{"id":1896,"date":"2018-05-25T07:27:31","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T11:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2018-05-25T07:41:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T11:41:56","slug":"contact-your-reps-the-potus-needs-to-stop-sanctioning-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2018\/05\/contact-your-reps-the-potus-needs-to-stop-sanctioning-bigotry\/","title":{"rendered":"Contact Your Reps: The PotUS Needs to Stop Sanctioning Bigotry🇺🇸🔥"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the email I sent my reps last night.\u00a0 Maybe you wanna\u00a0tell\u00a0your reps something similar<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s been\u00a0more than a year, and the President is no better at this<\/a> than he was before he was sworn in. Maybe\u00a0Congress needs to try something different<\/a>\u2014’cause all the nothing they’ve done\u00a0thus\u00a0far hasn’t had the intended effect (*grumbles*\u00a0lousy beatniks).<\/em><\/p>\n

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SUBJECT<\/b>: The PotUS sanctions bigotry, assists persecution<\/p>\n

Dear [NAME TK],<\/p>\n

I was truly and deeply dismayed this morning to read the President’s remarks on the recent NFL decision to fine players who kneel during the National Anthem.\u00a0 <\/span>Specifically:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem. Or you shouldn\u2019t be playing, you shouldn\u2019t be there. Maybe you shouldn\u2019t be in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just to be clear, I don’t particularly care for football, nor for labor practices within the NFL.\u00a0 <\/span>If that employer wants to set a weird (to me) rule about how to comport oneself during pre-game musical performances, then that’s for those employers, their employees, those employees’ union, and the courts to sort out.<\/p>\n

I’m not even that concerned to hear a President so blithely unaware of existing First Amendment precedent; sure, I learned about cases like West VA State Board of Ed v. Barnette in middle school, but not everyone benefited from my fine education, and not every President can be a noted Constitutional scholar.<\/p>\n

But I’m extremely concerned when I hear a sitting U.S. President breezily opine that a group of people who believe differently than he “shouldn\u2019t be in the country.”\u00a0 <\/span>I grew up in a community with a very small number of Jehovah’s Witnesses\u2014folks who, for religious reasons, do not pledge allegiance or stand for the National Anthem.\u00a0 <\/span>As a Jew, I did not share their beliefs\u2014but I was taught, by my family, my faith leaders, and my teachers, that their beliefs were worthy of my respect.\u00a0 <\/span>More to the point, I was taught that their beliefs were due equal protection under the law\u2014just like mine.<\/p>\n

President Washington promised us a government “which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”\u00a0 <\/span>President Trump, meanwhile, sanctions bigotry and assists persecution\u2014with these words, and with countless other utterances and decrees, tweets and executive orders.\u00a0 <\/span>In the decade before Trump my local Jewish Community Center received zero threats. Within 18 months of his nomination, we’d had two.\u00a0 <\/span>We hadn’t had run-ins with white supremacists here since the mid-1990s.\u00a0<\/span> Last year our skatepark was festooned with dozens of swastikas and emblazoned with “JEWS DIE” and “WHITE WOMEN NO NIGGERS OR JEWS.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Violent crime in general is trending down in the U.S., but hate crimes continue to climb\u2014and speaking out against any element of that rising tide of hate and bias seems to run the risk of having a target painted on your back by a big bully, who we inexplicably permit to continue to bludgeon private citizens from his bully pulpit, uncensured.<\/p>\n

What the hell are we supposed to do to feel safe?<\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n

David Erik Nelson<\/p>\n

SOURCES:<\/p>\n