation against any challenge—no matter its source—to what Kenneth Roth, co-founder of Human Rights Watch, condemns as “Israel’s system of apartheid,” [2]  and what Aryeh Neier, Holocaust survivor and co-founder of Human Rights Watch, describes as “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” [3]

The full scope of Israel’s assault on Gaza is revealed through its relentless military actions, characterized by indiscriminate violence against women, children, the elderly, and non-combatants. According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the scale of destruction imposed on Gaza is not only devastating but ethically unimaginable. 

Since the start of the war, and as of the end of November 2023, Israel has reportedly dropped over 25,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, a force equivalent to two nuclear bombs. This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza in just over two months exceed that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.[4] According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the use of such highly destructive bombs in residential areas constitutes a war crime.

The consequences of these bombings were tragically displayed on August 10, 2024, when Israel bombed the Tab’een School in Gaza, a distressingly common occurrence. The school had provided shelter to nearly 2,500 people fleeing demolished areas, many of whom were children. The Israeli bombs targeted a prayer hall at dawn, where hundreds were praying. According to an investigation by Euro-Med Monitor, “over 100 Palestinians were killed, including several [entire] families.” The bombs’ immense destructive power reduced victims’ bodies to shredded and burned remains, leaving numerous others with severe injuries.[5] 

CNN reported that Fares Afana, director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in northern Gaza, stated that all those targeted “were civilians—unarmed children, the elderly, men, and women.”[6] Euro-Med Monitor found no evidence that the school “was being used for military objectives.”[7] Despite the documented evidence of Israel’s ongoing killings, abductions, forced starvation, and torture of Palestinians, including children,[8] Netanyahu and his cabinet members have astonishingly claimed that Israel has “the most moral army in the world.”[9]

Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians. Save the Children reports that “more than 15,000 children are estimated to have been killed by Israel’s relentless assault on the strip [while estimating]that up to 21,000 are missing.”[10]  The overall number of deaths may be vastly understated. Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, and Salim Yusuf, three health officials, stated in The Lancet, a prestigious peer-reviewed British medical journal,  that as a result of deaths caused by indirect rather than direct violence it is likely that the actual number of deaths is closer to 186,000.[11] 

Andre Damon writing on the World Socialist Web Site observes that Israel is waging a war of extermination against the Palestinian people and its aim is to not only “…massacre tens of thousands but also to destroy all aspects of civilization in Gaza, contributing to the deaths of tens of thousands through malnutrition, communicable diseases and lack of healthcare.”[12]  The egregious horror of this violence is underscored by its engagement in acts of profound brutality, including the bombing of schools, the torture of prisoners,[13] the use of starvation as a weapon, and the targeting of hospitals and a large part of Gaza’s health facilities, among other barbarous policies.

Such acts have been condemned as genocide by legal groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, over 50 governments including South Africa, and various United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations.[14]Additionally, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is considering a request by the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for committing “war crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.”[15] Khan has also requested similar arrest warrants for certain Hamas leaders.

As Jewish scholar Judith Butler points out, Israel’s far-right leaders have been both public and unapologetic about their eliminationist plans following the Hamas attack on October 7th. Their goal has been to systematically undermine “the livelihood, the health, the well-being, and the capacity [of the Palestinians] to persist” amidst Israel’s vengeful and disproportionate military assault. [16] After the surprise Hamas terrorist attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called for a complete siege of Gaza, declaring, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.” [17] Some Israeli ministers have called for the dropping of an atomic bomb on Gaza.[18]

In a statement that defies moral and legal boundaries, Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, claimed that “no one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.”[19] Smotrich’s remark not only trivializes the suffering of millions but also overlooks a critical fact: the deliberate starvation of civilians is unequivocally a war crime. 

This is the language of fascist politicians who speak with the weight of corpses in their mouths and blood on their hands. Such dehumanizing rhetoric doesn’t merely target Hamas fighters; it extends to the entire population of Gaza, effectively labeling all Palestinians as terrorists and less than human. By dehumanizing an entire group, this rhetoric facilitates and legitimizes Israel’s oppression of all Palestinians, justifying the denial of basic human needs and the commission of war crimes.

The ultimate aim of Israel’s war in Gaza appears to be the eradication of any possibility of a Palestinian state and the eventual expulsion of Palestinians from their land. This is evident in the “complete siege” taking place in  Gaza, and Netanyahu’s explicit opposition to the future existence of a Palestinian state. Given Israel’s current assault on Gaza, which has nearly obliterated the daily survival prospects of its inhabitants, this aim becomes clearer.  Sharon Zhang underscores this point by noting that Netanyahu has explicitly stated his intent “to quash any hope of the existence of a Palestinian state in its entirety.” [20] She writes:

“Advocates for Palestinian rights have said that this has been Israeli officials’ plan all along, as Israeli forces slaughter Palestinians en masse in Gaza while working to erase evidence that Palestinians ever existed in the region. However, this is one of the clearest statements yet from Netanyahu himself amid the current siege, suggesting his confidence that he will be able to carry it through with help from allies like the U.S.[21]” […]

 

What stands out regarding Israel’s policy of scholasticide is not only the visceral killing, suffering, and terror inflicted upon the Palestinian people in Gaza but also the calculated effort to obliterate institutions that preserve Palestinian history, educate current and future generations, and forge links between the past and a future of freedom and justice. This is not just an assault on memory; it is an attack on the very essence of education as a liberating force—indispensable for a society where informed judgment, civic courage, and critical agency are essential to upholding the ideals of freedom and justice through mass resistance.

It is crucial for critical educators and anti-war activists to acknowledge that this war on education in Gaza parallels the ongoing assault on higher education in the United States and other authoritarian regimes, revealing a disturbing global alignment in the attack on intellectual freedom and historical truth. The strategy of scholasticide is both a violent structural project and a calculated ideological and pedagogical effort to silence dissent within and outside of higher education, particularly dissent that holds Israel’s genocidal war and its apparatuses of ideological indoctrination and repression accountable.

The horrors unfolding in Gaza represent the extreme endpoint of a broader, insidious campaign aimed at crushing dissent across universities in the United States, Europe, and beyond, including nations like Hungary. In the U.S., schools and cultural institutions may not be bombed, but they are systematically defunded and turned into fortresses of academic repression. Books are banned, student protesters face police brutality, faculty are purged, and history is whitewashed. Meanwhile, billionaire elites and administrative enforcers ruthlessly work to “engineer the intellectual, social, and financial impoverishment of the educational sector,” silencing anyone who dares to challenge their pursuit of national and ideological conformity.[45]

Scholasticide is a modern form of McCarthyism that intensifies from silencing opposition to the outright destruction of academic and cultural institutions that enable both individual and collective resistance. It begins by targeting informed judgment, historical memory, and dissent, and then escalates to obliterating civic infrastructures like schools and museums. In its wake, it leaves a trail of bloodshed, broken limbs, wounded women and children, and a chilling legacy of violence, mass deaths, and ethical emptiness. Scholasticide is the canary in the coal mine, signaling an imminent and grave threat to academic freedom, free speech, critical education, and democracy itself.

Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023), and coauthored with Anthony DiMaggio, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s board of directors.

Notes.

[1] Gerald Sussman, “The US-Israeli Regime of Despair,” Counter Punch (July 21, 2024). Online: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/21/the-us-israeli-regime-of-despair/

[2] Kenneth Roth, “Crimes of War in Gaza” The New York Review of Books [July 18, 2024]. Online: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/07/18/crimes-of-war-in-gaza-kenneth-roth/

[3] Aryeh Neier, “Is Israel Committing Genocide?” The New York Review of Books[June 6, 2024]. Online: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/is-israel-committing-genocide-aryeh-neier/

[4] HuMedia, “Israel hits Gaza Strip with the equivalent of two nuclear bombs,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (November 2, 2023). Online: https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5908/Israel-hits-Gaza-Strip-with-the-equivalent-of-two-nuclear-bombs#:~:text=Geneva%20%2D%20Israel%20has%20dropped%20more,a%20press%20release%20issued%20today

[5] Editorial, “Initial Euro-Med Monitor investigation finds no evidence of military presence at site of Tab’een School massacre in Gaza,” Countercurrents.org (August 24, 2024). Online: https://countercurrents.org/2024/08/initial-euro-med-monitor-investigation-finds-no-evidence-of-military-presence-at-site-of-tabeen-school-massacre-in-gaza/

[6] Irene Nasser, Abeer Salman, Ibrahim Dahman, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Lex Harvey and Allegra Goodwin, “Israeli strike on mosque and school in Gaza kills scores, sparking international outrage,” CNN World (August 11, 2024).  Online: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/10/middleeast/israeli-school-strike-gaza-intl-hnk/index.html

[7] HuMedia, “Initial Euro-Med Monitor investigation finds no evidence of military presence at site of Tab’een School massacre in Gaza,” Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (August 11, 2024). Online: https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6432/Initial-Euro-Med-Monitor-investigation-finds-no-evidence-of-military-presence-at-site-of-Tab%E2%80%99een-School-massacre-in-Gaza

[8] Miranda Cleland, “Why Israel can torture detained Palestinian children with impunity,” Middle East Eye (December 1, 2023). Online: https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-torture-detained-palestinian-children-impunity

[9] Greg Shupak, “Israel may have the least ‘moral army’ in the world: The rate of civilian death during Israel’s assault on Gaza has few precedents this century,” Canadian Dimension (February 17, 2024). Online: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/israel-may-have-the-least-moral-army-in-the-world

[10] Arwa Mahdawi, “Nearly 21,000 children are missing in Gaza. And there’s no end to this nightmare” The Guardian [June 27, 2024]. Online: https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/27/gaza-missing-children

[11] Rasha Khatib, Martin McKee, Salim Yusuf, “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential” The Lancet [July 5, 2024]. Online: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

[12] Andre Damon, “Lancet warns Gaza death toll could be over 186,000,” World Socialist Web Site (July 7, 2024). Online: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/07/08/xgqe-j08.html

[13] Press Release, “UN report: Palestinian detainees held arbitrarily and secretly, subjected to torture and mistreatment,” United Nations Human Rights (July 31, 2024). Online: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-report-palestinian-detainees-held-arbitrarily-and-secretly-subjected

[14] Gerald Imray, “Genocide case against Israel: Where does the rest of the world stand on the momentous allegations?,” Associated Press (January 14, 2024). Online: https://apnews.com/article/genocide-israel-palestinians-gaza-court-fbd7fe4af10b542a1a4e2c7563029bfb;

[15] Mike Corder, “International Criminal Court judges mulling arrest warrants consider legal arguments on jurisdiction,” Associated Press(August 9, 2024). Online: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-icc-court-warrants-jurisdiction-12df89805cf654df030a56264ad38bb8#:~:text=THE%20HAGUE%2C%20Netherlands%20(AP),attacks%20by%20Hamas%20in%20Israel.

[16] Amy Goodman, “Palestinian Lives Matter Too: Jewish Scholar Judith Butler Condemns Israel’s “Genocide” in Gaza.”  Democracy Now[October 26, 2023]. Online: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/26/judith_butler_ceasefire_gaza_israel

[17] Sanjana Karanth, “Israeli Defense Minister Announces Siege On Gaza To Fight ‘Human Animals’,” The Huff Post (October 9, 2023). Online: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-defense-minister-human-animals-gaza-palestine_n_6524220ae4b09f4b8d412e0a

[18] Patrick Kingsley, “Top U.N. Court Decision Adds to Israel’s Growing Isolation”  New York Times [May 24, 2024]. Online: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/world/middleeast/icj-israel-rafah-isolation.html

[19] Guardian Staff and Agencies, “Israel minister condemned for saying starvation of millions in Gaza might be ‘justified and moral’,” The Guardian (August 8, 2024). Online: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/08/israel-finance-minister-bezalel-smotrich-gaza-starve-2m-people-comments

[20] Sharon Zhang, “Netanyahu Says Israel’s Goal Is to Wipe Out All Possibility of Palestinian State,” Truthout (January 18, 2024). Online: https://truthout.org/articles/netanyahu-says-israels-goal-is-to-wipe-out-all-possibility-of-palestinian-state/#:~:text=War%20%26%20Peace-,Netanyahu%20Says%20Israel’s%20Goal%20Is%20to%20Wipe%20Out%20All%20Possibility,amid%20Israel’s%20genocide%20in%20Gaza.&text=Honest%2C%20paywall%2Dfree%20news%20is,a%20donation%20of%20any%20size.

[21] Ibid.

[45] Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “How Authoritarians Target Universities,” Lucid  (July 11, 2023). Online: https://lucid.substack.com/p/from-fascism-to-hungary-and-the-us

Vice-President Kamala Harris, August 22, 2024 (Speech Excerpts)

 

…Fellow Americans, this election is not only the most important of our lives. It is one of the most important in the life of our nation. In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious.

Consider not only the chaos and calamity when he was in office, but also the gravity of what has happened since he lost the last election. Donald Trump tried to throw away your votes. When he failed, he sent an armed mob to the United States Capitol, where they assaulted law enforcement officers. When politicians in his own party begged him to call off the mob and send help, he did the opposite. He fanned the flames. And now, for an entirely different set of crimes, he was found guilty of fraud by a jury of everyday Americans. And separately, he was found liable for committing sexual abuse. And consider what he intends to do if we give him power again.

Consider his explicit intent to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers at the Capitol: his explicit intent to jail journalists and political opponents. Anyone he sees as the enemy. His explicit intent to deploy our active-duty military against our own citizens. Consider the power he will have— especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails. How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States. Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security. But to serve the only client he has ever had: Himself. And we know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in “Project 2025.” Written by his closest advisors, and its sum total is to pull, our country back into the past.

But America, we are not going back. We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools. We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and child care.

America, we are not going back. We are charting a New Way Forward. Forward—to a future with a strong and growing middle class. Because we know a strong middle class has always been critical to America’s success. And building that middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. This is personal for me. The middle class is where I come from. My mother kept a strict budget. We lived within our means. Yet, we wanted for little. And she expected us to make the most of the opportunities that were available to us. And to be grateful for them. Because opportunity is not available to everyone. That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy. An opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed. Whether you live in a rural area, small town, or big city.

As President, I will bring together: Labor and workers, small business owners and entrepreneurs, and American companies. To create jobs. Grow our economy and lower the cost of everyday needs, like health care, housing and groceries.

We will provide access to capital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders. We will end America’s housing shortage, and protect Social Security and Medicare. Compare that to Donald Trump. He doesn’t actually fight for the middle class. Instead, he fights for himself and his billionaire friends. He will give them another round of tax breaks that will add five trillion dollars to the national debt. All while he intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax—call it, a Trump tax— that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost four thousand dollars a year. Well, instead of a Trump tax hike, we will pass a middle-class tax cut that will benefit more than 100 million Americans.

Friends, I believe America cannot truly be prosperous unless Americans are fully able to make their own decisions about their own lives. Especially on matters of heart and home. But tonight, too many women in America are not able to make those decisions. Let’s be clear about how we got here. Donald Trump hand-picked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom, and now he brags about it. His words: Quote –“I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.”

Over the past two years, I have traveled across our country. And women have told me their stories. Husbands and fathers have shared theirs. Stories of women miscarrying in a parking lot, getting sepsis, losing the ability to ever have children again… All because doctors are afraid of going to jail for caring for their patients. Couples just trying to grow their family… cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Children who have survived sexual assault, potentially forced to carry the pregnancy to term. This is what is happening in our country because of Donald Trump.

And understand, he is not done. As a part of his agenda, he and his allies would limit access to birth control, ban medication abortion, and enact a nation-wide abortion ban with or without Congress. And get this, he plans to create a National Anti-Abortion Coordinator to force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions. Simply put. They are out of their minds. And one must ask: Why exactly is it that they don’t trust women? Well We trust women! And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.

In this election, many other fundamental freedoms are at stake. The freedom to live safe from gun violence—in our schools, communities, and places of worship. The freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. The freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis. And the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote. With this election, we finally have the opportunity to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. And let me be clear. After decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border. Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. The Border Patrol endorsed it, but Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign. So he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security!

Here is my pledge to you: As President, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law. I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system. We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border. America, we must also be steadfast in advancing our security and our values abroad. As Vice President, I have confronted threats to our security, negotiated with foreign leaders, strengthened our alliances, and engaged with our brave troops overseas.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families. And I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice. I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and Artificial Intelligence. That America—not China—wins the competition for the 21st century. And that we strengthen—not abdicate—our global leadership.

Trump, on the other hand, threatened to abandon NATO. He encouraged Putin to invade our allies. Said Russia could quote “do whatever the hell they want.” Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, I met with President Zelensky to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade. I helped mobilize a global response— over 50 countries—to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as President, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.

With respect to the war in Gaza. President Biden and I are working around the clock. Because now is the time to get a hostage deal and ceasefire done. Let me be clear: I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself. Because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that the terrorist organization Hamas caused on October 7^th, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.

At the same time, what has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again. The scale of suffering is heartbreaking. President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination. And know this: I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists. And I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim-Jong-Un, who are rooting for Trump. Because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors. They know Trump won’t hold autocrats accountable because he wants to be an autocrat.

As President, I will never waver in defense of America’s security and ideals. Because, in the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand and where the United States of America belongs.

Fellow Americans, I love our country with all my heart. Everywhere I go—in everyone I meet—I see a nation ready to move forward. Ready for the next step, in the incredible journey that is America. I see an America where we hold fast to the fearless belief that built our nation, that inspired the world. That here, in this country, anything is possible.

Nothing is out of reach in America, where we care for one another, look out for one another, and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us. That none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed. And that, in unity, there is strength.

Our opponents in this race are out there, every day, denigrating America. Talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach. Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, let us show each other—and the world—who we are. And what we stand for: Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness and endless possibilities.

We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world. And on behalf of our children and grandchildren, and all those who sacrificed so dearly for our freedom and liberty, we must be worthy of this moment. It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done, guided by optimism and faith to fight for this country we love. To fight for the ideals we cherish, and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth: the privilege and pride of being an American. So, let’s get out there and let’s fight for it. Let’s get out there, and let’s vote for it. And together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told. Thank you. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America.

-Vice President Kamala Harris

Michelle Obama rewires America’s conversation on race with six words

 

In her speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, Michelle Obama coined one of the defining phrases of the political era: “When they go low, we go high.”

Going high did not work. Donald Trump won that election. While many of his supporters expressed discomfort with his go-low approach to politics, far more embraced it. Trump, despite his pedigree as a New York billionaire, would embarrass and attack and disparage the perceived elites, and many Americans loved him for it.

Lesson learned. In her speech Tuesday night at the 2024 Democratic convention, Obama didn’t explicitly revoke the “we go high” mantra, but she made clear that a different moment called for a different approach. It wasn’t that the former first lady went low, exactly, but she was unsparing in her disdain for and criticisms of her husband’s successor.

In one of the more memorable stretches of her speech, she equated the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, with the majority of Americans who never enjoyed Trump’s wealth and privilege — and the safety net that accompanies them.

Harris “understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama said. “We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No.

“We don’t get to change the rules, so we always win,” she continued. “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. We put our heads down. We get to work.”

Trump’s name wasn’t used but it didn’t need to be. That line about the escalator, a call back to Trump’s 2015 campaign launch, made the point obvious, if it wasn’t already.

But there are six words in that stretch that extend well beyond Trump. Obama used a phrase that succinctly and elegantly reframes the ongoing debate over inequality in the United States and how it might be addressed: “the affirmative action of generational wealth.”

It’s concise, centered on two familiar concepts. The first is “affirmative action,” the term used to describe programs generally focused on ensuring that non-White Americans have access to resources and institutions they might not otherwise have. And the second is “generational wealth,” the transition of economic (and social) power through families and, at times, communities.

These are descriptors of elements in American society that are in tension. If you are a recipient of generational wealth, you don’t need affirmative action to ensure you have access. If you are someone who would benefit from affirmative action, you generally are not someone with access to generational wealth. Of course, you might be, which is one of the outliers used to criticize affirmative action programs: They often center more on demographic traits than on economic class.

The linchpin of Obama’s phrase, though, is its shortest word: “of.” She isn’t contrasting affirmative action and generational wealth as conduits to power and success, she’s overlapping them. She’s noting that generational wealth is a form of affirmative action, here in the person of Trump but certainly beyond that.

How? Because generational wealth presents opportunities to people who might otherwise not have access to them: legacy admissions at Ivy League colleges, tutors and training, vehicles and housing that make entry-level jobs or internships more feasible. These are benefits that derive from social and economic class — a form of affirmative action. This is how reframing a subject works; it presents familiar information in a new context.

The natural response, of course, is that a parent bolstering her child’s success is different from a government program that includes an effort to ensure that Black Americans have equal access. But this is the point of the word “generational.” We’re not simply considering a rich parent and the advantages they might offer. We’re focused on patterns of wealth transitioning from parent to child over and over again. And those patterns, traced backward over surprisingly few decades, very quickly bring us back to racial divisions.

There is no question that Black and White Americans did not have equal access to economic success in the 1950s or 1960s. They didn’t in later decades, either, thanks to ongoing overt discrimination (like being unable to rent an apartment) and discriminatory patterns built in to lending and jobs systems (such as making it harder to obtain a mortgage for homes in some neighborhoods). 

Nearly every American has a parent or grandparent who was alive in the era of explicit discrimination — that’s two generations away. Generational wealth, then, almost necessarily means wealth rooted in an American economy where explicit discrimination existed. It also means wealth that still enjoys the sorts of systemic protections and advantages, including ones from the government, that are pilloried when focused on addressing historical inequality.

One of the central debates over race in recent years has centered on existence or extent of racism embedded in American social and legal systems. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, focused on systemic racism in law enforcement, increased the number of White Americans — specifically, White Democrats — who indicated that they thought discrimination was a central cause for the lower incomes and worse housing many Black Americans experience.

The biennial General Social Survey, reflecting Republicans’ broad rejection of the idea of systemic racism, finds that they are much more likely to indicate that Black Americans have worse economic positions due to lack of motivation.

Republicans reject the idea of systemic racism, in part, because they view it as an unfair and unpatriotic disparagement of the United States. It’s in part, too, because the narrative of America overcoming explicit racism during the Civil Rights movement suggests that the fight is over. Many point to Michelle Obama’s husband: How could racism exist in an America that elected a Black man as president?

It’s also in part because the Black Lives Matter movement and questions about racism in general are coded as Democratic issues and therefore subject to partisan response. Black Lives Matter led to the right embracing Blue Lives Matter. Discussions of systemic racism were met with many White Republicans viewing themselves as victims of anti-White racism (to Trump’s political benefit). Affirmative action programs became a useful target for demonstrating that sort of anti-White bias.

Michelle Obama knows this. Her line overlapping affirmative action and generational wealth wasn’t offering “affirmative action” as a pejorative term. It was, instead, contextualizing a different way in which people are boosted by circumstances that aren’t always under their control. It was a defense of affirmative action programs that noted how wealth built in an explicitly unfair economy was its own form of unearned advantage.

It was pointed at Trump, yes. But it’s a reframing that rewires the conversation of race and advantage in a striking way. In six words that will likely have more staying power, if not more success, than “we go high.”

-Philip Bump, The Washington Post