You don’t have to be much of a left-wing radical or even marginally cerebral to come to the conclusion that white supremacy, and the people who subscribe to it, are bad news for everyone, including themselves.
Back in the early ‘90s, local KKK leader Shawn Slater made Aurora Sentinel headlines for holding rallies here, telling a small crowd of his supporters, and a much larger crowd of his detractors, that God put the different races on different parts of the planet on purpose, and humans have messed everything up by mixing whites with Blacks, Asians and Latinos.
Slater was a real piece of work, rallying as many people as he could to the belief that not only should dark-skinned people go back to where he thought they belonged, but that the Creator saved the best of the best, America, for whites, because they deserved it. The indigenous Americans were just a confusing footnote.
I remember trying, as a young journalist, to hold a straight face as Slater rolled out endless racist tropes and a version of Christianity I never knew existed in metro Aurora. Long before Trump and his supporters suffering white grievances struck out at diversity, equity and inclusion programs, people like Slater targeted equal opportunity employment as evil reverse-racism.
At one point, Slater said he would even run for mayor of Aurora and maybe even governor. Really.
On MLK Jr. Day in 1992, during the height of frigid Stock Show weather, Slater was a prominent feature in a huge Klan rally at the state Capitol. I, along with numerous other journalists, was tasked with charging into the crowd of mostly men throwing Nazi salutes and carrying “Whites Only” placards and flags and cheering speeches about how God would fix the mixed race problem, but He needed the Klan to help him.
There were throngs of Denver police ensuring Slater and his mighty white pals were allowed to do their thing, because the Constitution demands it.
Of course there were crowds of protesters, too, loudly and aggressively making it clear that the KKK white rights message wasn’t selling here.
Being a fearless young reporter, who had no concept of my own mortality, I embedded myself among both sides as I watched, point-blank, actors on both sides get enraptured, angry and even violent.
It was my job.
Former CNN TV news host, Don Lemon, now an “independent” journalist, was arrested today by the Trump Administration’s undeniably rogue and corrupt Department of Justice.
The DOJ flagrantly ran over the First Amendment in its zeal to insist that Lemon, covering, as a journalist, an organized intrusion into a constitutionally protected religious ceremony.
There, people inside were communing with their god and sharing their love for ICE agents marauding and murdering in the streets of Minneapolis to remove dark-skinned immigrants from their diminished white neighborhoods.
Even for an administration that screams to be defined as fascist, deceitful and corrupt, arresting journalists elevates their malevolence to the likes of ruthless dictators like Mao Zedong and Vladimir Putin.
Here in Colorado, far-right extremist and podcaster Joe Oltman pushed his name beyond the circle of fellow extremists by calling for the execution of “traitors” like Gov. Jared Polis for not toeing a conservative line. His big gripe a few years ago centered on the 2020 presidential election. Oltman is a faithful election denier and believer in the Big Lie.
“I went and bought a bunch of rope,” he said during one of his shows in 2021. “That way I can pull people behind my car when their body parts fall off, so it’s far enough behind, doesn’t get any blood on it. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that on here.”
As repugnant and menacing as his podcast is, the First Amendment protects his ability to scare people and make an ass out of himself as a journalist.
The First Amendment is that powerful and that indifferent.
Unable to fathom or heed normal ethical and constitutional boundaries, Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, gleefully announced today the end of the First Amendment as part of Trump’s current reign, arresting Lemon and insisting that civil rights charges be brought against him.
This is a woman who just days before told elected Minnesota officials that if they hand over state voting records, she would consider calling off murderous and rogue ICE brigades.
“There’s nothing more American than the right to dissent and question authority,” Aurora Congressperson Jason Crow said in a statement today. “It’s who we are and how we became a country. I went to war three times for our nation. I swore to uphold the Constitution. There’s no way in hell I’m letting Donald Trump take these rights away now.”
If a bunch of white supremacists want to meet and trade ideas about how much better they are than people of color because Jesus tells them so, that’s their thing. If I, or Don Lemon, or any other journalist want to witness and report their racist gospel, or document protesters who charge into their church and disrupt it, neither Trump nor Bondi has any constitutional, legal, moral or ethical power to stop me.
The writing is on the wall, and in the polls. Americans have had it with the Trump cosplay theatrics and maniacal dissolution of our American democracy.
Either Republicans in Colorado and across the country push back against their gripping fear of Trump, and their own cowardice, and reel in these rogue fascists, or voters will overwhelmingly elect members of Congress with the moral fortitude and political spine needed to save the nation from Trump’s repugnant regime.
Authoritarian cretins and dictators are never more dangerous than when they’re cornered by their own fantastic gaffes and near the end of their reign. Trump is no different.
Congress must force Trump and his cronies to live within the law and the Constitution, or just go back to Mar-A-Lago and leave our American democracy to those who appreciate and respect it.
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