New York Times | Another Day at a Monument to Democracy New York Times Ed Rich, 44, from Annapolis, Md., made $12 an hour Friday picking up debris from the inauguration. President Trump could make a mess of it, but it could be cleaned up easily, he said. Credit Todd Heisler/The New York Times. WASHINGTON The ... |
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Another Day at a Monument to Democracy - New York Times
Michael Randall Times Herald-Record @MikeRandall845
CITY OF NEWBURGH For some in the mid-Hudson, the day Donald Trump became president was the day democracy died.
And so, on Friday, they held a funeral for democracy through the streets of Newburgh.
More than two dozen "mourners" dressed in black, many carrying black umbrellas, marched up Broadway and down Liberty Street to Newburgh's best-known symbol of democracy, Washingtons Headquarters.
But organizers left room for hope.
"Democracy is dead," said Julie Tremblay, who organized the protest, billed as a performance art piece, "but we want to bring it back."
"Mourner" Mindy Fradkin of Newburgh said Trump is a man of low morals who "trashes" anyone who criticizes him, usually on Twitter. She compared Fridays mourners to the colonists who fought the American Revolution against England more than 200 years ago.
"They had to take a stand," Fradkin said. "Were just taking a stand for what is right for our country."
Michael Gabor of Newburgh said marching in the mock funeral procession was better than just "sitting at home and watching (Trump) take charge of the country."
Roland Moussa of Beacon played mournful tunes on a flute during the procession. He said Trump was dishonest in his business dealings and is "unfit to keep democracy alive."
The mourners proceeded at a slow some might call it funereal pace, to the beat of a drum. Traffic came to a brief standstill as they slowly crossed each intersection. But no horn honks were heard.
When the mourners arrived at Washingtons Headquarters, they gathered around a bouquet of flowers with a purple ribbon across it, with white letters that read "R.I.P Democracy."
Tremblay read George Washingtons 1783 speech quelling the Newburgh conspiracy, in which some of his officers sought to challenge the authority of the Continental Congress when it had trouble paying them. Washington asked them "not to take any measures which will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained."
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Newburgh performance art mourns Democracy's 'death' - Times Herald-Record
Inaugural shows 'The Resistance' is an attack on democracy New York Post At a time when the nation set out to celebrate the peaceful transfer of authority, activists on the left descended on the nation's capital to show just how fragile that can be. They rioted from the night before the inauguration until well after Donald ... |
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Inaugural shows 'The Resistance' is an attack on democracy - New York Post
From David, a reader in Oakland:
I hope its not too late to point out the perfect track for Inauguration Day. For so many reasons, it just has to be Leonard Cohens exhausted but hopeful Democracy, recorded 25 years ago [yesterday] and still inspiringand, let us hope, prophetic.
Cohen died just a day before Donald Trump was elected president, so well never know his reaction. But we can still glean wisdom and hope from his lyrics:
Its coming to America first, the cradle of the best and of the worst. Its here they got the range and the machinery for change and its here they got the spiritual thirst. Its here the familys broken and its here the lonely say that the heart has got to open in a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
Shelagh Huston absorbed more of the lyrics in the days following Trumps win:
After months of an election campaign that gave us the feel / that this aint exactly real / or its real, but it aint exactly there, and after years of a rising tide of the wars against disorder / the sirens night and day / the fires of the homeless / the ashes of the gay, Leonard Cohen prophesizes: Democracy is coming to the USA. Like so many of us, Cohen cared about the idea of America (I love the country) but was horrified and revolted by whats been happening to it (but I cant stand the scene). [...] At a time when the US is in more danger of foundering than ever before, Cohens words are the perfect anthem for these times: Sail on, sail on / oh mighty ship of State, were dreading this voyage, not knowing if well we make it to the shores of need / past the reefs of greed / through the squalls of hate.
(Submit a song via hello@. Track of the Day archive here. Pre-Notes archive here.)
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Track of the Day: 'Democracy' by Leonard Cohen - The Atlantic
Its an inevitable feature of left-wing protests everywhere. As they debaseour political discourse with their absurd outrage theater and riots du jour you can count on some of them yelling out This is what democracy looks like!
And so it was hardly surprising that at the Trump inauguration, in which more than 200 violent leftist rioters were arrested, several blocks of Washington D.C. were damaged, and Trump supporters were physically attacked, we heard the chant going up againthis time by protestors who were attempting to block citizens from attending the inauguration to celebrate another successful transfer of power from one president to the next.
A Trump supporter attempting to run the blockade shot back a perfect rejoinder. Pointing to the other side of the fence he was attempting to get to while protesters blocked his way shouting: This is what Democracy looks like! he said:This is what democracy looks like, but I cant get to it because of you!
It was the perfect rejoinder, and the perfect antidote to the incessant anti-Trump whining of our elites and their violent shock-troops whose behavior they consistently excuse and justify, granting it a context they would never grant if mobs of conservatives behaved identically. (Fortunately we dont) The left lost, and they lost this election at every levelstate, national, and local. And no amount of organized violence or immature street theater changes that reality one bit. Whether with Trump in D.C. or with Scott Walker in Wisconsin, the lefts conspicuouspublic rage is a paper tiger.
To riff off of the great Tom Wolfe, the dark night of fascism is always descending on Trump supporters, but somehow it only lands on Trump opponents. Despite the hysterical Nazi/fascist analogies conjured up byour media, the story of political violence in this campaign has been one in which it has been overwhelmingly directed at Trump supporters rather than by them. It is a fact that our media and political elites stubbornly refuse to acknowledge, and similar to Black Lives Mattersaccount of the incidence ofinter-racial violence, the media account of partisan political violenceone of right-wing perpetrators and left-wing victims, is precisely the opposite of the truth. Its yet another example of the left-wings fake news.
Heres the reality: No matter how the left feels about it, the election and inauguration of Donald Trump is exactly what democracy looks like. Universally despised by the elites, he managed to win the support of enough Americans to win the election. Hes the President of the United Statesand the left needs to deal with it, just as conservatives managed to grumble through the Obama inauguration (but without major protests, much less rioting or violence as even the New York Times acknowledged)
But beyond that, there is a lesson that Trumps election should teach us. Anyone who was at the GOP convention saw his numerous tributes to law and order. And anyone who watched him during the campaign saw that one of Trumps greatest strengths, the main thing that drew otherwise skeptical conservatives to his camp, was his fearlessness in confronting leftist thuggery and refusing to play political games according to the lefts rules.
Its been written by well-meaning conservatives here and elsewhere that the biggest challenge for conservatives in this administration is to resist the seductions of power, to make sure we dont avoid challenging the President just because he has an R after his name. I firmly but respectfully disagree.
Of course, when the President does something that we feel breaks fundamentally with our values and principles; we shouldnt hesitate to say so. But for conservatives, especially conservatives in the Washington-New York axis or other liberal enclaves, the bigger challenge is to fearlessly defend the President and his agenda even when he is unpopular. When we find ourselves criticizing the administration, we need to ask ourselves whether we are really speaking truth to power or just courting respectabilitydefending a sort of ethereal philosophical conservatism that has no contact with political reality. Its easy to look like a good conservative and join the coalition of the housebroken.But Trump won because, for whatever his other faults, this was the one thing he absolutely refused to do. And nobody need worryunlike with Obama, there will be an furiously active media, academia and NGO community that will be drawing attention to every one of Trumps mistakes, real or imagined. Conservatives will be just one voice in that chorus.
This is what democracy looks like: Two parties honestly contesting for and advocating their values and principles; Not one party advocating its principles while the other cowers in the corner afraid that they might be called a mean name. The first one hundred days of this administration are going to present incredible opportunities for conservatives if we are bold enough to take them. And, like the anonymous Trump supporter, we need to call out the left without apology if they resort to lawlessattempts to block our way.
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One Anonymous Trump Supporter Showed the Lawless Left What Democracy Looks Like - National Review