Dear Mondoweiss community:
Like many of you we are dealing with the shock, grief and anger that so many across the U.S. are experiencing following the election of Donald Trump. Today we are asking for your reactions and insights, so that we as a community can share both our feelings–outrage, grief, fatalism–and our thoughts as to next steps. Please tell us your reaction to the election and your suggestions for how Palestinian justice work in general, and Mondoweiss’s journalism in particular, should regroup and move forward. You can share your perspective either in the comments at the bottom of this post or by emailing adam@mondoweiss.net. Selected comments will be highlighted in the images attached to this post and through social media.
Like many other organizations working for change, we must think hard about how last week’s events affect our plans. Even though the implications for US foreign policy are not yet clear, the immediate outpouring of racist and Islamophobic rage across the country would seem to confirm our worst fears. We are entering a new era of American politics where an explicitly racist, nativist, misogynist, and homophobic constituency has been empowered with a spokesman in the highest office in the land. The results of this will be felt for years.
Here at Mondoweiss we are starting to understand what this will mean for our work and how we must change accordingly. As always our focus will be on documenting, analyzing and challenging the ongoing Israeli dispossession of the Palestinian people. This is our focus and will continue to be so. But we have always recognized that this is not just a story taking place in Palestine. It is also unfolding in Washington DC, and in communities across the United States.
Since the beginning of this site in 2006 we have covered the poisonous ideology of a “war on terror” which has targeted communities in the US as well as countries and people around the globe. Under a Trump administration it seems that the war at home will only intensify, and the Islamophobia that allows DC policy makers to dehumanize Palestinians in the occupied territories, will also be used to divide, ostracize and criminalize neighbors, friends, and activists. It’s already started.
For this reason one immediate change following the election is that we plan to expand our coverage of the racism and violence here in the U.S. that is finding political expression and power through the Trump victory. It is central to our mission and our values as a news outlet dedicated to full human equality and fundamental human rights.
As always, we are grateful to be part of a community of thinkers, seekers, fighters, builders and growers. None of us is alone, and by working together we can and will make change.
P.S. In the face of the Islamophobia and Zionist-coddling we can expect to soar, we do ask you to contribute financially. There will be new costs for our work, financial as well as political, and we will come to you for help as they arise. We know that many other organizations working for change will be facing new challenges as well. Many of our allies such as Hate Hurts, Palestine Legal and Students for Justice in Palestine among others will be on the front lines as our new political reality continues to unfold and we urge you to give where the work best reflects your own goals and vision.
Wherever you donate, please do. The entire movement for freedom and equality will need your support.
I am not so pessimistic. I think people are fundamentally ‘good’, and that when they see Trump’s movement using tactics of threats, intimidation, bullying, instigation and incitement, they will realize that Israel does the same thing – thus creating a cycle of violence. So things might get worse before they get better, but they will get better. We must speak out against these things where ever they occur. For example, death threats are unacceptable – from either side. The key is to avoid the ‘tipping point’ where people can no longer speak freely. The advantage today is that we can communicate with relative security – we don’t have to go out in the street and be subjected to ‘cracking skulls’.
It remains a disappointment to me that none will defend me or others when death threats are issued, or even worse, will discount them. This must change.
What’s really started full force right now seems to be a “color revolution”, State Department-style, of people so indoctrinated by propaganda that they really fear Trump coming into their friends’ homes to drag them before shooting squads and fill the country with a Russian occupation army. They are even getting to the extreme of absurdity with slogans like “against Trump and against TTP” –yeah, some logic there.
Of course there is some increase in hooliganism but to the extent that the past 16 years have been one uninterrupted progression of demonization of people of Middle Eastern origin under the ridiculous pretext of opposition to some singled-out religion and practice, complete with continual race baiting and total impunity and incitement of a new military police force that includes murder, not much is changing right now.
As for Palestine, one can imagine something worse than the supine servility to Zionism of a totally Zionist-owned Obama administration, and that is a reneging on the agreement with Iran. On the plus side, we have consistent campaigning by Trump for disengagement from the Syrian aggression and possibly from NATO. So the end result is unclear.
All in all, what with the fact that most of what is heard about the next administration consists of “leaks” and rumors getting out over the usual propaganda grapevine and the crowned head is ditsy and unpredictable, you seem to be getting your panties in a bunch a bit too early.
Keep a sharp eye out for anything that threatens the First Amendment – it will be a major target of the new regime.
I know that Trump is an inveterate liar, but occasionally he does make visible some of the things you just know he’d love to use his newfound power to effect. One of these is to make the US libel laws more like those in the UK, where rich villains can all too easily destroy the lives of those who expose their villainy.
We know the Trump strategy — we’ve seen it in action. It won’t change. Fear and loathing will be the bywords. The racists, anti-Semites and xenophobes won’t win by convincing the majority. They will win because most people don’t want to engage with them. We have to go head to head . To me that means we need push back at every opportunity, we need to define a positive vision of the future, we need to support each others’ work, and we need to act locally to draw people into political activity. On the issue of Palestine, we must be relentless on the issues that speak to Americans — the billions going to support Israel’s military occupation, the colonization of American police forces by Israel, and the export of Israel’s surveillance state to the U.S.
It is ironic that Trump has already walked back some of his policies, which we heard loud and clear and in ugly terms, and it seem Obamacare is not so bad and does not deserve to be gutted.
It will be interesting to know just how excited his supporters are, for they voted for what they saw and heard, and now within hours and days to see your candidate going back on his word must be disappointing. In fact it must be highly unusual for any candidate to admit within days that he is not going to be doing this or that after all. Trump was a liar anyway, so those who did not vote for him will not be surprised.
Anyone who is well informed will be afraid that he has surrounded himself with such frightening characters. To start with a well known bigot and demagogue, Steve Bannon, will be playing an important part in the new administration, and Jews and Muslims are already protesting that pick. CNN just announced that Laura Ingraham, another right wing big mouth, is considered for Press Secretary. We all know just how Ben Carson thinks, and those thoughts are frightening.
If one looks at those surrounding the next President, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to realize one filled with inexperienced elements, racists and hating the liberals, will not bode well for this nation.
As for the role of MDW, I think we should have a separate and new section for articles on the Trump administration, and for MDW commenters to make their observations and comments.
The Trump administration will make us feel we are watching a train wreck.