Jan. 30, 2023
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - We’ve had more mass shootings this year than we’ve had days this year.

It’s sad to imagine that Half Moon Bay and Monterey Park will join a list with Uvalde and Buffalo and Orlando and Charleston and Sandy Hook and Columbine, reference points for a national epidemic we haven’t mustered the will to end despite decades of tragedies. But they likely will unless we can confront both the symptom that is gun violence and the underlying disease that causes it.

I shoot for sport, and I’ve trained others to shoot. I live in a coastal community in Maryland where hunters and hikers share wild places and work together to preserve them.

I also live not far from the Capital Gazette’s offices, where a man armed with a shotgun and angered by newspaper stories about him killed five and injured two five years ago. For generations, many in my family have served in law enforcement. I support common-sense steps to keep guns out of the hands of those who have demonstrated they shouldn’t have them. We all know that list by now -- more and more thorough background checks, bans on assault weapons and unnecessarily large magazines, red flag laws that allow guns to be taken away from those who are risks to others or themselves, and penalties for gun owners who fail to keep them out of the hands of children, teens, and mentally unstable people.

Fighting the disease at the root of the violence demands that we address it like the public health crisis it is. I realized that as a graduate student at Oxford when I started exploring rates of suicide in the United States. Almost unfettered access to guns, particularly handguns, has a lot to do with the numbers. If you try to kill yourself with a firearm, you’re much more likely to succeed. While suicides among young black men sparked my research, I learned that white men over 55 were more likely to die of suicide with a gun than black men 15 to 30 were to kill each other with a gun. You would never have known that from the media and popular culture at the time.

What pushes those two trend lines in the same direction are shared causes – hopelessness, economic uncertainty, downward mobility, and addiction all made more painful by social isolation. Those same factors feed the cultural and political polarization that has many wondering about the future of our republic.

Let’s not accept the isolation so many feel and the polarization we see in our public discourse as reinforcing and insurmountable. Let’s be determined to act now to find the solutions we can agree on – even gun owners overwhelmingly support some regulations, just as majorities support helping those with mental health needs.

I’ve seen this happen. When I was young, my dad organized a peer counseling program for abusive men, with 80 men taking part every six weeks. Men grew not only more empathetic but more humane. Some eventually wanted to do more together and formed Whites Interrupting Racism in our community. It was one of many lessons my dad taught me – that how we treat each other in our lives shapes what we’ll permit in the structures of our country. 

Ben Jealous is the incoming executive director of the Sierra Club, the oldest and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the country. He is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free,” published in January.

Jan. 24, 2023
By Svante Myrick

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - If you’ve been watching news or social media recently, it’s hard to miss a disturbing trend in American culture. It seems like antisemitism is back in a very public way – and not just in the white supremacist circles where it’s been all along. It’s heartbreaking. And it got me thinking about an experience I had fifteen years ago in my hometown of Ithaca, New York.

I was on the city council, and a local rabbi came to me with a concern. He explained that in traditional Jewish communities, many activities that are considered work are not allowed on the Sabbath. These include carrying objects from place to place outside the home. So tradition accommodates this restriction by creating a larger area called an eruv: a space that defines home as several houses and streets within a community. The boundaries of the eruv are designated by markers around the neighborhood, often attached to utility poles and wires.

The eruv symbolically enlarges the home – so the necessities of faith and of daily life can coexist.

For years, the rabbi said, the Jewish community had been asking to put up eruv markers in parts of Ithaca, but the city council hadn’t responded: could I help? I’m happy to say that we got it done. But not without some resistance -- including pushback from people who called themselves progressives, who opposed what they called “catering” to a religious community.

That disappointed me then, and it bothers me even more today. Here’s why.

The alarm bells that are ringing about the rise of antisemitism are on both the Right and the Left. On the Right, we know that white supremacists, militant Christian nationalists and other bigots pose a deadly threat. And the way to combat this is with a strong, progressive, multiracial coalition. This is what happened in the civil rights era, when a Black-Jewish alliance played a major role in the fight for desegregation and voting rights.

But alarm bells are also ringing on the Left, because today there are fractures in that old alliance. A mix of cultural and political influences has left some in the Black community feeling like we’re not all on the same team. And what happens when good people are not aligned is that evil gets the upper hand.

There are plenty of examples of this throughout history. And I don’t use the word “evil” lightly. Think of Nick Fuentes, the far-right activist who grabbed headlines for his dinner with Donald Trump and Ye. Fuentes has openly praised Adolf Hitler. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

This is the kind of viciousness that we are facing today, with a Far Right that became louder, bolder and more aggressive under Donald Trump – and hasn’t gone away. This is a time when the Black community and Jewish community need to come together, and not be driven apart by forces with a divide-and-conquer agenda. We can acknowledge that there are differences between us, things we can talk about, while still having each other’s backs.

In other words, we can symbolically enlarge our home.

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday just passed, famously reminded us that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Those of us who want equity and justice need to want it for all people. Our real and symbolic home should be with each other, where we are united by our shared humanity and where hate by any name is excluded. Let’s make that space, and welcome each other in.

Svante Myrick is President of People For the American Way. Previously, he served as executive director of People For and led campaigns focused on transforming public safety, racial equity, voting rights, and empowering young elected officials. Myrick garnered national attention as the youngest-ever mayor in New York State history.

Jan. 9, 2023
By Marc Morial

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Saving American democracy for the long run requires a clear condemnation of the Trump presidency. That means making clear that no one is above the law … Presidents also need a clear message, one that will echo through history, that breaking the law in the Oval Office will actually be punished." -- Boston Globe Editorial Board

As the nation this week marked the second anniversary of one of the darkest days in our history, the January 6 Insurrection, a feeble Republican majority attempted to assume control of the House of Representatives and the House Select Committee to Investigate the Insurrection formally concluded its work.

Now it is up to the Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team of Justice Department prosecutors to act on the committee’s recommendation that former President Donald Trump be prosecuted on criminal charges of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Make a False Statement, Incitement of an Insurrection, and other conspiracy charges.

In addition to the committee’s https://default.salsalabs.org/T9646250d-6bc7-4a69-a3fd-bb5a9480a8e4/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="0" data-auth="Verified">report, which outlines the damning evidence against Trump, Smith’s team has received https://default.salsalabs.org/Ta5cf3c63-8c41-4cc7-b947-fdc416e5c5b5/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="1" data-auth="Verified">emails, letters and other documents from election officials in battleground states who were subjected to false accusations of fraud and pressure to falsify election results.

A failure to prosecute Trump in the face of this extensive documentation of his misdeeds would be a failure of justice of historic proportions and a catastrophic subversion of the principle of equal treatment under the law.

Criminal prosecutions are intended not only to punish individuals for their offenses, but also to deter them and others from engaging in the same conduct in the future.

The federal prosecution of a former president – particularly by the administration of a political adversary – should not be undertaken lightly. But the case against Trump is so clear-cut, and the consequences so profound that Smith has no other rational option.

Though Trump has https://default.salsalabs.org/Te5c2a304-91ab-43cf-9322-8bc54826d90b/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="2" data-auth="Verified">publicly denied it, his decision to run for president a third time is widely perceived as an attempt to avoid prosecution – though one unlikely to succeed.

“It is his intention by announcing that to retard criminal cases,” retired federal prosecutor Thomas Baer https://default.salsalabs.org/Td653bf4e-e14c-4330-89ae-b3ab84833613/15b47f7f-8b80-4de7-8022-dd87a1f304c0. Click or tap to follow the link." data-linkindex="3" data-auth="Verified">told The Daily Beast. “He thinks that if he is running for president this will cause prosecutors to drop their cases or think twice because it could be interpreted as political, a reaction to his running. The answer is: No, they will not hold back.”

According to the evidence gathered by the Jan 6 Committee, Trump knew the Vice President had no unilateral authority to prevent certification of the election. He knew Vice President Pence could not lawfully refuse to count votes under the Electoral Count Act. He knew he had lost more than 60 lawsuits seeking to invalidate election results. He knew his Justice Department, his campaign, and his advisors had concluded that there was insufficient fraud to alter the election’s outcome. He knew that no State legislature had taken or attempted any official action that could change a State’s electoral college votes.

Nevertheless, Trump recruited tens of thousands of his supporters, most of them angry and some of them armed, to march to the Capitol on January 6 and “fight like hell.” As the deadly violence he incited raged on for hours, he ignored the desperate pleas of his advisors that he make a public statement instructing his supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol.

“Through action and inaction, President Trump corruptly obstructed, delayed and impeded the vote count,” the committee wrote in support of the charge of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding.

The charge of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States is based upon a likely agreement between Trump, his lawyer, John Eastman, and others to carry out an illegal plan to have legitimate electors from seven states rejected and replaced with fake electors.  This plan to submit slates of fake electors to Congress and the National Archives also is the basis for the charge of Conspiracy to Make a False Statement.

As for the charge of Inciting an Insurrection, “President Trump was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob to Washington, DC, urging them to march to the Capitol, and then further provoking the already violent and lawless crowd with his 2:24p.m. tweet about the Vice President,” the committee write, in reference to Trump’s complaint that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done.” When told that the crowd was chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” Trump responded that perhaps the Vice President deserved to be hanged.  He has since promised to pardon those convicted for their involvement in the attack.

It's clear that Trump believes he is above the law.  If he is not held accountable for his efforts to subvert democracy through violence and deception, he is almost certain to try it again – and others will follow his example.  It’s a larger question than whether Trump deserves to be punished – which he most certainly does – but whether democracy will endure in the United States.

Jan. 9, 2023
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - It strikes me that the days we’re living through represent a metaphor for our national dilemma. January 6th and the weight of history that date carries are in the rearview mirror, at least on the calendar. Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream still is on the horizon.

America’s existential challenge is to put the former behind us permanently so we can finally achieve the latter and be what we pledge allegiance to -- one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. After the attack on the Capitol, I sat down to figure out how we might finally do that, and my answers have filled a book.

As my mother's family has for four centuries, I live south of the Mason-Dixon Line close to the Chesapeake Bay, which was a literal superhighway for slavery. Casual conversations about the likelihood of another Civil War are frequent at my favorite waterside bar. Combine that with the political fault lines running through many families and friendships (including my own) and we feel more divided than indivisible. It's clear why so many fear for our republic’s survival.

I have always been an optimist about America. Even for me, witnessing a failed coup shook my usually hopeful outlook.

Like many whose Southern roots run deep, I often turn to the past for answers. What I discovered in questioning our current differences revived my faith that the United States always will overcome our troubles and emerge even stronger on the other side.

In the 1880s, formerly enslaved men and former Confederate soldiers in Virginia – home to the Confederacy’s capital – banded together to fight for the future of their children. They built a political party called the Readjusters. Their demand was simple: readjust the terms of Civil War debt so that we can maintain free public schools for all.

Not only did they win that victory, they also won control of the state's government and achieved several more: they abolished the poll tax, they abolished the public whipping post, they created the first public black college in the South, and they expanded Virginia Tech to make it the working person's rival to the University of Virginia.

The Readjusters’ short-lived multiracial populist movement eventually was attacked violently by white supremacists and defeated politically by wealthy special interests spreading vile disinformation; their party is all but erased from history books.

Still, they defined the future of Virginia and our nation by planting early seeds for FDR's New Deal coalition and by creating a bold legacy in public education that endures to this day. Moreover their example reminds us that the spirit that moved Dr. King to dream hopefully about black and white children has always run deep in our nation, and always will. When we lose faith in our neighbors, that hope reminds us that the path to a stronger nation is to remember we still have more in common than we don't, and to act on the beliefs we share.

If men who had been enslaved could find common cause with men who fought to keep them enslaved to build a better future for all their children, we should never lose faith that we can unite for the sake of ours.

Ben Jealous is incoming executive director of the Sierra Club, America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization; former national president of the NAACP; and professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania. His new book “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free” was just published.