August 11, 2020 — Dallas

Today the Rev. William J. Barber, II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival (PPC), released a report they hope will change how American politicians build their platforms and the issues they address as they campaign. Titled Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Americans: Changing the Political Landscape, the report, researched and written by economist and Assistant Professor of Social Work at New York’s Columbia University, Robert Paul Hartley, makes a few startling observations about poor and low-income eligible non-voters.

Hartley reports that, “In the 2016 presidential election, there were 138 million voters out of 225 million eligible voters. Twenty-nine million of these voters were poor or low-income and there were an additional 34 million poor or low-income people who were eligible, but who did not vote.

Additionally, Hartley calculates that non-voting poor and low-wealth people had the potential to change the outcome of the 2016 election if only candidates had bothered to address poor people’s issues in their campaigns. Rev. Barber says, “Not only is it immoral to ignore poor and low-income people, not only is it economically [foolish], it is political suicide to ignore them in 2020.”

Dr. Jennifer Wimbish, a member of the Texas PPC Steering Committee and co-chair of the Dallas Poor People’s Campaign noted that the report indicates that “the issues of poor people should be front and center in terms of discussions of those seeking to win in November.” The PPC is currently waging concentrated voter registration drives in Texas and across the nation to get non-voting poor people registered to vote in person or by mail in the November 3 election. So, the implications for this Fall’s candidates are clear: Ignore the issues of poor and low-wealth people in the next three months at your peril.

The issues of poor and low-wealth people include “health [care], jobs, wages, food, [and clean] water,” according to Shailly Gupta Barnes, in the report’s foreword. Denita Jones of Dallas agrees, “My government is failing me and millions like me. We need higher wages, better workplace protections, lower rents, access to quality affordable health care, and fresh healthy food. Real freedom means not having to choose between your health and your rent.” Jones continued, “This [Covid-19] crisis just takes the Band-Aid off a wound that has been festering for too long. It’s time to apply some UV light and disinfectant to the wound of inequality in this country.”

Another person involved with the PPC, Lauren Simmons who lives in Houston’s Third Ward says, “Covid-19 has impacted our community physically, financially and emotionally. I have seen it up close and personal because I tested positive. I’m not surprised how poorly our [Texas] leaders have handled this issue, especially considering that we have the most uninsured people in this state.” Simmons added, “I’m also disturbed by the push to have children [and] school employees return to campuses that were already underfunded and ill equipped pre-Covid.

The complete report, Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Americans: Changing the Political Landscape can be found here. It’s worth a look.

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What is wrong with this man? In the face of a worldwide pandemic, that continues to ravage these United States, Donald Trump has turned his back on the coronavirus/Covid-19 crisis. Of course, he thinks it is a hoax that will “one day just magically go away.” Is that because it turns out that it affects blacks, Latinx, and native Americans at a greater rate than the majority population?

Trump also has turned his back on the police/public safety crisis across the country, reignited by the horrific May 31 Memorial Day murder of George Floyd. Trump has turned instead toward further dividing, frightening, and confusing the nation by painting the Black Lives Matter protestors as rioters and thugs and championing the traitorous confederacy and its statues and battle flag that are ubiquitous across the United States. He suggested that NASCAR driver Darrell “Bubba” Wallace should apologize for the noose found in his NASCAR garage as if it was Wallace’s fault that the noose was there.

I ask, again, what is wrong with Donald Trump? I know he is not finished yet, but for the moment I am, because at Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota – property stolen from the Sioux Nation – while the coronavirus was spiking in numerous states, Trump held a 7,000-person, no-mask rally at which there was no social distancing on July 4. There, in his dark, foreboding Independence Day speech, he said that “a left-wing cultural revolution. . . is determined to tear down every statue, symbol and memory of our national heritage.”

Except that the statues and symbols Trump is defending are those of the confederacy, a failed bunch of traitors who fought to keep my forbears enslaved and tear the United States asunder.  Their statues and symbols are certainly not my national heritage. As a matter of fact, I want to see them removed from every public place from the U.S. Capitol to the smallest little town square on the West coast. I am an American, and the symbols of the confederacy are not what I hold dear.

Now, Trump is insisting that children and teachers across the nation must return to their schools in August or lose whatever federal funding the schools receive. This demand and threat despite the coronavirus/Covid-19 spikes across the country.

Will somebody, please tell me What. Is Wrong. With. This. Man?