LOCAL VIPS DISLIKE ME; SO WHAT?

 The deplorable attitudes of the governing toward the governed in Las Cruces has been a theme of many of my blogs.  Whereas those blogs discussed others, this blog focuses on the contrast between responses to me by various VIPs in Las Cruces and VIPs in McLean and Fairfax County, Virginia.  The purpose of the contrast is not to elicit sympathy because local VIPs do not like or respect me, but to explain why I feel sorry for Las Cruces that its VIPs do so little to elevate the quality of the community and its political life.

Peter Goodman, blogger, local columnist, radio moderator and commentator, and pickleball player, has a certain shtick in some conversations with me.  If I tell him that some VIP does not like me, he is sure to tell me—I can only guess why—that many people do not like me.  He is right, as I know better than he, but he would be wrong to think me obtuse, oblivious, or in denial.  I just do not mind, not because I am arrogant, but because I am confident about who I am.  I am the same person here as I have been elsewhere as an activist, blogger, or columnist.  Whether I am liked or respected depends on the character of the VIPS.  Two of them surprised me by writing me in a way almost no one who has reached the age of discretion has written me.

 

One is Bobbie Green, president of the local NAACP chapter—which is odd.  She knows that I have been a lifetime NAACP member since ’68—probably longer than she has been alive—, supported her when NMSU treated her shabbily, and agree with her on police reform and other issues.  But my blog, “What Does Affirmative Action Affirm? A Personal View,” triggered her second of two vitriolic attacks though it did not criticize or even mention Green.

 

“It interviewed four women classmates, all less qualified than I, for the position” and “Few have been as well schooled as I was.” These are your words, and they wreak [sic: reek] of white privilege. While your sense of entitlement is typical, it renders you ill-equipped and unqualified to weigh in on affirmative action. The SUNY Albany English Department did its students a tremendous favor when they bypassed you.

 

I can only guess what explains Green’s ignorant and intemperate meltdown.  There is no “white privilege” which she imputes to me.  The four women are all white; knowing them, I can judge our relative qualifications.  In one of the country’s best and, even then, integrated public-school systems, I received an excellent education, not “white privilege,” not a “sense of entitlement.”  Even so, neither would prevent me from having an informed opinion about affirmative action; she simply denies the worth of my experience and reflections because they differ from hers.  I suspect that my being an old, white, male, and a Jew to boot influenced her response to my blog.  If not to vent her prejudices, I do not know what explains her response to my blog.

 

The other is Heath Haussamen, blogger.  He was triggered by my most recent blog, “Political Acquiescence Reflects New Mexico’s Historical Legacy.”

 

“Years ago you attacked me by comparing me to Hitler.  I ceased any contact with you at the time.  You recently added me to your email list a second time.  After I read this most recent, misinformed and racist email — an email that attacks my spouse, my daughter, my city, my state, and my culture — I again have no desire to be on your list.  I appreciate you removing me from it immediately.

 

Again, I can only guess at a reason for this out-of-the-blue attack about a long-ago conversation (2011) during a lunch at Giro’s.  I do not recall such a comparison; what I do recall is Haussamen making an antisemitic comment which prompted me to respond, not by comparing him to Hitler, but by identifying his comment as antisemitic and me, to his surprise, as a Jew.  The conversation ended our relationship as blog editor and contributor.  My reply to his email noted that his allegations that my blog is “misinformed and racist” are unsupported: no answer.  Neither “misinformed” nor “racist,” it discusses historical and cultural influences on society.  I added that, to be racist, it would have to state or imply that one group is inherently superior to another as a matter of character, intelligence, or morals; it does not.  His comment that I attack “my spouse, my daughter”—how?—, “my city, my state, and my culture” (emphasis mine) implies that I, known by him to be a Jew, am an unassimilated alien who does not share city, state, or culture with him.  I queried him with a simple “why”: no answer.

 

What did Green and Haussamen want their emails to achieve with their emails?  Hurt my feelings?  Cancel my views?  Did they think that attacking me instead of addressing my opinions would change my mind?  Their only messages to me are that they dislike me bigly and think themselves important enough that I would care.

 

Imagine how much more the members of past and present City Councils and other city officials must dislike me and, from their perspective, for good reasons.  A recent blog identifying and criticizing councilors for their despicable remarks about citizens petitioning for a referendum on the “Realize Las Cruces” rezoning plan must have raised hackles.  Previous blogs and speeches criticized Council for ignoring large-scale waste in Public Works operations at Brown Farm, doing nothing to address police misconduct and reform the LCPD, and operating a secret committee in defiance of the Open Meetings Act.  I also won an IPRA case against the city which cost it about $150,000 before I filed a complaint with the New Mexico Department of Justice for its OMA violations (investigation ongoing).  I have criticized Councils; Mayors Ken Miyagishima and Eric Enriquez; and Councilors Tessa Abeyta, Johana Bencomo, Becky Corran, Kasandra Gandara, Becki Graham, and Cassie McClure (in addition to City Managers, City Attorneys, and Police Chiefs).  I have never criticized Bill Mattiace, but he no longer responds to my occasional email.  Unlike Green and Haussamen, all others are too savvy to write to reveal their true thoughts and feelings about me.  But their vibes have made clear their resentment and their hostility to me because of my speaking my truth to their power.

 

Their responses differ from those of VIPs in McLean, Fairfax County, Virginia, where I lived for 23 years.  The residents of both city and county adjacent to the District of Columbia are highly educated, very articulate professionals in government, industry, and business; many are officials or activists in local affairs.  Differences of informed opinion in smart discussions are common.  Local governing bodies encourage citizen participation and are responsive to citizens.

 

While I lived there, I was a guest columnist and civic activist frequently writing about or speaking before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Fairfax County School Board.  I was more often critical than commendatory of proposed or on-going programs or budgets; I did not often need to address successful programs or prudent budgets.  My criticism of the school district’s computer program and budget led to my appointment to a committee to overhaul them; I devised their restructuring and was credited with saving the district $15 million.  My continued criticism of the district’s initially popular merit-pay program from its inception led eventually to its termination.  Yet even those whose feet I had held to the fire were among those electing me to the Fairfax Committee of One Hundred, a social honorary for VIPs in civic affairs.

 

So like me, dislike me—reactions of Las Cruces VIPs and McLean or Fairfax County VIPs to me or my criticisms reflect on their character and the communities which they represent.  Which makes me a kind of touchstone of local government.  Where they dislike me, they dislike others, and indulge and act on personal or self-serving political motives; where they respect me, they respect others and serve public interests.  Indeed, what I have been able to do elsewhere is what citizens can do here if local VIPs deflated their egos, governed themselves, respected their constituents, and created conditions for their contributions.

 

The president of a company for which I was a consultant for 21 years operated on the belief that “all of us are smarter than some of us.”  That inclusivity made the company a national treasure, and that belief, if acted upon, might do much to improve Las Cruces, a city very much in need of improvement.

REFLECTIONS ON RECENT AND NEAR-TERM POLITICAL EVENTS

The past few days have been quite remarkable, among the most portentous in American history.

 

President Trump has resorted to federalizing a state national guard over the objections of California Governor Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.  Doubling down on Trump’s uncalled-for action, Defense Secretary Hegseth has sent a Marine battalion from its 29 Palms base.  They are doing two things in Los Angeles: almost nothing because there is almost nothing for them to do and inflaming the situation.  This military incursion into America’s second largest city sends a message to the rest of the country—Trump’s order is not limited to California—that militarized occupation and political repression are coming for majority-Democratic cities (mostly in the North).  America has seen nothing like this since the Reconstruction Era for two decades after the Civil War.  During that period, northern armies served to protect those working to promote democratic government and incorporate freed blacks into it, from guerilla groups, including the Ku Klux Klan.  Now, 160 years later, the “South” is rising again.

 

Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., is unprecedented.  There have been both major and minor military parades before, after the conclusion of major wars, in honor of local military events, or in tribute to veterans.  I know of none which involved a display of massive weapons like tanks.  The parade occurs on Flag Day, on the 250^th anniversary of the U.S. Army, and on Trump’s 79^th birthday.  He has made it clear that no one will be allowed to spoil his parade by protesting him, its militaristic message, its multi-million-dollar cost, and its damage to roads and malls.  Indeed, he has threatened protesters, peaceful or not, with a very forceful response.  No TACO moment: the military will inflict injuries or fatalities on protesters.

 

The violation of protesters’ First Amendment rights to speak and assemble in such a situation will raise difficult questions with undemocratic answers.  Thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump cannot be charged because he has immunity from his “official” acts.  A claim can be made that presiding over a parade is not an official act within the scope of presidential responsibilities, but it is not likely to be persuasive to the six Republican regressive justices.  Moreover, Trump would likely pardon those charged for constitutional violations.  Given his displays of disrespect for the courts and his resistance to court orders, Trump is likely to disregard court decisions not to his liking.  Courts might issue legal or constitutional rulings to restrain him, but to no avail; fine opinions, except for the record, will be ignored.  Although the six GOP SCOTUS justices, especially Chief Justice John Roberts, corrupted the court to achieve “conservative” objectives, Trump’s public contempt will still dishonor it and thereby humiliate these feckless justices.

 

Many hope that the elections of 2026 and 2028 will enable the country to recover from the ruination which Trump has visited upon it.  But there will be no elections.  Trump knows that his policies have made him far more unpopular than he has ever been, that the opposition to him is growing is size and intensity, and that he has endangered the strength, perhaps even the survival, of the Republican Party.  His increasingly authoritarian conduct can mean only one thing: he and the party cannot remain in power after another election or two.  Current Republican efforts to disenfranchise or hinder voters will continue, but he and the party will hold the cancellation of the election in reserve if those efforts do not give them assurance of electoral success.

 

I offer this advice to all as a public service announcement.

IMMIGRANTS ARE THE NEW JEWS

During the Tsarist-prompted pogroms in the late nineteenth century, District police came into a small village to find and arrest Jews.  This small village (I have forgotten its name) was a farming village with a general store run by and lived in by its only Jewish family.  The store sold groceries, clothing, supplies, hardware, etc.; the owner also provided credit to the residents in hard times.  When the police whisked them away, the town was stricken.  The mayor and other town officials decided to go to the district headquarters some distance away to plead for the family’s return.  In so many words, the mayor said, “we don’t like Jews any more than the Tsar does, but they are our Jews, and we want them back.”  The police released them, everyone returned to the village, and the villagers celebrated.

 

The story is not typical of the Tsarist campaign against Jewish Russians.  Several hundred thousand Jews fled Russia.  In doing so, they gave substance to the Zionist movement for a Jewish homeland.  One result, until recent abominations under Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, was that these immigrants to the British Mandate (i.e., Palestine), created a thriving, modern state now with an educated and skilled populace, and an economy based on cutting-edge technologies.  Meanwhile, Russia languishes in a past which is always its present: a despotic state, a repressed people, a weak economy, and a reliance on aggression to unify its demoralized population.

 

Thirty years or so later, Hitler exploited the latent antisemitism of most Germans.  He roused the populace by blaming Jews for Germany’s defeat and post-war suffering, the weakness of the Weimar Republic, and the “cosmopolitizing” of Germany.  Although Jews had been residents of German lands for centuries and had been full citizens of the modern German state when its lands were unified in 1871, Hitler roused and made virulent the latent antisemitism of Christian Germans and turned them against Jewish Germans.  By then, Jews had established themselves in the legal and medical professions and the universities.  Many of Germany’s brightest scientists, including Han Bethe, Max Born, Albert Einstein, James Franck, Klaus Fuchs, Fritz Haber, Hans Krebs, John von Neuman, Rudolf Peierls, Erwin Schrodinger, Leo Szilard, Edward Teller were Jews (names italicized).  Had Hitler not attacked the Jews, many of these scientists would have helped Germany develop the atomic bomb which they helped develop for the United States.

 

For Trump, immigrants—he thinks mostly of Hispanics--serve much the same purpose.  He regards them variously as criminals, degenerates, lunatics, animals, and pollutants to American blood (shades of Dr. Strangelove), and claims that they are invading this country, swarming through cities, and eating peoples’ pets.  His purpose is to set immigrants with or without criminal records, with or without documentation, apart from other residents, as outcasts who should be deported, as unpersons (the German word was “untermenschen”) who do not have constitutional rights like due process, free speech, assembly, and petition.  To deport them, he uses state power to arrest in violent ways and “disappear” those who appear to be immigrants regardless of their legal status; separate them from their families, and children from their parents; transport them to places unknown to them; isolate and incarcerate them under inhumane conditions; and deny them access to attorneys.  All of these actions are conducted quite openly, first, to intimidate potential victims and, second, to inure and secure acceptance by others to such abuses of the law and the Constitution.  The last thing which Trump wants is for the country to welcome, accept, advance, and benefit from immigrants and their contributions.  Why?  They defeat his desire for a white, Christian, male-dominated America.

 

But immigrants are not Trump’s only targets for purging from the populace those whom he regards as undesirable.  A special notice must be taken of the LGBTQ+ people, whom Trump is also targeting (as Hitler targeted them in Nazi Germany).  And there are many others: Muslims, Sikhs, those of other smaller minority groups, and, of course, Jews.  Trump also wishes to debase those whom he cannot incarcerate or deport, like women, whose integrity and autonomy he wishes to end, whose participation in society he wishes to throttle, and whose vote he wishes to eliminate.  By requiring an exact match of current and birth certificate names, the SAVE Act might disenfranchise married women who took their husband’s name.

 

Such is the context of the raids and kidnappings by DHS, FBI, and ICE agents happening from coast to coast.  All are thugs, masked, heavily armed, and aggressive; they are provocateurs who intend to prompt violence and permit their greater reactive violence, justify criminal charges, and terrorize communities into acquiescence.  (I would like to have a bumper sticker which reads, “Melt ICE.).  These agencies are also securing the support of state and local police forces.  Two interesting questions about the LCPD are why a recent (30 May) Albuquerque Journal story about sanctuary cities in New Mexico did not mention Las Cruces and why Police Chief Jeremy Story requested City Council to seek state funding for five—five!—SWAT vehicles.  (I asked him about their capabilities and equipment, but received no answer.  When Cassie McClure asked for that information on my behalf, she received no answer—itself a curious fact.  When I asked her why she voted to approve his request, her answer was that she accepted that he must have had a good reason for it.  Due diligence, anyone?)

 

One line of resistance to Trump (and his evil angel, Stephen Miller, ironically, a Jew) is respect for others and a recognition that, as Joyce Vance reminds us, “we’re in this together.”  So the words of Martin Niemöller are worth recalling:

 

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

Substitute “immigrants” for “socialists” and “LGBTW+” for “trade unionists,” and you have a message updated to match the current threat to American democracy and freedom.

POLITICAL ACQUIESCENCE REFLECTS NEW MEXICO’S HISTORICAL LEGACY

      The longer I live in Las Cruces (since 2007), the more dismayed I am by the conduct of its residents and their elected representatives.  These residents’ primary interests—family, friends, and football—are divorced from larger concerns about the community or city and thus give members of City Council the latitude to do as they please.  Knowing the historical context of this conduct, I should not be dismayed.  For this social solipsism goes back at least as far as the pueblo days, when each pueblo lived independently of others.  As a result, they did not band together to resist the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century.  Decades later, they did unite in the successful Pueblo Revolt of 1680, but, by 1692, only twelve years later, they had dissolved their bands of unity.  Spanish armies returned and repressed Pueblo residents to a submissiveness ever after a part of their cultural heritage and of New Mexico’s.  It paralleled the submissiveness which characterized the underclasses of Spanish society at the time.  Such is the historical legacy of today’s Hispanics who constitute the majority of the Las Cruces populace and about half the population of New Mexico.  It is also a major cultural influence affecting non-Hispanics throughout the state, in which acquiescence to dominating officials is characteristic.

Thus, in Las Cruces, the police murders of Antonio Valenzuela (2020), Amelia Baca (2022), and Teresa Gomez (2023) failed to arouse this majority of residents.  After a few brief flurries of protest, the only citizens attempting to hold LCPD police accountable were Peter Goodman (white), Bobbie Green (black), and Earl Nissen (white).  Their approach was to seek reforms by meetings with the mayor, city councilors, and the police chief—to no avail.  Meanwhile, I had offered unwanted advice: seek the support of local organizations which presumably have an interest in the good of the city.  They ignored my advice perhaps because they knew better than I that those organizations would not be interested or able to rally their members to lobby City Council for a citizens’ police review board.

 

Of the three murders, Officer Jared Cosper’s particularly outrageous murder of Baca failed to prompt large and sustained protests against the efforts of law enforcement officials to do everything they could—and succeeded in doing—to clear Cosper of murder.  Instead, it elicited only a muted public reaction.  Yet protests other than transitory virtue-signaling demonstrations might have prevented these officials, who resist accountability, from rigging his exoneration.  LCPD Police Chief Miguel Dominguez delayed an account of the murder for about a week, during which time he devised a highly biased audio-visual defense of Cosper.  Presumably clearing Cosper, the Multi-Agency Task Force report to Dona Ana District Attorney General Gerald Byers caused him enough political discomfort that, though having promised a decision to prosecute or not in a few days, he turned the case over to New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez.  In turn, Torrez hired Steve Ijames, “a nationally recognized expert in the field of police officer use of force, who has reviewed approximately 3,000 use-of-force cases,” to investigate the murder and clear Cosper.  The NMDOJ report omitted Ijames’s record; about ninety percent of his work had been testifying as an expert for the defense of officers accused of excessive use of force.  His report resembles Swiss cheese but served well enough as a document passing the “thud test” to everyone who wanted the case to go away without further embarrassment.  Not a peep from the Hispanic or Progressive communities.

 

Not only are Progressives silent and restrained about such offenses, but also their representatives on City Council commit lesser offenses against citizens.  At the 27 February Progressive Voters Alliance (PVA) meeting, Councilor Cassie McClure termed those opposing Realize Las Cruces as “riff-raff.”  No one present objected to this slur on citizens petitioning government and exercising free speech, and the PVA minutes elide this unsavory language.  But the word got around.  One speaker at the 3 March City Council Meeting identified herself as one of McClure’s “riff-raff”; McClure looked uneasy, but, when she had the chance to deny using the term imputed to her, she said nothing .  As I have blogged, several Progressive councilors at the 19 May City Council meeting accused opponents of Realize Las Cruces of misrepresentations, lies, and fear-mongering; Councilor Johana Bencomo went farther to insinuate that opponents were racists.  Again, no one present, either in Council or in the audience, spoke up to protest these evidence-free accusations or slurs.  (Years earlier, under the Mafia-like practice of omerta, no councilor discussed or questioned my claim of antisemitism in the LCPD—a showing of their own antisemitism.)

 

Between the lethargy of citizens and the disdain of officials for them, it is no surprise that governance in New Mexico is incapable of effectively addressing the state’s problems.  The result: in many domains of public affairs—childcare, crime, education, economy, health care, homelessness, poverty—, New Mexico remains ranked at or near the bottom of the best or the top of the worst.  As long as New Mexicans choose to be apathetic, disaggregated, disgruntled, resentful, yet silent and compliant, so long their discontents will go unaddressed by officials except by performance posturing or pontificating.  The less things change, the less they will change.  Perhaps, it having been this way for centuries, they are content with their discontents.  As an outsider, perhaps also I should not give a damn and just pipe down.  Not likely.

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME–THE INFECTION SPREADS

     The President, his lackeys, MAGA supporters, and followers apply the phrase Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) as one of disparagement to the rest of us, but it properly should apply, as I shall apply it, to them.  Indeed, as is typical of the TDS set, almost everything which they say is the reverse of the proper description of the state of affairs.  Shortly before the 2024 election, The Economist, a center-right weekly, declared the U.S. economy “the envy of the world”; shortly after that election, as reported in The Guardian, a center-left weekly, Trump declared that it “went to hell” under Biden.

     Total reversals of the truth are one thing; various perversions of the truth—falsehoods, distortions, misrepresentations, false imputations, malign insinuations, linguistic smears, etc.—which characterize the administration’s public communications are another.  To these and other rhetorical crimes, Karoline Leavitt, the White Press Secretary, adds a gratuitous snootiness and snideness which, all together, perfectly capture the administration’s ethos.  Ironically, in her 5 May letter to Alan Gerber, President of Harvard University, Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, served as a model of not only the foregoing perversions, but also the semi-literacy of administration officials.  The letter has been widely mocked for its partisan stupidity and grammatical lapses quite apart from its factual infelicities.

So it is no surprise that, as I write today, Memorial Day, Trump demonstrated his vulgarity in an early morning, all-caps tweet on Truth Social:

 

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER, AND RAPE AGAIN — ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL. BUT FEAR NOT, WE HAVE MADE GREAT PROGRESS OVER THE LAST 4 MONTHS, AND AMERICA WILL SOON BE SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! AGAIN, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA! 

 

The characterization of “the federal judiciary as ‘USA hating’ and ‘monsters’ is particularly twisted; many members of the courts are Trump- or other Republican-appointed judges.  If taken seriously, the derogatory words raise the question why he and other Republican presidents nominated such judges in the first place.  When Trump goes on to claim that Biden wanted all manner of felons to enter the country and any number of judges wanted to keep them in the country so that they can repeat their felonies, he departs from the reality about a lifelong public official and educated, dedicated judges in favor of comic-book villains.  Such a mind invents “the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds”—which leaves the rest of us wondering who is that “scum” whom he includes in his “Happy Memorial Day” wishes to all.  As CNN points out, “In the United States, Memorial Day honors those who died while serving in the armed forces; due to the holiday’s grave significance, it’s largely considered taboo to wish someone a “Happy Memorial Day.”  (Not in Las Cruces, where such greetings are an irksome commonplace; just how happy do people think the holiday happy to those honoring by remembering their sacrifice and their loss?  But they do not think.)

 

Trump the vulgarian’s rhetoric reached a remarkable low in the graduation address which he delivered in the formal ceremony at West Point.  Missing was his derogatory language, unless one includes his short diversion on “trophy brides,” a phrase self-consciously acknowledged, and the dangers which they pose (Melania, were you paying attention?).  Everything reflected his narcissistic reflections on episodes in his life which he thought apt for soon-to-be commissioned cadets dedicated, not to self-enrichment, but to public service.  Nothing addressed the principles, values, and aspirations of such service to which the cadets would commit themselves.  A more dispiriting speech was not possible.  Trump’s applause-expectant pauses were filled with a little perfunctory clapping or silence; the cadets were having none of it.

 

The hallmark of authoritarianism is its assault on reality in all of its dimensions: political, of course, but also intellectual, scientific, economic, social, and cultural.  Accordingly, Trump’s administration is attacking the media, students and faculty protesting and deemed likely to protest, major universities, and government agencies conducting basic research in medicine and other fields.  It cannot tolerate dissent or truth, which, aside from any resistance to its application of power, resides in a different  reality.  Part of that assault reflects a lack of respect for dissenting citizens as evinced, minimally, in personal abuse by derogatory insinuation or assertion.

 

Such was the practice of three holdovers from the six women councilors of the previous Council at the 19 May City Council meeting: Johana Bencomo, Becky Corran, and Yvonne Flores.  In their statements or insinuations, they attacked opponents of Realize Las Cruces who, they asserted without evidence, lied about, misrepresented, or distorted the truth, and implied were racist.  (I assume that Mayor Eric Enriquez agreed with the women because he did not enforce Council’s rules about respectful speech and conduct.).  Their abusive, disrespectful rejection of dissenters had the usual problems which such authoritarianism has: it rejected alternative ideas about reality and had no Plan B if its ideas about reality fail.

 

There is a larger context to this outburst of officials’ incivility.  At the few Council meetings which I have attended since that January 2022, I have heard several speakers deplore the deterioration in the quality of City Council.  They spoke to a Council of all female councilors.  At the time, I blogged, “I expect the male mayor to dominate and direct the six female councilors.  I expect that inoffensive mediocrity and mendacity by six female councilors to merely replace the past inoffensive mediocrity and mendacity by six male councilors.  I expect that such equivalence—call it equality, if you will—to make no difference to ordinary folk, much less be a cause for citizens to celebrate.  Still, I hope for better than I expect.”

 

Only in two respects do I find the all-women councilors different from the all-male councilors.  The women seem less able to address difficult topics (police reform, Public Works waste, antisemitism), they seem to defer to male leadership or groupthink, and they are less temperate in their language toward citizens whose views on important issues differ from theirs.  An excellent example is Tessa Abeyta’s intemperate attack on Peter Goodman, who was advocating for a citizen police review board, at a Council meeting some years ago.

 

Some columnists/commentators regard this conduct by councilors as worthy only of an apologetic footnote.  They simply do not appreciate that disparaging citizens and rejecting their dissents, with their possibility of reality and the truth, out of hand is dangerous.  What if Trump’s tariffs and his “big, beautiful bill” have dire consequences?  What are his fallback positions?  How does the country recover from the damage, much of it long-term?  What if Realize Las Cruces falters or fails?  How will the damage be undone?  Short of demolition, what does the city do about permanent buildings?  What if it divides the community into enduring hostile camps, today’s losers blaming today’s winners?  Do city councilors and city staff have a Plan B?

 

My point is a simple one.  Rhetoric is a clue to the political character of officials.  Politicians who are disrespectful to or abusive of citizens are also incipiently or currently authoritarian.  In their misuse of power by denigrating dissenters and dismissing their positions, they place the societies which they rule in self-harm’s way.  Trump Derangement Syndrome has spread to Las Cruces.

COUNCILORS’ ATTACKS ON CITIZEN PETITIONERS SEEKING A REFERENDUM HAVE RACIST INSINUATIONS

In its 19 May meeting, City Council rejected a citizens’ petition to withdraw the new zoning ordinance in favor of a referendum to be voted on in the fall.  Councilors were abusive or arrogant in their comments about the petitioners.  Noah Raess’s “Petition to stop new zoning ordinance fails,” The Bulletin (20 May 2025), reported:

 

After nearly an hour of divided public comment, City councilor Joanna [sic] Bencomo spoke saying that the petitioners were spreading “misinformation” about the integrity of the process and “exploited peoples [sic] worst fears about their neighbors” causing at least one person to leave the meeting angrily. Bencomo finished by saying that if you are against “diverse housing going up in good neighborhoods and with good parks, then I would ask you to reflect on where your segregationist tendencies come from.”

 

Raess did not report who or what caused an angry person to leave the meeting angrily.  He also did not report to whom Johana Bencomo addressed her remark.  Bencomo accused petition supporters of misrepresenting, lying, or fear-mongering about the city’s plan “Realize Las Cruces”—accusations later repeated by Becky Corran and Yvonne Flores.  Worse, Bencomo insinuated that the supporters were racists because of their “segregationist tendencies.”  Corran and Flores agreed, saying that supporters do not want to be close to people different from themselves.  Bencomo’s, Corran’s, and Flores’s personal attacks are at odds with the rules of behavior posted for the public at City Hall meetings; apparently, they do not think themselves bound to observe them.

 

When I viewed the televised meeting, I knew next to nothing about the plan.  I had signed the petition only because I believe that a plan for city-wide zoning changes leading to major social and lifestyle changes is an issue which should be decided by the entire electorate.  Whatever else might be said about the plan or the petition supporters, they wanted only a vote by city residents.

 

Council had approved the plan “Realize Las Cruces” in February, and many citizens spoke favorably about it in Monday’s meeting.  Strictly speaking, their remarks were irrelevant.  For the issue before Council was whether to accept the petition and place the issue before Las Cruces citizens in a referendum.  Petition supporters argued that they had collected far more than the requisite number of signatures but that the city’s mishandling of the petition process, one not used for 10 years, and picayune technicalities led to the rejection of nearly 2000 signatures.  Both City Clerk Christine Rivera and City Attorney Brad Douglas assured Council that the validation or disqualification of petition signatures was entirely aboveboard.

 

From the exchanges, I could not tell who was right, who was wrong, or whether each side was a little of both.  Council members offered testimonials to the extensive time and effort to develop the plan and to the expertise of Ms. Rivera, recently voted the outstanding City Clerk in New Mexico.  Yet the process involved only those interested in the planning process, who might not have represented the perspectives or interests of most citizens.  And patrons of local media and my blog know that Rivera was the city official whose violations of the Inspection of Public Records Act were so egregious that the city settled my legal complaint against her and the city at a top-dollar cost of about $150,000.  If her transgressions reflected compliance with orders from higher authority, she might have received similar orders affecting the inspection of signatures to reach the desired outcome, rejection of the petition.  Councilors’ praise of this clerk was of the lady-doth-protest-too-much-methinks variety.

 

What most disturbed me was the councilors’ smearing petition supporters.  I do not know whether the councilors’ charges of misrepresentation, lying, or fear-mongering are true or false.  I do not dismiss those possibilities out of hand, but I do allow that different interpretations of the plan and brochures might be involved instead.  It hardly matters whether anyone can adjudicate the charges.  I doubt their validity because public officials resorted to smearing private citizens by insinuating that people who oppose mixed high-/low- income residential housing are racist.  Their attacks suggest animosity to dissenters and a defensiveness based on fear about a weak position, namely, that a referendum might lead to an overwhelming rejection of their plan.

 

Yet I heard no comment suggesting such prejudice.  I heard concerns that zoning changes would disrupt neighborhoods by intrusive, small-scale businesses like cafes, grocery stores, and gas stations, and result in increased traffic.  I heard concerns that these changes would adversely influence property values and unsettle established personal relations.  In themselves, these reasons are not racist and do not imply racism.  But councilors who pretend to be without prejudice probably heard that talk as reflecting racism.  In the absence of evidence, their remarks to that effect disgrace not only those who uttered them, but also those who tolerated them.  They offend citizens who expect their elected representatives to be respectful of citizens with whom they disagree and not to impugn motives.

 

Advocates of the plan spoke of affordable housing, diversity, and inclusion; and a different kind of neighborhood and community lifestyle.  There is much, but not everything, to be said for the plan.  Petition supporters represent those who do not want change or do not want its changes; they want to keep their present lifestyle.  City planners everywhere else expect such differences and know that responses to proposed large-scale plans vary.  In some cities, they are rejected; in others, they are accepted, but, even then, their implementation often has painful and persistent problems.  Anyone who wants some insight into the problems might read about my hometown in Laura Meckler’s Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity.  A rich and nearly all-white suburb in the 50s, it welcomed and encouraged integration.  Yet, since then, it has struggled to overcome cultural differences, and economic and educational disparities to achieve its goal.  There and elsewhere, these problems are difficult, and they are not abated or avoided by foisting change upon a population which is divided between those willing and those unwilling to accept it.  This plan, with little public input on its final form, imposes a kind of DEI-inspired plan on all citizens.

 

In developing this plan, city staff operated in contempt of citizens.  Its planning process, at least in this effort, was seriously flawed.  Its city planners mistakenly assumed that the citizens participating in the planning process represented the general populace.  They mistakenly assumed that those not participating would accept the results.  They should have known that many citizens would wait for the final version of the plan, want a chance to consider it, and take the opportunity to address Council and urge it to accept, change, or reject the plan.  One or two City Hall meetings and no District meetings were grossly insufficient for a plan of great impact, no matter how long and hard city planners and interested parties worked on it.  Citizens who were uninformed about or uninterested in the process are now likely to resent and might obstruct a plan quickly adopted.  Council’s rejection of the petition for a referendum might cause trouble.

 

In pushing this plan, Council members have also been contemptuous of citizens.  They blame tens of thousands of citizens for not participating in the planning process.  Council gave citizens little time to consider the final version because their fear of rejection was great.  So they rushed to approve a plan which can easily be deferred at little or not cost until consensus is reached.  If they wanted citizen participation, they could have had it with a referendum. But, no, for a selfish reason: they would be embarrassed if they discovered that a majority of citizens did not approve of the plan in which staff and they had invested so much time, effort, and ego to develop.

 

In addition to the councilors smearing petition supporters to discredit or silence them and manufacture the appearance of consensus, two councilors—Becki Graham more than Corran—pontificated about representative government.  Graham claimed that Council members were elected to make decisions based on due diligence.  She then commended herself for all the work which she had done and concluded by declaring this plan to be the work of representative democracy in action.  Both councilors forgot two things about democratic processes: one, the First Amendment guarantee of the right to petition; and two, the provision in state and city law for referendums, which enable the enactment of law by a vote of the people—direct democracy.^#

 

On a major issue like the redesign of the city and the reshaping of citizen lifestyles, the only way to get consensus (not to be confused with unanimity) is to get “the consent of the governed” by persuasion, not by political power plays to impose the plan on an unknown, but probably large, number of the unwilling.  If they truly cared about public participation, Council members, if they were smart, civic-minded, and unselfish, could have rejected the petition, yet reconsidered their approval of the plan, and moved for a referendum.  Instead, they doubled-down to avoid a democratic process adverse to its members’ sense of their righteousness and importance.

 

 

^# NOTE: Democracy Docket (23 May) reports on Republican efforts in several states to hinder direct democracy.  Lots of people otherwise regarded as Americans do not like democracy and do not respect those who do like it.