JUAN GONZLEZ: In an extraordinary day for the Republican Party, the GOP s past two

presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, denounced Donald Trump, sayi
ng the current Republican front-runner is a danger to the nation and the party.
Romney spoke in Utah.
MITT ROMNEY: Let me put it very plainly: If we Republicans choose Donald Trump a
s our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly dimini
shed. ... I understand the anger Americans feel today. In the past, our presiden
ts have channeled that anger and forged it into resolve, into endurance and high
purpose, and into the will to defeat the enemies of freedom. Our anger was tran
sformed into energy directed for good. Mr. Trump is directing our anger for less
than noble purposes. He creates scapegoats in Muslims and Mexican immigrants. H
e calls for the use of torture. He calls for killing the innocent children and f
amily members of terrorists. He cheers assaults on protesters. He applauds the p
rospect of twisting the Constitution to limit First Amendment freedom of the pre
ss. This is the very brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss. H
ere s what I know: Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless
as a degree from Trump University.
AMY GOODMAN: Hours after Mitt Romney spoke, Donald Trump came under more critici
sm at a debate in Detroit hosted by Fox News. Florida Senator Marco Rubio also f
ocused on Trump University, Trump s for-profit venture now at the center of a mult
imillion-dollar fraud claim.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: He s trying to do to the American voter what he did to the peopl
e that signed up for this course: He s making promises he has no intention of keep
ing. And it won t just be $36,000 that they lose; it s our country that s at stake her
e. The future of the United States and the most important election in a generati
on, and he is trying to con people into giving them their vote, just like he con
ned these people into giving them their money.
MEGYN KELLY: Let s just [inaudible]
DONALD TRUMP: Let me tell you, the real con artist excuse me, excuse me. The real
con artist is Senator Marco Rubio
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: The only con artist on this stage is Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: who was elected in Florida and who has the worst voting record in t
he United States Senate. He doesn t go to vote. He s absent.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: Donald.
DONALD TRUMP: He doesn t go. Now, the people of Florida can t stand him. He couldn t g
et elected dogcatcher.
JUAN GONZLEZ: Texas Senator Ted Cruz, meanwhile, blasted Trump for having donated
to Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign in 2008.
SEN. TED CRUZ: I understand the folks who are supporting Donald right now. You re
angry. You re angry at Washington, and he uses angry rhetoric. But for 40 years, D
onald has been part of the corruption in Washington that you re angry about. And y
ou re not going to stop the corruption in Washington by supporting someone who has
supported liberal Democrats for four decades, from Jimmy Carter to John Kerry t
o Hillary Clinton. You re not going to stop the corruption and the cronyism by sup
porting someone who has used government power for private gain. Instead, we need
a president who stands with the American people.
AMY GOODMAN: The Republican debate repeatedly broke down into shouting matches a
nd name calling. Within the first 10 minutes of the debate, Trump even defended

the size of his penis while responding to a recent comment from Marco Rubio abou
t the size of his hands.
DONALD TRUMP: I also happened to call him a lightweight, OK, and I have said tha
t. So, I would like to take that back. He s really not that much of a lightweight.
And as far as and I have to say this. I have to say this. He hit my hands. Nobody
has ever hit my hands. I ve never heard of this. What look at those hands. Are they
small hands? And he referred to my hands if they re small, something else must be s
mall. I guarantee you, there s no problem. I guarantee you.
JUAN GONZLEZ: Ohio Governor John Kasich tried to stay out of the fray but also ad
vocated for the most hawkish foreign policy of the night, calling for a signific
ant number of U.S. ground forces in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
GOV. JOHN KASICH: Fortunately in Libya, there s only a few cities on the coast, be
cause most of Libya is a desert. The fact of the matter is, we absolutely have t
o be and not just with special forces I mean, that s not going to work. Come on, you ve
got to go back to the invasion, when we pushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. We
have to be there on the ground in significant numbers. We do have to include our
Muslim Arab friends to work with us on that. And we have to be in the air. And
we it should be a broad coalition made up of the kinds of people that were involve
d when we defeated Saddam. Now, you ve got to be on the ground and in the air both
in Syria and Iraq. And at some point, we will have to deal with Libya.
AMY GOODMAN: Despite the growing attacks on Donald Trump from within the Republi
can establishment, all three of his challengers vowed to support Trump if he win
s the nomination.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: I ll support the Republican nominee.
BRET BAIER: Mr. Trump, yes or no?
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: I ll support Donald if he s the Republican nominee.
BRET BAIER: Senator Cruz, yes or no, you will support Donald Trump if he s the nom
inee?
SEN. TED CRUZ: Yes, because I gave my word that I would.
BRET BAIER: Yes or no, would you support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee?
GOV. JOHN KASICH: Yeah, I but and I kind of think that before it s all said and done,
I ll be the nominee.
AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the Republican debate, we re joined by two guests.
Lester Spence is associate professor of political science and Africana studies
at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. His new book is Knocking the Hustle: A
gainst the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. And joining us from Irvine, Califo
rnia, is Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extre
mism at California State University in San Bernardino. His recent article in The
Huffington Post is "We All Must Draw a Line Against Hate and Violence."
Lester Spence, let s begin with you. Your reaction to the debate last night?
LESTER SPENCE: It was like pulling teeth watching it. I was born in Detroit, gre
w up in the Detroit area, and I think it s really interesting that at no point in
time during the debate at all did they talk about the policies that are affectin
g Detroit, the policies that are affecting cities like Flint, policies of emerge
ncy financial management, that actually kind of reflected a bipartisan consensus
but were basically created by a Republican Legislature and a Republican governo

r. My mom was a substitute teacher at Spain Elementary. She just retired. Spain
Elementary, what? They had a rodent infestation. They had a gym that was crumbli
ng. And it required Ellen DeGeneres and, I think, Justin Bieber to donate money
to get it straight. And they didn t talk about any of that.
JUAN GONZLEZ: And in your book, you deal a lot with the whole issue of the neolib
eral impact on public education in the country. But there s been, in these certainly
in the Republican debates, very, very little discussion of education, except fo
r Trump repeatedly saying, "We re going to get rid of Common Core. We re going to ge
t rid of Common Core."
LESTER SPENCE: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And the Department of Education.
JUAN GONZLEZ: And the Department of Education.
AMY GOODMAN: That s how he would save money.
LESTER SPENCE: Yeah, yeah. And again, if you think about the state of Michigan,
the state of Michigan has some of the laxest regulations on charter schools. And
what I think either a Free Press or a Detroit News report suggested was that be
cause of that lack of regulation, you ve had significant levels of corruption and
a number of charter schools that were allowed to function long after they should
have been closed. We didn t have a discussion of again, we didn t have a discussion o
f any of that.
******************************
AMY GOODMAN: Can we get your response, Brian Levin, to what you watched last nig
ht in Detroit, the Republican debate, the 11th, I think it was, now down to the
four candidates vying to be the Republican presidential candidate nominee?
BRIAN LEVIN: What I found disturbing was that with all the rhetoric coming from
Republicans of goodwill if you listen to, for instance, George W. Bush when he vis
ited a mosque after 9/11, John McCain when he was on the campaign trail and Arab
icphobic comments were made, even a speaker of the House tried to say, "Look, we
have to put a line in the sand with regard to white nationalists, Klansmen, neo
-Nazis." It was a footnote. It started and said, "Would you disavow."
And what I think needed to be done was something by all the candidates, not to r
etreat from their positions we re a nonpartisan center but to say, "There is a line th
at we draw, and that line is against white supremacists, white nationalists and
neo-Nazis," because I have not seen, in the decade that I ve been researching this
, a successful mainstream candidate having the endorsement of a virtual who s who
of Klansmen, white nationalists and others. We re talking about not just people li
ke David Duke, but folks from the Loyal White Knights, Infostormer, Daily Storme
r, Stormfront. It is a tidal wave of support.
And it is because there are not policy messages that appeal to the white suprema
cists and white nationalists, but rather the xenophobic and racist tones, where
Mexicans are labeled as criminals, and Muslims are broadbrushed to an extent tha
t they not only should be excluded from coming into the country, but this not ev
en dog whistle that there should be some sociopolitical exclusion of Muslims. Th
is is a terrible time for the party of Lincoln.
AMY GOODMAN: We re going to break, come back, and I m going to ask you about your at
tendance at a Klan rally and what the members had to say about Donald Trump. We re
talking to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extrem
ism at California State University in San Bernardino, and Lester Spence. He has
a new book out; it s called Knocking the Hustle. Stay with us.

[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "900 Miles," performed by Barbara Dane. This is Democracy Now!, dem
ocracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We re going to turn right now to last Sat
urday, a Klan rally, a chapter of the Klan in Anaheim known as the Loyal White K
nights, or LWK. Dozens of counterprotesters also showed up, when a fight broke o
ut. Brian Levin, you actually stepped in to shield Klan leader Bill Quigg from b
eing assaulted. For our radio viewers, we re showing scenes of the melee. You can
go to democracynow.org for a link. After things calmed down a bit, Brian spoke t
o some of the Loyal White Knights.
BRIAN LEVIN: What are you trying to rally today for, sir?
LOYAL WHITE KNIGHT 1: White lives matter. I mean, everyone s ah, I got some broken r
ibs.
BRIAN LEVIN: Sure.
LOYAL WHITE KNIGHT 1: Everybody s on Black Lives Matter and all that. They re [inaud
ible]
BRIAN LEVIN: But what about the Klan s history hate. Can you see why people would
be upset?
LOYAL WHITE KNIGHT 1: We re not the old Klan.
BRIAN LEVIN: Do you have a candidate that you like? Do you have a presidential c
andidate that you like?
LOYAL WHITE KNIGHT 2: I d say voting for Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED: Voting for Trump, sir?
LOYAL WHITE KNIGHT 2: Trump.
UNIDENTIFIED: Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzlez. And, Brian
Levin, you re director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Califo
rnia State University at San Bernardino. Explain what was taking place.
BRIAN LEVIN: Well, the Loyal White Knights, which has had significant growth nat
ionally last year the Klan only has about maybe 4,500 to 5,500 members nationwide,
a far cry from the four-and-a half to 5 million in the 1920s, when future Presi
dent Harry Truman, future Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and the governor of I
ndiana were members and you really had to get a Klan endorsement to win a politi
cal position. Now they re very small. I think they have just somewhat more than a
handful in their chapter. But Klan the Klan nationally has grown. In California, t
heir minuscule.
Nevertheless, all hell broke loose when about a half a dozen Klansmen tried to g
et out of their vehicle. And they were set upon with wooden planks, metal rods,
fists, feet. And when the vehicle moved away, there were three Klansmen left. Tw
o near me were just brutally set upon by a mob, and I interceded with my outstre
tched hand and my iPhone as a camera and said, "Do not hurt this gentleman. Do n
ot hurt this gentleman."
That being said, Mr. Quigg, this grand dragon grand dragon is the leader of a stat
e chapter, the realm, the California realm, and we re talking very small number of

people here was getting kicked in the head, was getting attacked. He is a reprehe
nsible person, who believes Hitler is a great person and that the Holocaust didn t
happen and that white Christians are God s chosen people and that the concentrati
on camps had swimming pools and luxuries. This is the kind of person we re talking
about. He does not he believes that there is a white genocide going on. He also b
elieves that illegal immigration of Mexicans is taking our country into a tailsp
in and that Muslims are encroaching on America and destroying it.
AMY GOODMAN: So what did he have to say about Donald Trump?
BRIAN LEVIN: Well, interestingly enough, his lieutenant spoke effusively about D
onald Trump. He was much more cagey, because he had effusive, over-the-top tweet
back in September saying how all Americans should support Donald Trump. This ti
me, he joked, "Hillary Clinton," and then he said he s undecided. He s not undecided
. He s been quite vocal in his support for Mr. Trump, which I think gives Mr. Trum
p an opportunity not just to grudgingly say, "How many times do I have to disavo
w?" but to say what does America mean to him, what does diversity mean to him, a
nd what do the people of goodwill in the Republican Party, who have just totally
spoken against bigotry, root and branch even Ronald Reagan, when running for pres
ident and had the Klan endorsement, was quite clear. And so, what I m worried abou
t is not how many disavowals he gives, but more the authenticity of his rejectio
n of it. And it doesn t appear genuine, and it doesn t appear deep.
JUAN GONZLEZ: Well, but as you say, the Klan is a relatively minor organization n
ow compared to what its strength decades ago. And you mentioned several other hate
groups, as well, all of which are on, you could say, the extreme fringe of whit
e nationalism here in the United States. What about the masses of people that ar
e voting for Trump? How do you think that the positions and the viewpoints of th
ese extreme groups are affecting or reflecting a broader movement, right-wing mo
vement in the country that has a white nationalist movement that has lined up behi
nd Trump?
BRIAN LEVIN: That is a great question. Look, white supremacists are showing up t
o his rallies. In the past, you would never see that. Matt Heimbach, who s a virul
ent bigot, was involved in physically manhandling an African-American female pro
tester at one of his rallies. In Alabama, there was a white power salute. Somebo
dy like Mr. Trump should say, "Wait a minute. Stop. I have policy positions, but
let me make it clear that bigotry is unacceptable." And that really has not bee
n done.
And if I may, one of the things that the white nationalists, white supremacists,
the neo-Nazi movement has lacked has been a charismatic leader. And what I m sayi
ng to you, I m not saying that Mr. Trump is a neo-Nazi, but they view him as a cel
ebrity brand mouthpiece who is parroting what they re saying. And the kinds of rhe
toric that we see on these hate sites are being retransmitted into the mainstrea
m. There is a problem when 40 percent or more of Republicans believe that Presid
ent Obama is a Muslim or that Muslims are a threat.
There really is a need for a leader in the Republican Party who can still take t
heir partisan policy positions we re a nonpartisan organization but what they have to
do is disentangle the bigotry that comes with it, this xenophobia, this derision
towards Latinos and this broadbrushing of Muslims as some kind of horrible thre
at. This is a this is just a terrible time for the Republican Party. And I know Re
publican people of goodwill, people like Lindsey Graham who have made statements
. We had George Bush the elder sign the Hate Crimes Statistics Act and make stat
ements against hate. It is a terrible time, and I am hoping that the forces of g
ood within the Republican Party, who may have their conservative policy position
s on affirmative action and national security, speak out, because what this is d
oing, it is inflaming and amplifying this fear and anger that exists with a very
significant part of the Republican Party that is slipping through the thin ice

of bigotry. And we can t have that for a party with this kind of tradition.
JUAN GONZLEZ: I wanted to ask Lester Spence, this whole issue of the white suprem
acist movement and white nationalism being such a key force pressing among the s
upporters of Donald Trump, how do you respond to that? And also, how do you sens
e, in terms of the African-American community, this is being received?
LESTER SPENCE: So, I think that what Brother Levin says is actually right. This
is something that we should be really scared of, and we should actually be a lot
more forceful in articulating it, about as forceful as we are on climate change
. What this reflects is kind of a political climate change. With that said, it s i
mportant to note that Ronald Reagan began his political his 1980 presidential camp
aign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, or right outside of it. The only historical s
ignificance of Philadelphia, Mississippi, was that it was the home it was the site
of the brutal murder of civil rights workers. And he, at that announcement, arg
ued strongly for states rights. So, while we can
AMY GOODMAN: The killing of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman.
LESTER SPENCE: Yeah, that s right. So, while we can say that Trump represents an o
utlier, he s very well within the kind of the mainstream Republican Party, who s had
to be who s had to in chasing the Republican or the conservative white rural voter, h
ave become more and more and more extreme. Trump is just the outlier. We should
be really, really deeply concerned. But he reflects just the general tendency. H
e s not some crazy person well, kind of crazy in that he s talking about his penis on
a debate, but, I mean, he s not as extreme as we re positing him to be, first.
Second, I think black voters, one of the reasons a lot of people have been kind of
questioning: Why are black voters supporting Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sander
s? There are a lot there s a lot of really, really interesting stuff going on there.
Cedric Johnson hits this stuff in a really good Jacobin piece. But one of the t
hings is one of the things that could be driving some of the voters is, they re seei
ng Trump, and they re frightened. Right? And they kind of should be. And then the
question is like, OK, which of these people can actually actually has the best opp
ortunity to take Trump out and to be kind of a sane governor? And they re making a
decision for Hillary Clinton. So
AMY GOODMAN: Although some polls indicated that in a matchup, Bernie Sanders wou
ld be the one who would beat Donald Trump.
LESTER SPENCE: Oh, yeah, yeah. That s absolutely right. But, you know, I m willing t
o bet that they re still you know, separate from the polls, that s the type of distinc
tion they re making.
AMY GOODMAN: Let s go to this clip, very interesting, Super Tuesday night CNN cove
rage. Analysts Van Jones and Jeffrey Lord, who is a Trump supporter, clashed ove
r Donald Trump s hedging around David Duke s endorsement.
VAN JONES: He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very,
very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he
is playing funny with the Klan, that is not cool.
JEFFREY LORD: He didn t play funny with the Klan.
VAN JONES: Hold on, hold on a second. I know this man when he gets passionate ab
out terrorism. I know how he talks about terrorism. The Klan is a terrorist orga
nization that has killed
JEFFREY LORD: A leftist terrorist organization.

VAN JONES: You could put whatever label you want to on it. That s your game to pla
y.
JEFFREY LORD: No, it s an important it s important history.
VAN JONES: But no, that s your game to play.
JEFFREY LORD: It s history.
VAN JONES: No, they re not labeled we re not going to play that game. Not going to pla
y that game.
JEFFREY LORD: We are going to understand history.
VAN JONES: No, no, no, no. You need to take a serious look at the fact that this
man has is playing fast and loose and footsie. When you talk about terrorism, he
gets passionate. He says, "No, this is wrong." But when you talk about the Klan,
"Oh, I don t know, I don t know." That s wrong. And then you came on the air, and you
said, "Well, this is just like when Reverend Wright was speaking."
JEFFREY LORD: Yeah, yeah.
VAN JONES: Reverend Wright never lynched anybody, Reverend Wright never killed a
nybody.
JEFFREY LORD: Reverend Wright is Reverend Wright is an anti-Semite.
VAN JONES: Reverend Wright no, hold on a second. Reverend Wright never put anybody
on a post. And you guys play these word games, and it s wrong to do in America.
JEFFREY LORD: It is wrong to
VAN JONES: It is wrong to do.
JUAN GONZLEZ: Those were analysts Van Jones of CNN and also Jeffrey Lord, a Trump
supporter, clashing over Donald Trump s hedging on his support of the of David Duke o
r, of David Duke s support of him. At last night s debate, Donald Trump was also que
stioned about his clothing line.
CHRIS WALLACE: Specifically and quickly on the question: Will you promise that y
ou will and how soon will you move your clothing collection, the clothes that are ma
de in China and Mexico?
DONALD TRUMP: They devalue their currencies. I will do that. And by the way, I h
ave been doing it more and more. But they devalue their currencies, in particula
r China. Mexico is doing a big number now also. Japan is unbelievable, what they r
e doing. They devalue their currencies, and they make it impossible for clothing
makers in this country to do clothing in this country. And if you look at what s
happened on 7th Avenue and you look at what s happened in New York with the garmen
t industry, so much of the clothing now comes out from Vietnam, China and other
places. And it s all because of devaluation.
JUAN GONZLEZ: Lester Spence, your reaction to this, especially since Trump has al
so been demonizing China and Mexico, as he says, eating our lunch all the time?
LESTER SPENCE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was flip-flopping so often, it was kind of f
unny. And actually, the one thing I can say about the news analysts, to give the
m credit, is they actually pushed him on a number of different points on his eco
nomic policy.

Going back to the so I started talking about Detroit and Flint. Those are two larg
e Democratic bodies with large black populations. Let s say instead we don t focus o
n Detroit. Let s say we focus on metropolitan Detroiters. And if you look at the a
udience, I saw a couple of black faces, but I m presuming most of the people in th
e audience were outside of Detroit, in the surrounding suburbs. They could have
easily talked about labor, right? To the extent they talked about labor, a lot o
f those folk in the suburbs, they re producing more and more, their wages are flat
lining, right? Every time to the extent they talked about policy, whether it s forei
gn trade or the IRS stuff, all this stuff was like repeats of the 1980s, that we
know don t work. Right? How can you, with a straight face, say we should, on the
one hand, abolish the IRS and then, secondarily, send a massive military presenc
e into the Middle East? How can we actually do that and be sane?
This is the stuff so when I say it was like pulling teeth watching the and I had to
do it, because you guys asked me. I m only going to do that because you guys asked
me. But it was like, what are we doing? So, when we talk about Trump as if he s t
he outlier, what we have to do is be really, really hardline and say, "No, this
is the tendency. This is what the Republican Party is."
**********************************
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let s go to both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio talking about Trump tal
king about Detroit and then about Flint. This is Ted Cruz addressing the economi
c crisis in Detroit.
SEN. TED CRUZ: Detroit is a great city with a magnificent legacy, that has been
utterly decimated by 60 years of failed left-wing policy. ... The way you bring
manufacturing back to America is, number one, you lift the regulations. As presi
dent, I will repeal Obamacare, the biggest job killer in America. I will pull ba
ck the federal regulators, the EPA and all the regulators that are killing small
businesses and manufacturing. And my tax plan, which is a very, very detailed p
lan on the website, TedCruz.org, is what s called border adjustable. We get rid of
all the taxes. We get rid of the corporate income tax and the death tax and the
Obamacare taxes and the payroll tax. And we replace it with a 16 percent busine
ss flat tax that is border adjustable, which means all exports are entirely taxfree and all imports pay the 16 percent business flat tax. That s a 32 percent dif
ferential. What that will do, Chris, is bring millions of manufacturing jobs bac
k to this country, bring the steel industry back to this country, create an envi
ronment where, when we compete on a fair and level playing field, American ingen
uity can beat anyone. But right now the federal government isn t giving us a level
playing field.
CHRIS WALLACE: Thank you, Senator.
AMY GOODMAN: The lead water crisis in Flint came up once during last night s debat
e, after Fox moderator Bret Baier asked Marco Rubio about it.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO: What happened in Flint was a terrible thing. It was systemic a s
ystemic breakdown at every level of government, at both the federal and partiall
y the at both the state and partially at the federal level, as well. And by the wa
y, the politicizing of it, I think, is unfair, because I don t think that someone
woke up one morning and said, "Let s figure out how to poison the water system to
hurt someone." But accountability is important. I will say I give the governor c
redit. He took responsibility for what happened, and he s talked about people bein
g held accountable and the need to change. That s Governor Snyder.
But here s the point: This should not be a partisan issue, the way the Democrats h
ave tried to turn this into a partisan issue, that somehow Republicans woke up i
n the morning and decided, "Oh, it s a good idea to poison some kids with lead." I
t s absurd. It s outrageous. It isn t true. All of us are outraged by what happened, a

nd we should work together to solve it. And there is a proper role for the gover
nment to play at the federal level in helping local communities to respond to a
catastrophe of this kind, not just to deal with the people that have been impact
ed by it, but to ensure that something like this never happens again.
AMY GOODMAN: That s Marco Rubio. Lester Spence, you were born in Michigan, in Detr
oit. Flint, Detroit?
LESTER SPENCE: Yeah, I had use the bathroom when they actually made those two this
is so, what what Cruz
AMY GOODMAN: Marco Rubio.
LESTER SPENCE: What Cruz suggested is basically, again, Republican policies warm
ed over. It s like you significantly reduce the reduce regulation, significantly red
uce taxes. In a number of cases and again, this is where Chris is really good. He
was suggesting that more money would be gained than there actually was money in
the line item budget, right? It s really clear that this stuff, it doesn t work for
any set of black populations I mean, any black population, much less the white pop
ulation. What s going on in Detroit is not the result of failed Democratic policie
s; it s the result of a bipartisan consensus that has been reproduced and crystall
ized under Republican administration. That s it. That s it. And you should be able t
o kind of sort of claim that. But they can t, because that s the only policy line th
ey have. And they can t also because the racial resentment that they re using to pul
l voters, they kind of require a city like Detroit in order to be able to say, "
OK, that s an example of failed government. Vote for us."
As far as what Rubio suggested, it s really clear. Every bit of data we have sugge
sts that, no, we do know that it wasn t a matter of the governor of Michigan sayin
g like, "Damn, I really don t like people in Flint. They don t vote for me. I m going
to poison their water." But what we know is that in every single city with a sig
nificant with a majority black population, they ve basically the state has taken it ov
er, rendered it broke and dysfunctional, whether you re talking about the Detroit
Public Schools, whether you re talking about Flint, whether you re talking about Ink
ster, whether you re talking about Saginaw, whether you re talking about Pontiac, wh
ether you re talking about Benton Harbor everywhere. And that s a Republican project.
AMY GOODMAN: We re going to have to leave it there, but we re going to continue, of
course, to cover all of these issues. The Democratic debate is in Flint on Sunda
y night. We ll be bringing you highlights and response on Monday. And check out ou
r website at democracynow.org. We came back recently from Flint, "Thirsty for De
mocracy," bringing you the voices from the front lines of the water wars in Mich
igan. Lester Spence, thanks so much, professor at Johns Hopkins University, auth
or of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. And th
anks so much to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Ex
tremism at California State University in San Bernardino.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. When we come back, the murder, the ass
assination of a leading Honduran environmentalist. Stay with us.