Dear Progressive Reader,
The middle point of last week was marked by two nights of debates between twenty of the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for President at the convention in July 2020 (still nearly a full year from now). I spent the two nights attending a variety of debate-watching parties with different groups of supporters and activists. At each event the viewers found many points to cheer, but many comments (and moderators’ questions) were greeted with groans as well. Ultimately, I think, the “sporting event” style of presentation and the lack of time for any candidate to develop a thought, or present a plan, left viewers knowing little more about each candidate than they had known the day before.
Jud Lounsbury offered his views on the first night’s debate, noting, “All in all, this bizarre framing of questions, along with four of the ten candidates working hard to appeal to Trump voters, framed Sanders and Warren as far left.” But, as South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg said, “It is time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say. . . . They’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. So let’s just stand up for the right policy, go out there and defend it.”
While the debates took center stage on Tuesday and Wednesday, the week was bookended by racist tweets from Donald Trump. This is neither unusual, nor a surprise. “Dividing the races has been the principal weapon of the rich in the class war they are winning,” author Ian Haney López tells Roger Bybee. Haney López is author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Wrecked the Middle Class. And Trump’s whistles were loud and clear this week, as cartoonist Mark Fiore illustrates.
Meanwhile, on the international stage, the Trump Administration formally withdrew from the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on Friday, one more step on a dangerous path. But, “despite these alarming developments, the imminent threat of nuclear war barely registers on most people’s radar,” writes physician Ira Helfand in the June/July issue of The Progressive. “To erase the threat of unparalleled catastrophe that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age, we must articulate a clear strategy to eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.”
And in Guatemala, protests continue over the signing of a “safe third country” agreement with the United States by the administration of President Jimmy Morales. The agreement attempts to slow asylum seekers headed to the U.S. border, but the Guatemalan Constitutional Court has declared this signing illegal and activists are seeking to have it nullified. “This country is not even safe for the people who live here,” one Guatemala City resident told reporter Jeff Abbott. “If we are not capable of supporting the people here, then we are not able to receive people from other places.”
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
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