The Danger is on our side of the Wall

An article in the March issue of Atlantic magazine is must reading for anyone interested in opposing the regime of Donald Trump that is now assuming control over the machinery of the US government and the political and civic cultures that support it.

The huge and wonderful demonstrations — both organized and spontaneous — that have taken place over the past ten days have been heartening. They feed the spirits of those who wonder what is happening to our country at the top. But such demonstrations may not be the most effective ways of protest and resistance. They certainly cannot be the only ones.

What the Atlantic article — How to Build an Autocracy — offers is an understanding of the threats we are facing from Trumpism. Most vitally, it places those threats in the context of worldwide trends. September 11, 2001 was the day all Americans came to understand with tragic immediacy that the USA was not invulnerable to massive attacks from foreign terrorists. Author David Frum makes a compelling case that the threat to America’s democratic institutions and culture will not come neither with such startling clarity nor from abroad, but rather from an erosion of values that has already have begun around the globe and is infiltrating our society now.

If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled.

I won’t say more here, both because the piece is somewhat lengthy [audio version here] and deserves to be read on its own terms, but mostly because also a close reading will offer an understanding of both the threats we face as a nation and a realization that we must thoughtful in what must be done to resist and defeat this incursion from within. 

Incidentally, Frum is no wild-eyed pointy headed liberal. He once served in the White House as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.

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This Week in Cleveland

In all probability there has never been an administration off to as a chaotic a start as these first ten days of the Trump administration. It’s as if a set of grandparents, weary from doing so much upkeep on their grand old home, took in their irresponsible son’s seven year old to help them with the housekeeping. Instead of taking out the trash and helping to clear the table, the energetic towhead takes great delight in wreaking havoc: he puts metal in the microwave, sticks forks in electrical outlets, pours grease on the banister so he can slide downstairs faster, cuts holes in the screen doors, and invites the neighborhood motorcycle gang over to mingle with the Tuesday night dog park gathering of Rottweiler owners.

The grandparents are of course dismayed, but perhaps they have only themselves to blame. They knew the kid was an undisciplined miscreant who liked to pull the hair of his girl playmates,  and beat up or cheat anybody who was smaller or weaker than he was. They had seen how anybody he didn’t like or respect he would call out of their names. And they knew he couldn’t sit still for more than three minutes without throwing a tantrum. Still they were surprised at how quickly any semblance of tranquility fled as soon as their son left for four weeks in Hawaii after making the boy swear on a Bible that he would be good while Dad was gone.

It’s exhausting to think about the madness we may be facing over the next four years. Let’s focus on what might be done about that later and turn our attention to what’s happening in Cleveland this week. Think globally, act locally.

Monday was relatively quiet, especially after weather forced cancelation of the protest march over the President’s sloppily written and thoughtlessly presented Executive Order barring entry into the USA from seven countries (it’s been rescheduled for this Friday from 4p-5p at Market Square, West 25^th Street and Lorain Ave.).

Tuesday boasts an abundance of local events. For starters, representatives of the Cavaliers are expected to attend this morning's weekly meeting of the United Pastors in Mission in search of support for expansive public financing of improvements to Quicken Loans Arena. [We have an article on that controversial issue that we will appear in this space shortly.]

Dr. Cassi Pittman

We have been for some time in the midst of an era where issues of race, class and culture bubble up everywhere, making vital the need for thoughtful analysis. So we are especially interested in hearing the thoughts of Dr. Cassi Pittman when she speaks today on the Case Western Reserve University campus on “The Impact of Racial and Cultural Affinities”. Pittman, an assistant professor of sociology at Case, received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2012 before returning to this area and joining the Case faculty in 2014. Pittman grew up in East Cleveland and attended school there before matriculating at Hathaway Brown School. 

Pittman will speak at 11:30am in Crawford Hall, 10900 Euclid Ave., Room A13. The program is sponsored by Case’s Social Justice Institute.

Interwoven with issues of race, culture and demographics are questions of  governance and finance. In Cuyahoga County, this interplay is seen most frequently in the area’s first ring suburbs, where a recurrent problem is how cities adjust to population shifts, and changes in the job and housing markets. Maple Heights is the third city in the county to be declared in a state of fiscal emergency. The state-appointed Maple Heights Fiscal and Planning Commission meets this afternoon, Jan. 31 at 3pm in the city’s Senior Center.

Of perhaps wider interest, over the past year, as East Cleveland has dealt with its financial woes and the disintegration of its political establishment, opinions have perhaps polarized over whether the city should merge with Cleveland.

The League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland is sponsoring a forum on the issue tonight that will feature Cleveland City Council president Kevin Kelley and Ward 10 Councilman Jeff Johnson, along with East Cleveland mayor Brandon King and council president Nate Martin. Since this event was originally scheduled, Johnson has announced he is running for Cleveland mayor this year while East Cleveland’s former mayor and council president were recalled by the voters in a special election last month.

Will the merger happen? Should it happen? How could it happen? Ideastream’s crack reporter Nick Castele will moderate the program at 7pm tonight at Case’s Tinkham Veale Center, 11038 Bellflower Rd.

One development we have noted with pleasure of late is the increasing outreach of several community organizations. The Black Professionals Association Charitable Foundation last year initiated a Leadership Speaker Series featuring several former Black Professionals of the Year. Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson kicked off the series last fall followed in short order by nationally known businessman and author George Fraser.

Marketing and communications guru and magazine publisher Alexandria Johnson Boone is tonight’s speaker. Her topic: “Express Yourself: Elevate Your Personal Brand from Average to Amazing”.

Boone will speak tonight at 6pm at Burke Lakefront Airport, 1501 N. Marginal Rd.

Finally, Case Western is certainly bustling this week! This Friday, the University holds its 2017 Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation featuring Margot Lee Shetterly as keynote speaker. Shetterly is author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, made into a motion picture currently screening at local theaters. 

The event, which is free and open to the public, is Friday, Feb. 3, at 12:30 p.m. in the Tinkham Veale University Center, 11038 Bellflower Rd.  A book-signing and reception follows her talk. To attend, register at case.edu/events/mlk/  

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Today’s short takes: Trump, wolves, crime, and art

National: The national news media let Donald Trump off the hook so many times during the just-concluded presidential campaign. It was extraordinarily frustrating to see interviewers fail to pin the candidate down on his slogan to make America great again. He used that phrase, borrowed without attribution from Ronald Reagan, repeatedly without being required to identify even a time frame, much less any measurable yardsticks.  A general consensus seemed to emerge, without help or direction from the candidate, that Trump most likely was referring to the 1950s, a decade when white male egos were unchallenged. White men controlled everything and Father Knew Best. Civil rights were openly suppressed, in many cases with the authority of law. Gays were in the closet, women had healthier relationships with home appliances than husbands, and the throwaway culture was perhaps at its zenith. 

That consensus appears to have been wrong. As the nominees of the Trump administration are rolled out, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the era Donald Trump has in mind when he talks of making American great again is pre-modern, perhaps even Paleolithic. The presumptive Secretary of Energy is … Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who wanted to abolish the Energy Department.

The foxes are no longer in charge of the hen house. Wolves are replacing them.

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Tavis Smiley

National talk show host Tavis Smiley was in Cleveland last week for a forum, "Courting Justice," that among other things highlighted the harmful effect the high cost of fines, fees and bail have on the criminal justice system. The forum, which was filmed before a live audience at WVIZ/PBS ideastream, will be shown in two 30-minute segments, tonight and tomorrow at 11:30 p.m. on public television. Readers outside the Cleveland viewing area should check PBS.org their local viewing times.

The show’s panel included Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative Judge Ronald Adrine, Lakewood Municipal Court Judge Pat Carroll and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Yvette McGee Brown.

Nothing against the chief justice or the Lakewood judge, but we can vouch from personal experience that Judge Adrine and former Justice McGee Brown are exceptionally thoughtful and knowledgeable.

The forum was part of a nationwide series. Previously aired segments were in Los Angeles [June] & Little Rock [Sept.] and are likely available online through Tavis Smiley show archives at PBS.org. Local sponsors included the City Club of Cleveland and the Cleveland Foundation.

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Speaking of ideastream, we attended a spirited public meeting there yesterday afternoon that addressed the way Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the agency that determines which arts organizations get funded from the county’s dedicated 30-cents-a-pack cigarette tax, may change a core program.

Meeting of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board of Trustees
at Playhouse Square, December 12, 2016

At CAC’s November 14 meeting, held at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood, where more than $14.5 million in grants was announced, public comments from two outspoken members of the local arts community, helped focus concerns on CAC’s proposed shift in how individual artists are funded. The comments, by CAC board member Gwendolyn Garth and Donald Black Jr., addressed perceived inequities in the administration of the

Joseph Gibbons chairs the Board of Trustees,
Cuyahoga Arts and Culture; Karen Gahl-Mills is CAC
executive director.

individual artists awards process, which is separately handled by the nonprofit Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Tension and concern over proposed changes being considered by CAC as to how individual artists awards may be handled in the future led to yesterday’s meeting being attended by an SRO crowd of nearly 200. The normal 15 minutes reserved for public comment at each board meeting had to be extended to nearly 90 minutes as a series of speakers, almost all of whom were disciplined enough to stay within their allotted three minutes, voiced support for the current system, decried proposed changes that would replace the current Creative Workforce Partnerships [aka individual artists awards] and replace it with new awards that would be managed by an entity based outside the state.

CAC trustee, Steve Minter

Of equal concern, judging from how the audience regularly responded with applause to the public comments, were sentiments expressing concern over how artists of color seemed not to find favor in the awards process, and how some neighborhoods, including Glenville, Hough, and Mt. Pleasant, were left out in the cold when public projects were considered.

It seemed clear that the trustees wanted to hear from the artist’s community, and that this was a dialogue that should have been routinely occurring during the decade CAC has existed. Board members announced even before the public comment that no decision on changing the Creative Workshop Partnership program would be taken at yesterday’s meeting. Following the public comment period, each board member addressed the crowd, and the prevailing sense was that the board would be doing its homework over the holidays before the next meeting.

While several artists of color spoke about their frustrations or questions regarding the distribution of funds, it was illuminating to see a significant number of nonminority artists also speak to inequities and process issues that disproportionately hinder black and brown artists. This first time visitor to a CAC session left with an appreciation for the robustness of Cleveland’s artistic community, its energy and sense of fair play, and the under appreciated role that public support of the arts must play in any genuine civic renaissance.

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This last point was underscored by the attendance of both former Gund Foundation president David Bergholz and former County Commissioner

Dave Bergholz,
former Gund Foundation President

Peter Lawson Jones. Bergholz, who arrived more than an hour early and led off the public comment period, set the tone when he spoke strongly in favor of maintaining and strengthening the CWP awards and challenged the trustees to find more money to support artists. Jones, who is now perhaps the area’s busiest actor, did not speak; during his tenure as a public official he was a vocal and committed champion of the arts and a prominent spokesman for the tax that created what is now a strong contributor to the Cleveland arts scene.

The next regular meeting of the Board of Trustees is scheduled for February 13, 2017 at the Idea Center, 1375 Euclid Ave.

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