The Good News

Boston

 I never thought I'd be looking to Rachel Maddow for the good news.  But it seems she's making a concerted effort to start her nightly program with the positives, and it's certainly heartening to me.

Often she starts with a roundup of anti-Chaos demonstrations that are happening in big places and a lot of small places, including in red states, but that aren't otherwise being widely covered.

Just on Tuesday she had video from West Virginia, Colorado and Greensboro, North Carolina, focusing this time on citizen-sponsored town hall meetings for Republican members of Congress who are too frightened to hold one: about a thousand people gathered to hear the Piedmont Raging Grannies musically ask where Senator Tom Tillis was hiding, in three part harmony.

Greensboro is an interesting case, for in the past few weeks there have been also separate demonstrations protesting the Chaos betrayal of Ukraine and on Chaos immigration policy. I count at least three with different emphases in Harrisburg, PA, and these aren't isolated examples.

Boise, Idaho

 On Monday Rachel covered demos in Tucson, Boise (Idaho), Kansas City and a big demo at a Tesla dealership in Leon Springs, Texas.  She also highlighted truly huge demonstrations in Hungary against Chaos hero Viktor Urban, and against Putin in Romania and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.  

Again I am impressed by the homemade signs at the local demos, many expressing in a few words the heart of the matter.  I'm also noticing a lot of signs with the words Fascist, Dictator and Hitler on them.  These signs and demos reveal what there has been reason to doubt: a lot of Americans value the federal government and the services it provides to them and those they know, as well as the federal employees they know (remember that some 80% of them work outside Washington), and the worth to their communities of federal or federally support facilities near them.  

Also they reveal the depth of support for Ukraine and the extent of opposition to Putin's Russia.  The cozying up to Russia and Putin by Republican politicians in recent years may have cast doubt on the public sentiment against them, and support for Ukraine.  And as Rachel emphasizes, it's not just the demonstrations that tell this tale: the latest NBC poll finds support for Putin at all of 3%, and support for Ukraine at 61% with only 2% supporting Russia. But a near majority sees Chaos as supporting Russia.

Leon Springs, Texas

These provide evidence of some bedrock commitments that again have been all but dismissed by the bullies in Washington: against an American dictator, and for the rule of law.  There's been some impressive community defense for people outrageously manhandled by ICE and Immigration. This last alone may reflect a reawakening of empathy for the victims of injustice, as well as the reflexive knowledge that they too may someday--or soon--need to depend on due process and the protections of the law.  Or they may need emergency services, even weather reports, as well as health safeguards, clean air and water.  The support for USAID also suggests more emotional commitment to the foreign aid that shares food and medicine to less fortunate parts of the world.

People are certainly upset at how they themselves might be affected, by Social Security cuts, Medicaid, education and so on, not to mention inflation from tariffs.  And they see the simple craziness of making enemies of Canada, Denmark and all of Europe

Rachel is often able to follow up reports on demos with Chaos defeats in federal court, especially those ordering the undoing of much of the Muskovite damage, by reading from court transcripts and opinions.  Again, you'd expect a lot of judicial language, but these statements and orders are often very pointed and very succinct.  One refers to the shutting down of the USAID agency as having "likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways."

 Another decision voided the attempted ban of transgender people in the military without any cause given, and that these individuals are to be accorded the equal protection under law "that the military defends every day." The decision concludes:  "In the self-evident truth that 'all people are created equal,' all means all.  Nothing more. And certainly nothing less."

Kansas City

An earlier decision ordering the re-hiring of thousands of federal workers sharply criticized the Muskovite method of firing probationary employees wholesale with terse emails claiming they were fired for performance issues, without any evidence or due process, and in one case the judge chose as an example, with documented counter-evidence of superlative evaluations. The judge noted the particular brutality of this tactic, for by calling the firings for bad performance, the workers couldn't get unemployment insurance payments, and poor performance would be part of their record when applying for other jobs.

All these persistent local demonstrations on various issues raises the question of when there might be really big central demonstrations uniting the issues.  And what the response of the Chaos bullies will be to those.  We may find out soon.  The national organization Indivisible has responded to requests from local groups and has called for a "nationwide mobilization" on Saturday April 5, with the simple theme HANDS OFF!  (Rachel had the president of this group on her show last week to announce this.)  Many of the demos now organizing for that day are still local, including big cities, but also including Washington, DC.  

It's too bad that Democratic politicians aren't as direct and eloquent as these signs and these court decisions. But it is better anyway that the eloquence and energy are coming from the people.  As bad as things are and as they quickly could become, it would be worse to see complete apathy from an unresisting public.  These demonstrations have made a good start.  And as one sign proclaimed, courage is contagious.  

"Push-back works," is Rachel's mantra.  (She also has the perfect demeanor to embody the sense of tragic absurdity we're living through.)  Whether it will work well enough and soon enough, who knows.  But it's a good feeling, and I'll take what I can get.