DL Open Thread: Thursday, August 21, 2025

‘White America IS America’:  Under Trump’s Fascist Dictatorship, That Is The New Truth:

President Trump accused the Smithsonian Institution this week of focusing too much on “how bad slavery was” and not enough on the “brightness” of America. He has ordered Confederate statues honoring those who fought to preserve slavery to be restored and celebrated. And he used language carrying uncomfortable racial overtones to describe Washington, a historically Black city, as a hotbed of “savagery, filth and scum” in need of “beautification.”

Over the past seven months, Mr. Trump’s words and actions have revealed what he sees as an ideal picture of the United States, in which the concept of diversity is taboo; the traditional power centers in America — white and wealthy men — get the benefit of the doubt; immigrants are suspect or unwelcome; and people of color must set their grievances and outrage aside.

In the view of his critics, Mr. Trump has used the power of the federal government to promote a vision of America that not only challenges the legitimacy of the Black experience, but also demeans and dehumanizes people of color. In the process, they say, he has elevated and even endorsed a version of American culture that venerates a white-dominated society of old, and casts the history and reality of race in the United States as unwelcome or suspiciously “woke.”

Meaning, Cities Are ‘Blood-Soaked Cesspools’:

When President Donald Trump declared his third presidential candidacy in 2022, he saved his most colorful language for America’s urban areas, bemoaning “the blood-soaked streets of our once-great cities” and adding that “the cities are rotting, and they are indeed cesspools of blood.”

Later in his campaign, Trump called Milwaukee “horrible” and described Washington, D.C., as a “rat-infested, graffiti-infested shithole.” More recently he said, “These cities, it’s like living in hell.”

As Trump ramps up the military presence in Washington — and hints that he may move to take over other cities — his crackdown punctuates a frequent Republican message that American cities embody chaos, lawlessness and immorality, despite widespread recent drops in violent crime. With cities increasingly liberal and rural stretches ever more conservative, Republicans have a growing incentive to attack urban areas as the epitome of all that is wrong with America.

Conservatives contend that any resentment of cities comes after decades of condescension from the urban elite, who depict rural Americans as unsophisticated, racist and politically backward. Trump has signaled his onslaught will continue, recently naming Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland as additional places that might require intervention.

Call it what you will.  I call it Fascism.

I Might Have To Go Without Deodorant (Insert joke here):

Hundreds of different goods just got a lot more expensive to import into the United States, now that President Donald Trump’s 50% tariff on steel and aluminum has kicked in.

Butter knives, baby strollers, spray deodorants and fire extinguishers, considered “derivative” steel and aluminum products, were previously excluded from the 50% tariff, though they were still subject to the higher country-specific tariffs Trump enacted over the last several months.

However, on Friday, US Customs and Border Protection and a division of the US Commerce Department published notices informing US importers that 407 categories of goods containing steel and aluminum would immediately be subject to the 50% tariffs at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday. The non-steel and non-aluminum components of the products face other applicable levies.

America: The Land Of Epidemics?  We’re heading that way:

More than 3,000 scientists and public health specialists are gone.

Over 1,000 regulators and safety inspectors have also left.

In total, more than 20,500 workers, or about 18% of the Department of Health and Human Services’ workforce, have left or been pushed out, according to ProPublica’s analysis of federal worker departures using public information from the HHS employee directory.

The analysis is an undercount — it doesn’t include the hundreds or even thousands of workers who have received layoff notices but remain on administrative leave.

No health agency has been spared, with some important divisions losing more than 1 in 5 workers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in charge of public health, lost 15% of its staff; the National Institutes of Health, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, 16%; and the Food and Drug Administration, which ensures the safety of most of what goes into people’s bodies — from baby formula to cancer drugs to hip implants — 21%.

Thousands of these employees were laid off or had their contracts cut, while some took buyouts or retired earlier than anticipated. Divisions have experienced a brain drain of epic proportions, ProPublica found, losing senior leaders behind some of the biggest health initiatives of the modern era, like the rapid rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Award-worthy journalism.  It might be painful, but please read it.

Oh, Almost Forgot–‘Racial Gerrymandering At Its Worst”:

After weeks of delays, protests, and threats of arrests, the Republican-led Texas House on Wednesday passed a highly contentious redistricting plan that could give the GOP five additional seats in the US House.

“This is racial gerrymandering at its worst. It is something that Jim Crow would be proud of, but it is something that John Lewis would be ashamed of,” Rep. Al Green told Mother Jones during the House proceedings, “That Dr. King would be ashamed of that. The former president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was from the state of Texas, would be ashamed of it.”

You’re Up, Cali.

Delaware Energy Provider Finally Held Accountable For Overcharging:

Delaware electric utilities received a more than $25 million refund from a regional energy producer earlier this year. Now, they are tasked with passing those savings on to customers across the state who overpaid for electricity.

In January, NRG, a major energy producer in the region, settled a complaint that it overcharged Delaware utilities as part of its contract to keep the coal-powered Indian River Power Plant open.