Twelve years ago, the Atlantic published “The Case for Reparations,” a stunning piece of journalism by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
In it, Coates painfully detailed how slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation and racist housing policies have inflicted lasting harm on African Americans, robbing them of the ability to build the kind of generational wealth that is usually taken for granted by white families.
The piece helped revive serious conversations about reparations that led, eventually, to a unique but still unrealized effort in California.
Over the decades, many citizens have benefited from reparations; Japanese Americans who were imprisoned during World War II, Native American and African American farmers who were discriminated against when the federal government refused them access to credit, loans, land assistance programs and disaster relief. Locally, Santa Monica paid thousands of dollars to the family of a Black man whose land was seized. In Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles County returned land known as Bruce’s Beach to descendants of a Black couple who had been run off their property in 1924.
Other countries have also used reparations to atone for great wrongs.
The German government has paid Holocaust survivors. Canada has compensated survivors of its Indigenous residential schools. New Zealand has settled with Maori tribes for confiscating tribal lands. In post-apartheid South Africa, a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” brought some amount of healing to victims of that racist system.
All were ethical attempts to redress real harms inflicted on citizens by their governments.
And then there’s President Trump, hellbent on finding new ways to embarrass America. Trump has now decided to funnel nearly $1.8 billion of taxpayer money into an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to compensate people who believe they are victims of government overreach.
A memo circulated to Republican senators by the Department of Justice suggests that a vast number of Americans have suffered from “lawfare and weaponization,” vague partisan concepts that have no real meaning in the law.
That could include, according to the memo, “Millions of Americans whose online speech was censored at the behest of the government, parents silenced at schoolboards, Senators whose records were secretly subpoenaed, churchgoers targeted by the FBI, and so on.”
And so on?
The fund’s most controversial likely beneficiaries are the insurrectionists who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, injuring scores of police officers, some of whom later died. In one of the first official acts of his second term, Trump issued blanket pardons and commutations for the entire mob.
When acting Atty Gen. Todd Blanche appeared Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, he refused to say whether those who attacked police would be barred from receiving money. “People that hurt police officers receive settlements all the time,” he said, a breathtaking example of moral vacuity. “Anyone can apply.”
This scam is nothing less than reparations for insurrectionists, most of whom are white. All are entirely undeserving because they brought their suffering (and legal bills) on themselves.
“This is just stupid on stilts,” said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. “This is beyond the pale.”
Payments are to be determined by a five-member committee appointed by Trump’s attorney general, and will be made in secret.
The fund arises from a settlement of Trump’s preposterous $10-billion lawsuit against the government (essentially himself) after an IRS contractor gave 15 years of Trump’s tax returns to the New York Times. (The contractor, who pleaded guilty, is serving a five-year federal prison sentence.)
Trump dropped the lawsuit in exchange for the Justice Department — which is run by his former personal defense attorney Blanche — creating the fund.
Oh and by the way, the Justice Department quietly announced, the IRS will be “forever barred” from auditing Trump, his children and his companies.
“Has there ever been an episode of presidential corruption so blatant and threatening to constitutional order?” asked the New York Times editorial board.
Two of the officers who were injured in the Capitol attack — Harry Dunn and Daniel Hodges, who was repeatedly assaulted and crushed in a door frame — are suing the government to stop this travesty.
“The Fund’s mere existence sends a clear and chilling message: those who enact violence in President Trump’s name will not just avoid punishment, they will be rewarded with riches,” the lawsuit claims.
In Republican circles, it would seem that a mutiny is afoot.
“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops?” said Republican Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell. “Utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”
On Thursday, House members introduced a bipartisan bill to shut down the fund.
That afternoon, NPR featured an interview with Jake Lang, who was in jail for using a bat to attack police on Jan. 6, and was awaiting trial when Trump issued his sweeping pardons.
Lang, a white nationalist provocateur who thrills in his racism and hatred for Muslims, Jews and immigrants, told NPR he believes his government payout will be “upwards of a million dollars.”
“If you sacrifice for your country, if you do the right thing in the face of evil, you will be rewarded,” Lang said. “That’s the message President Trump is sending.”
Yeah, well, Trump is most definitely sending a message. But that ain’t it.
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