To John Lewis, one of my heroes:
Please come to the Inauguration. It isn't about a man. It is a celebration of peaceful transfer of power.
Civil Rights Icon John Lewis Is The Last Person Donald Trump Should Be Picking A Fight With
This is not how Trump will lift his 37% approval rating.
Here is the question that lurks behind Donald Trump tweeting insults at civil rights icon John Lewis during Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Is he trying to distract from another story — perhaps his national security advisor, Michael Flynn, making a strange call to the Russian ambassador during transition? Is he just so graceless and undisciplined that, during a week when he is writing a speech his transition team promises will be about “uniting Americans,” he couldn’t stop himself from attacking the last person in the country you would want to pick a fight with? Both? Neither?
There is backdrop here. Lewis, a popular member of Congress, said he wouldn’t attend Trump’s inauguration, and called the president-elect “illegitimate.” There were reasonable ways to respond to this. Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska, modeled one of them.
Another completely plausible response would have been to say nothing. Trump chose a third path:
Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to......
mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk - no action or results. Sad!
It is, of course, repulsive to accuse Lewis of all talk and no action or results. As Michael Skolnick pointed out on Twitter, while Lewis was arrested 45 times ridding this country of segregation, Trump was dodging the Vietnam draft. Like with the Khan family after the Democratic convention, this is a fight Trump can’t win, doesn’t need, and shouldn’t want.
This is coming, after all, six days before Trump’s inauguration. And it begins amidst devastatingly low approval ratings for the president-elect. A new Quinnipiac poll found only 37 percent approve of the job he’s doing. A new Gallup poll showed only 44 percent approve of the way he’d handling his presidential transition — a number that has fallen since December, and puts him far, far below his predecessors:
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Gallup Matthew Yglesias wrote this week about the role the words “I won” play in Trump’s psychology . He won doing all this stuff during the election, and so he’s going to keep doing it now that he’s president. Winning means you’re right. Winning means it worked.
And Trump did win. But that doesn’t mean this petty behavior is what worked for him. This is why he didn’t win the popular vote. This is why most Americans don’t like him. And this is, in ways Trump may not appreciate yet, how you end up losing as president. Being disliked makes you weak. It erodes your support in Congress. It limits what you can get done. The rules that governed Trump’s life up till now are not the same as the rules that govern the presidency.
In his 2007 book, Think Big and Kick Ass , Trump wrote, " When someone intentionally harms you or your reputation, how do you react? I strike back, doing the same thing to them only ten times worse." This is what he’s doing with Lewis. If Lewis won’t attend his inaugural, if he’s going to question Trump’s legitimacy and testify against his cabinet nominees, then Trump is going to hit him ten times harder — he’ll tell the whole world Lewis is all talk and no action, and say his district, which includes some of the toniest neighborhoods in Atlanta, is “in horrible shape,” “falling apart” and “crime-infested.”
This is great strategy for a reality television star who needs to wrest back the spotlight from a critic. But that’s not what’s being competed over here. Lewis doesn’t need the spotlight. And nor, in truth, does Trump. But Trump needs the support of plenty of members of Congress who revere Lewis. Trump needs the support of members of Congress who worry about whether supporting Trump is going to make them look bad in the eyes of voters in 2018, not to mention the eyes of history. Trump needs the support of plenty of Americans who don’t want to hear on the news that the president is calling a congressman who was beaten within an inch of his life to secure civil rights “all talk.”
Which brings me back to the original question. It doesn’t matter what Trump is trying to do here. If he was smart, he’d stop it.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/14/14273180/john-lewis-donald-trump
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Trump has an ugly soul.
"Media painted this as a ‘Trump attack on a civil rights icon’ without allowing Trump any room to respond to what was really an unprecedented attack by Lewis.
John Lewis being a civil rights icon doesn’t give him the right to free attacks without response for life.
Several other Democrats have joined Lewis in his boycott of the inauguration.
Democrats have to stop attacking our institutions and the peaceful transition of power.
Trump will be president in five days.
Time, long past time, to accept it."
Lewis hates democracy. He should be impeached.
I never heard of him before.
He has been a well known U.S. politician for many years.
I guess you truly are not a Democrat.
Whatever gave you that idea? Quite frankly, I don't care who he is and what he did; he's acting like a child about this.
Oh, please. There are millions of Americans who do not accept Donald Trump and never will. He is easily the worst person to ever run for president, for a plethora of reasons.
Oh, please. He's the elected president and this guy is failing his duty.
Sounds like he hit trump first, calling his election illegitimate. So Trump fired back. Is rep lewis riding the crest of his civil war glories 50+ years ago? He has been in Congress for decades. What are his accomplishments?
Nothing significant. He's a career politician.
In fairness, this has been an orchestrated attack from the beginning. This wasn't an impromptu comment from Lewis, it was clearly orchestrated with Chuck Todd being a more than willing participant. I don't mind attacking Trump, since he doesn't belong in the White House and is putting the country and global relations at risk. However, I am not impressed with how this assault was packaged. The players appear to have been carefully selected, the language rehearsed, and then spoon fed to the world like bad reality tv. The headlines (like this article) were typed before the interview even happened. If this is what to expect for the next four years, watching the news is going to be like watching Survivor every night.
Everything on tv appears to be staged. I don't know what your point is.
There has always been opposition to the insane prospect of a Trump presidency. Lewis just focused it a little more.
It just didn't have an authentic feel. More like there was a script and a shortlist of candidates to deliver it. Lewis had the best leverage, so he was selected. Maybe it's just me, but that's how this came across. It's a deliberate effort to draw Trump into a public feud with someone who has a popular following.
I don't know, maybe. I would just say, so what?
If it wasn't Lewis it would be someone else. Trump will be opposed every day he is in office.
And I'm fine with that. I'm just not fine with the reality tv style presentation. I'm not one for being led around by the nostrils.
I don't think it matters.
Hal, I believe I agree,with you. This has a staged feel.
It is a strange day when Hal and I agree on anything....
Just another crooked politician. He's got a rap sheet three miles long been arrested forty five times.
Nashville arrest records, photos of civil rights icon found
This combination of photographs provided by the Nashville Police Department shows recently... Read more
When civil rights icon John Lewis returned to Nashville this weekend, he was greeted just like he was more than 50 years ago — with a mug shot and an arrest record.
But this time, his record was bound for the city's public library.
Officials in Tennessee's capital city have unearthed never-before-published photos and records documenting Lewis' arrests there decades ago, while he was leading an effort to desegregate the city's lunch counters.
Nashville Mayor Megan Berry surprised Lewis with the records while he was on stage Saturday at the Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School to receive a literary award for "March," a three-part graphic novel about his life in the civil rights movement.
"I was surprised, and I almost cried. I held back tears, because I was so young," Lewis, now 76 and long a U.S. congressman from Georgia, told reporters afterward. "I would love to have copies of them and place them in my Washington office, so when young people, especially children, come by, and even some of my colleagues, they will see what happened and be inspired to do something."
As a child, Lewis was inspired by radio broadcasts of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. That eventually led him to co-found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and serve as its chairman. He was one of the organizers for the 1963 March on Washington.
The photos depict a scowling Lewis in his early 20s, wearing a tie in one photo and a long overcoat in another. The arrest records show he was booked at least three times from 1961 to 1963 on charges including disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and breach of the peace.
City officials plan to display copies of the records in the Civil Rights Room of the Nashville Public Library, where all police trainees are required to attend a class.
"You got into some 'good trouble' in Nashville, and apparently 40-plus more times, and I hope these photos remind you of what you have done and the legacy you have left for us," Barry told Lewis while showing him the records Saturday.
David Ewing, a local historian and lawyer, first requested the records years ago but was told they did not exist. But he kept asking, and his prodding eventually led officials to find them deep in the city's archives.
Lewis said he has been arrested 45 times for his activism — including five times since he was elected to Congress. But his first arrest came in Nashville.
"I'm probably going to be arrested again," he said.
Lewis, who served as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , recalls being arrested for a sit-in at a Woolworth’s counter in which he was hit. “The people heard that we had been arrested and before the end of the day, five hundred students made it into the downtown area to occupy other stores and restaurants. At the end of the day ninety-eight of us were in jail,” he said in an oral history . Lewis’ commitment to what he calls “good trouble” has had real consequences over the years. To date, he has racked up at least 45 arrests, most recently while protesting on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform in 2013.
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Gandhi was arrested a lot too.
Yeah he always was a politician.
Why don't you ask him where he was when we marched across the Pettus Bridge, although we did see him arrested as was a lot of us, we sure as hell didn't see him marching.
He's a civil rights Icon, cause it suits the narrative to call him one. There are a lot of us that were alive back then.
What? are we all political Icons? Civil Rights Heros? Even if we worked for the hated RR?
A white boy that did the same things as he did is a racist pig, except I actually marched, he rode.
But he was there I saw him there. Yeah he was arrested. I guess the color of his skin was worth something to him after all.
Trump said all talk and no action. Depends on how you define action.
NM, you are a superior civil rights figure to John Lewis. Thanks for the info.
I am no more superior than the next man, neither is he. We marched so we can stand in the same space. In that I stand with him for all eternity.
So, we walked some of the same ground, why does that make him an "Icon" and me just another schlepp in the crowd?
I support what we stood for in the '60's, I do NOT support the shit he stands for now.
Without me, and a lot of people just like me all across this nation, he wouldn't be who he is today.
there were prominent conservative whites who marched in the civil rights movement. Former congressman Bob Dornan comes to mind.
Sometimes we are forced by others to become something we never imagined. It doesn't matter how we see ourselves many times but how others see us. If Mr. Lewis is looked upon as an icon to which his people and his constituents see hope when they look at him who are we to say differently because he may not fit within the definition of icon that I or you subscribe to.
My personal belief is that Donald Trump was elected the next President of the United States by the people. I don't agree with John Lewis but this is America and he has a right to freedom of speech until it's stolen from us.
True they slowly chip away at it by saying you have to seed to this group or that category to shut it out from the general population.
Dean - I made a suggestion because I THOUGHT we were trying to take a look at the site and see where we could improve areas so that it would attract outside participation or stimulate the return of previous members. It wasn't to force or require anyone to do anything. You and your buddies can fuck off.
My comment here is basically one of let people be who they are. Your comment to me is just to criticize me.
He has a right to his speech no matter if there are people stealing it or not. It's one of those things we spilt blood for, skin color has no bearing on that.
Somewhere along the line, that translated for him into a need to be recompensed for the suffering we all felt.
That's what the politics of Identity does for you. His skin color makes him special.
It's what I (and a lot of us) in particular marched AGAINST.
Just because you are against bigotry in one direction, doesn't give you a pass to being a bigot in the other direction.
"Bottom rail on top now Massa!"
..Donald Trump was elected the next President of the United States by the people.
Perhaps Lewis fells it was more like;
Donald Trump was elected the next President of the United States by the people Constitution.
Yes, yes I know, Tomayto, Tomahto.
However when one throws in Trumps 3 million vote loss to Hillary and how every one of our intelligent agencies agree that Putan was heading up Trumps biggest Super PAC, it becomes a bit easier to see why a guy like Congressman Lewis, who was nearly killed getting the right to vote, might be pissed if he thinks that the votes he fought so hard for were tainted and diluted in this Election.
Just a guess of course.
Old folk, (the greatest generation types), get a lot of leeway from me over any opinion they hold about subjects that they bleed for and, you know how it goes, after a certain age we all get to the, O Frack it! stage of life. (smile)
Yes, there are a lot of variables involved and I understand why Mr. Lewis and others would feel that this election was not kosher. I think it's premature for him to make this type of statement. You and I can debate until the cows come home but our elected officials needs to be more responsible how they frame their positions.