As Yogi Berra, the American baseball catcher, power hitter, acclaimed coach, and master of malapropisms said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Sadly, Yogi was right.

Almost daily now in América the blowhard president rolls out a barrage of angry threats and insults, often followed by sweeping power grabs. No restraint: he can’t hold back, repeatedly bellowing delusions of grandeur and colossal made-up war and peace accomplishments.  Most can see what those claims really are.  With a casual shrug he makes an indifferent attempt to assure us he is neither a bully nor a dictator, and then proceeds to unleash a fiery gambit of raw revenge upon people, including former advisors and generals he appointed, who dare to resist – who refuse to remain silent, bend a knee, or slink away when he tries to fire them without cause.

For those who stand in his way, this crazed pot belly bully, and his wretched flunkies go into full-throttle revenge, unleashing the vast powers of the federal government against them. He also personally orders government security protection revoked immediately, thereby exposing these patriots to foreign agents who have vowed to kill them. He also orders masked ICE agents to storm into homes and offices to seize laptops, phones, and files.  Our president brags and cheers when his critics must hire lawyers to keep their jobs, retirement pay, good names, and defend themselves against his complicit cabinet which controls vast levers of our government.

These chilling outtakes are part and parcel of an efficient police state, but most of us are ignoring or blocking out what is going on in plain sight. While the American flag still flies high over federal buildings, only days ago the exuberant Secretary of Labor announced she was flying a red, white, and blue Trump portrait flag over the U. S. Labor Department in Washington. No one should be surprised when more symbols of Trump power wave high over more federal buildings around the country, and even fewer should be taken aback when the Trump cabinet and donors tell the Governor of South Dakota that President Trump must be added to that colossal sculpture carved with Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills.  They are serious.

Examine closely haunting and historic black and white photographs of the 237-year-old Brandenberg Gate, Berlin’s most famous landmark, when it was flying shocking symbols of Nazi power during the Holocaust.  Hard to believe that Greek revival was originally called the “Peace Gate.”  The British bombed most of it down during the end of WWII.  In case you hadn’t noticed, we Americans have been living in our police state for months. Many are increasingly cautious about speaking up, some afraid of the presidential retribution they have witnessed. Some now speak guardedly about Trump overreach. Oh, please, you may be thinking, what nonsense. I don’t know of anyone today afraid of Washington or the president.  Really.

The president continues to demonize and deport immigrants, and he has authorized thousands of masked ICE agents and workers to help him, whopping deficits be damned. He hasn’t forgotten foreigners, especially those from “bad countries who are not nice,” but understand this.  Donald J. Trump’s primary target today is blacks in America. United States black citizens.  He has made this unequivocal:

I don’t want you here.  You don’t belong.

In this matter Donald J. Trump has been consistent.  Racism is his brand.  He and his father practiced notorious discrimination for years in Queens when they were Section 8 housing landlords.  His racist history surfaced again in his Central Park Five 1989 full-page controversial ad he took out in the New York Times falsely accusing five Harlem teenagers of raping a white woman jogging in the park.  The men spent decades in prison wrongly convicted and Trump never apologized; never said he was wrong. He is incapable of uttering those words.  He wears his Central Park Five role and his full-page ad as a badge of honor; he thinks it continues to enhance his brand.

He also believes his long campaign against Black America will be his legacy.  He believes the American people are with him on this.  He believes, this second time in the White House, he will implement his racist goal on behalf of all the people of these United States.  He believes this is his moment to undo and end what this country has been striving and failing to become since the end of the American Civil War.

The Trump playbill is not new.  It’s a tired revival straight out of the playbook of another former not so bright President of the United States who often compared himself to Christ.  Andrew Johnson.  The sitting vice-president who took office the day after Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

Trump and many in his coalition are itching to take America back to those ugly years following the end of our deadly Civil War when newly freed people wanted to make their way and mark in America, but President Andrew Johnson and Southern governors were determined no such thing was going to happen.

That steely determination in large part continued until Thurgood Marshall, NAACP chief counsel lawyer, Solicitor General of the United States, and first African- American Justice on the Supreme Court, argued in Brown v. Board of Education:

“The only thing that can be is an inherent determination that the people who were formerly in slavery, regardless of anything else, shall be kept as near that stage as possible, and now is the time, we submit, that this Court should make it clear that is not what our Constitution stand for.”

All the justices agreed.  The Court struck down the Flessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” doctrine, which was never equal; and, unfortunately, Brown did not end segregation.  That struggle continues today, and the current occupant of the White House rejects equality and opportunity for all as he repeatedly violates the Constitution of the United States.

As a former colleague and civil rights activist and scholar from Richmond reminded me this week, “After the Civil War those freed Blacks enjoyed a period of electoral power and control of government.  States, such as South Carolina, had a population of Blacks that exceeded the white population enough to enable the election of Black men who were sent to serve as Members of the House of Representatives.   Black men could vote with relative freedom under the protection and presence of the Federal government. “

Reconstruction ended in 1877 with withdrawal of Federal troops from the South, and white resistance and discriminatory policies kicked in which essentially restored the indicia of slavery in all aspects of Black life, including a sustained campaign to deny Black men the voting franchise which ushered in Jim Crow which would stay in place until the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

My Richmond friend and scholar also underscored how deep the White resentment against Black progress went, shameful and deadly events, most of which were not taught in the “History of South Carolina” textbook and the course I took in my segregated high school, certainly not a word about the 1898 massacre of Blacks in Wilmington, North Carolina when Whites revolted against Black rule that ended with over 200 deaths and the destruction of a successful and prosperous Black community; nor did my textbook mention festering white resentment of Black economic and social success leading to the Tulsa Race Riot which resulted in 300 deaths and over 10,000 Black people left homeless.  It was the destruction of what had become known as Black Wall Street.  The town was Greenwood, Oklahoma. White people destroyed it.

These deadly clashes were among the ugliest chapters in our history.  President Trump and those who penned Project 2025 for him, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, and most in the Trump cabinet, including the OMB Director, recklessly, incredibly, seem to be saying by many of their acts and deeds, let’s have it out; let’s get this business settled once and for all.

We have been here before.

There is nothing about this unpredictable and frightening moment that is big or beautiful or great for America.  And there is no joy or grace or generosity coming from this White House as we approach autumn. The Trump fall of 2025 is about more greed, more financial gain, over one billion and counting for the Trump family in less than eight months, according to the Wall Street Journal; enriching more millionaires and billionaires, more revenge, dispatching young American soldiers to our streets for questionable political purposes, and selecting a young Colorado beauty pageant winner to instruct seasoned professional Smithsonian curators and historians on what is art and what is history. So little time, so much more to do this fall to keep Black America down.  The mad man who thinks he can do anything because he is president still roams the White House corridors.  We may try to ignore or tolerate some of the madness this sick man is doing, but we do so at our own considerable peril.  In a short time, he has done considerable harm with the help of his Congress and this Supreme Court.

This president keeps teeing up the same question our young country grappled with over two hundred years ago. Is America going to be an interracial democracy, one that believes in emancipation for all?  We do. Those fundamental questions have been settled, or so we thought.

We must face that President Trump and company don’t like or agree with our Constitution and what we thought were basic truths. Trump is not looking for an intelligent debate. He demands. He is demanding a redo as he challenges our norms and laws, many of which he doesn’t understand. This is what his Project 2025 is about.  He is hell bent on this dangerous confrontation no matter the price, no matter how many may be killed.

We have been here before.

Vernon Jordan, civil rights activist and lawyer, former head of the National Urban League, trusted advisor to presidents and scores of civil rights trailblazers, and friend to hundreds of students and young and not so young lawyers, including me, said, “We have been here before.”

Vernon Jordan was addressing all of us during those disastrous and threatening early months of Trump’s first presidency. He assured us we would survive and prevail.  He shared those comforting words when Harvard Law honored him.  I heard Vernon deliver that same hopeful and challenging message in Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University to students, family, and old and new friends.  You can find his entire inspiring sermon of hope in the Vernon Jordan Law Library at the Howard University School of Law.  Mr. Jordan was also a marvelous preacher and teacher; he let lawyers know much more is expected of us.

Mr. Jordan also said something else in “We Have Been Here Before” that we should always remember.

“We shall once again endure,” he began, “but we don’t sing we endure.  We sing we shall overcome!”  His cadence and pitch perfect, his passion and determination rousing.

 

Aubrey Sarvis is an Army veteran, retired lawyer and corporate officer.