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Boston Globe
16 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Stop tone policing protesters
Which brings me to all the protester policing happening in America these days. Advertisement I'm not talking about the literal policing — including thousands of National Guard members and hundreds of Marines deployed to American streets by President Trump — of protesters. I'm referring to this weird tone policing of people for what they're wearing or carrying at protests against Trump's unconstitutional mass deportations and his other odious policies. Not long after people took to the streets earlier this month in opposition to workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in and around Los Angeles, there were complaints about some protesters carrying Mexican flags. 'I think the visuals of carrying [Mexican flags] are terrible, honestly,' Advertisement Kinzinger, who was one of only two Republicans on the Democratic House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, is certainly no Trump fanboy. But he, and others with similar beliefs, are the ones playing into Trump's narrative that there's only one way to be an American. They seem to believe that the optics of another nation's flag at a protest against the Trump administration is as harmful as families and communities upended by swarms of people with covered faces who look and act more like kidnappers than government agents. It's a handy distraction that Republicans are only too happy to amplify as a means to shift focus away from the monstrous anti-immigration policies crafted by When Republicans call protesters 'insurrectionists,' as 'I hold the Mexican flag with pride because I'm Mexican American and I'm proud of my culture and my people,' protester Advertisement Trump is recklessly trying to detain and deport as many immigrants as he can as fast as he can. He's threatening to expand a travel ban to an But there's also this — people fighting for their rights and challenging a fascistic government do not have time for someone else's idea of respectability. As Kepner said in 'Before Stonewall,' asserting one's whole self is the only path forward. If someone holding the flag of another nation at an anti-ICE protest is all it takes to convince someone that that person or those they represent are less deserving of fair treatment, then those offended never cared about the rights of others in the first place. Equality isn't won by conformity or putting someone else's fragility and comfort ahead of your own rights. Freedom isn't pretending to be someone other than who you are to gain acceptance. Regardless of what flag they wave, protesters are only demanding that this nation live up to the red, white, and blue values of its own. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Boston Globe
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
House Republicans ignore those who saved their lives during the Jan. 6 insurrection
Advertisement And so long as House Speaker Mike Johnson — or any Republican — has the gavel in their hands, that's where it will probably remain. This is yet another move by Trump, ably assisted by a spineless GOP, to memory-hole what happened when thousands of his followers, who he directed to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, stormed the building in an attempt to upend democracy by stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Biden. At a recent news conference, Advertisement When asked by a CNN reporter why the plaque, which had a March 2023 installation deadline, had yet to be displayed, Johnson — who was in the Capitol during the insurrection and was later one of 'My folks were here on Jan. 6. They were part of what went on. They were assaulted,' For years, Trump has been making up stories to rewrite the narrative of what stunned millions witnessed in real time on television. With his incessant Trump-washing of history, he has mendaciously called Jan. 6 ' Advertisement In one of the most grotesque acts of any president in modern history, Trump, on his first day back in office, granted clemency to more than 1,600 people convicted of crimes connected to the insurrection. And earlier this month, his administration agreed to In the insurrection's aftermath, perhaps there shouldn't have been a rush to clean up what Trump's mob left in its brutal wake. The most apt memorial of this attack should have been the broken windows still unrepaired and boarded up; instead of replacing damaged furniture, those spots should have remained empty; marks on items scarred by the rioters' extinguished cigarettes should be visible. All of them were symbols of democracy's fragility. Every Republican should be reminded of what happened in the Capitol whenever they walk into the building — and how their complicity is fostering Trump's ongoing insurrection against the truth and democracy. By refusing to install the memorial, House Republicans are hiding the crimes of Jan. 6 at the scene of the crime, as they choose fealty to a tyrant over a public acknowledgment of the men and women who saved their lives. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Advertisement Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Boston Globe
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Life in Trump's America
She was flying out of town to visit her family, but had heard rumors that President Trump planned to issue an executive order, potentially on April 20 — Earth Day — revoking nonprofit organizations tax-exempt status. (She writes about environmental policy for a nonprofit.) Since she wasn't scheduled to return home until after the purported order would be issued, she feared she could be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, though she is an American citizen. We stopped texting and instead spoke on the phone. Throughout our conversation, I kept repeating the same thing: 'I can't believe we're talking about this.' Advertisement This is life in Trump's America. A few days before my friend's return, White House officials said the administration was Even before Trump again took an oath to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution' (which he is currently Advertisement What might have looked to some like an overreaction — the road to fascism is paved by people telling you to 'calm down' — now appears as due diligence. Such prescient actions have only become more prevalent with each detainment, detention, and disappearance of someone targeted — regardless of immigration or citizenship status — by this lawless administration. I now have friends who never leave the house without their passports. One woman I know deleted a social media account that was filled with posts critical of Trump. Some no longer use Face ID on their phones, believing such conveniences also make it too easy for authorities to open their devices without permission. Once these actions might have been seen as excessive or a sure sign of paranoia. But no longer. In an essay for The Nation, His fears increased with each arrest, including that of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student snatched by ICE agents from a Somerville street in March. She remains in a federal detention center in Louisiana for no discernable reason other than coauthoring an op-ed in her school paper against Israel's war in Gaza. Advertisement But it was this line from Elgendy that encapsulated this unsettling American moment: 'The hallmark of authoritarianism isn't the knock at the door — it's life under the constant fear of its arrival.' For most of us, that knock may never come. But that fear will continue to gnaw at us, making many less trusting, increasingly isolated, and even more likely to do as they are told. Fear is an authoritarian's most potent accomplice. When democracy is crumbling, going along to get along is a blunt object swinging at its pillars. Yes, precautions are necessary — these uneasy times demand them. But one cannot barter bits of freedom to tyrants for some semblance of peace. With all the coming challenges, we have to continue to live our lives as best and as fully as we can. Do not give up easily what this administration is so ardently trying to take away. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Boston Globe
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
80 years later, Sinatra's song about diversity — and an ensuing right-wing backlash — still resonates
In his inimitable baritone, Sinatra croons the title song: Advertisement What is America to me? A name, a map, a flag I see A certain word, democracy! What is America to me? The house I live in A plot of earth, a street The grocer and the butcher And the people that I meet The children in the playground The faces that I see All races and religions That's America to me Written by Abel Meeropol, who also wrote ' Advertisement Of course Meeropol's song represented an idealized vision of this nation — more of what it should have been, not what it actually was. It held America above its enemies who herded millions onto trains that carried them to their end in concentration camps and committed war crimes by intentionally Still, the song was a hit for Sinatra and burnished the nation's self-image. With the world at war, America was on the right side of history. When Sinatra received his 'special' Oscar, the film was It certainly had a tremendous impact on conservatives. They hated it. 'The tolerance Sinatra was preaching looked to Hearst's Westbrook Pegler and the America First Party's Gerald L. K. Smith and the Knights of Columbus's Gerval T. Murphy, among others, like a newfangled cover for old-fashioned socialism,' James Kaplan wrote in his 2010 Sinatra biography, 'Frank: The Voice,' mentioning some of that era's most strident right-wing agitators. 'It was directly in the wake of 'The House I Live In' that FBI interest in Sinatra perked up again,' Kaplan wrote. On Dec. 12, 1945 — Sinatra's 30th birthday — a special agent sent a memo that informed J. Edgar Hoover, then the FBI's notorious director, that 'a confidential informant had identified FRANK SINATRA, well known radio and movie star, as a member of the Communist Party.' Advertisement Sinatra was not a member of the Communist Party. But authorities were willing to damage his reputation and career simply because he denounced religious and racist hatred. This nearly 80-year-old story of right-wing retribution against an endorsement of diversity should be nothing more than a sad relic from a less enlightened time. Instead, it sounds like current events. The false accusations, the reputation-smearing, and especially the white grievance against racial tolerance remain far too relevant as it plays out every day with an extremist White House determined to drag this nation backward. 'The House I Live In' is an agonizing reminder that in our deeply divided house, a nation that once championed and won a war against fascists is now being led by one. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
Boston Globe
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
The COVID-19 pandemic, five years later: A nation more divided and vindictive
'I think we're going to see people coming up with some very creative ideas to remember their friends and family members,' Jones told me. Advertisement Perhaps that happened on an individual basis. But there has never been any national effort to remember the more than 1 million who died from COVID. In fact, as soon as bars and restaurants reopened, concert halls were again packed with music lovers, and Beyond the obvious tragedies of COVID — people forced to die alone without the comfort of loved ones; That was already apparent in 2020 when Advertisement These days, much is being said and written about everything the experts got wrong about COVID, especially during those harrowing early months. But I believe this was the biggest mistake — telling people that wearing a mask protected others as well as themselves. What quickly became apparent as people defied mask mandates is that even in a collective, life-threatening crisis, they didn't give a damn about anyone except themselves. People COVID altered our national DNA. We are not the same people we were before March 11, 2020. That's due, in large part, to having a president at the start of the pandemic whose only concern was how it would affect his chance at reelection. As Jones told me, 'The most glaring similarity between AIDS and [COVID] is that both pandemics emerged with a president in the White House who did not perceive the gravity of the situation and made light of it.' Advertisement During his two terms in the White House, Ronald Reagan largely ignored AIDS as it mostly ravaged people he and his fellow Republicans disdained, especially within the LGBTQ community. Now Trump is back in the White House and Elon Musk is gutting institutions that were vital in keeping the public informed about COVID. This administration's indifference to a spreading measles outbreak, which has caused this nation's first death from the disease in a decade, is a sour hint of the medical horrors we may face ahead. Five years later, COVID continues to reveal a country undone by selfishness, cruelty, and greed. And as devastating as COVID was — and continues to be for many — it's clear that the most dangerous threat wasn't the virus. It was us. This is an excerpt from , a Globe Opinion newsletter from columnist Renée Graham. . Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
