A summer of reflection — and fears of history repeating itself

It is a striking image, a fearless visage staring at the camera while holding a sign with booking number “7053” chest high. “Beautiful rebel” are the words used to describe Rosa Parks on the coaster that I’ve decided will never cushion a bottle or glass.

Another mugshot has made the news this summer though I don’t think even his supporters would label the subject “beautiful.” “Defiant” is the better adjective for the Donald Trump that looks out from the photo taken when he was booked in Fulton County, Ga., the first mug shot of an American president. Controversial? Yes. But after being charged with a litany of felonies that stem from his and his allies’ alleged efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, was there a choice?

While it has been impossible to escape the image now gracing X, formerly known as Twitter, T-shirts and more, the first — the quiet, determined woman — has been stripped of its radical origins, if it’s remembered at all by those who praise the former president’s close-up.

When and if children learn about Rosa Parks and her role in the civil rights movement, the lesson is usually recounted through a gauzy lens that portrays her as a respectable seamstress who just got tired one day instead of the tireless NAACP activist whose refusal to move to the back of the bus was an inevitable and deliberate part of a movement, the continuing fight against the social order of segregation, white supremacy and police brutality that ruled the day.

It wasn’t only Parks in the fight. She has been elevated because of America’s tendency to flatten and simplify, to spoon-feed harsh historical truths in a narrative of happily-ever-afters. In fact, the famous Parks mugshot was taken, not in 1955 during her initial arrest, but in February 1956, when Parks and many other activists were targeted by the city in an attempt to break the back of a boycott that was getting results and making Montgomery leaders “uncomfortable.”

Discomfort, though, was part of the rebellion — the only way to change the status quo.

The ceramic square is a souvenir collected during my visit to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, one stop in my summer of visits to civil rights museums, the chance to broaden my own education about American history.

Local News Roundup: CMS complies with NC Parents’ Bill of Rights; Fentanyl overdoses are up; Mark Robinson speaks in Charlotte; Panthers prepare to host Detroit

This week, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools became one of the first North Carolina school systems to comply with the new North Carolina Parents’ Bill of Rights. We’ll hear parent reactions and get an update on “back to school” since CMS starts classes on Monday.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department says overdose deaths in Mecklenburg County have gone up 20% so far this year, and the fentanyl crisis continues to grow.

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican candidate for governor, visited Charlotte this week to speak to the Charlotte Rotary.

Might Charlotte finally be home to a social district? Smaller cities around the area have already made the move to social districts, but none have happened yet in Charlotte — but that soon could change. We’ll discuss Plaza Midwood’s efforts to form a social district and when the city might decide on approval.

Amid the vetoes, overrides, the lack of an approved budget and other issues, North Carolina Republicans are currently divided as lawmakers consider allowing casinos in the state.

The Carolina Panthers play the Detroit Lions in the preseason finale at Bank of America Stadium on Friday. Will we see a different outcome?

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more.

GUESTS:

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal

Ann Doss Helms, WFAE education reporter

Ely Portillo, WFAE senior editor

WFAE All Things Considered NEXT UP: 6:30 PM Marketplace All Things Considered WFAE All Streams Charlotte Talks Charlotte Talks With Mike Collins Local News Roundup: Mark Meadows indicted; No Labels recognized in NC; Legislature overrides Gov. Cooper vetoes; Lyles endorses council candidate

Mark Meadows, former North Carolina representative and White House chief of staff, is one of 19 people indicted by a grand jury in Georgia for allegedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Meadows is facing charges of racketeering and solicitation of violation of oath of a public officer. Others facing charges include former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and North Carolina native and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

Elsewhere in politics, a group that may offer an alternative candidate in next year’s presidential election is officially on the ballot in North Carolina. No Labels is cochaired by former Charlotte mayor and North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and may put forth a candidate of their own if Joe Biden and Donald Trump each win their party’s nomination. Critics worry this will help Trump win another term.

The North Carolina legislature has overridden several key gubernatorial vetoes.

A hot summer got even hotter this week with temperatures in the mid-90s and a heat index that topped 100 at times. Officials around Charlotte took steps to limit heat-related issues, including setting up cooling stations and assisting the unhoused.

UNC Charlotte football will be the subject of a documentary this fall on ESPN+. The 12-episode series will follow the team throughout the season. This is the first year the 49ers are playing in the American Athletic Conference.

And in a rare move, Mayor Vi Lyles endorses a candidate for city council.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters dive into those stories and more on the next Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

GUESTS:

David Boraks, climate reporter at WFAE
Joe Bruno, reporter at WSOC-TV
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Nick Ochsner, WBTV’s executive producer for investigations & chief investigative reporter

Fani Willis Takes on Trump: How bluster became a criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise Black voters

The fourth shoe dropped this week, when Fulton County DA Fani Willis announced Donald Trump’s latest indictment, charging the former president, along with 18 others, for engaging in a sprawling criminal conspiracy to disenfranchise Georgia voters. Trump has been responding by lashing out against Willis and voters in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee.

Guest: Rick Hasan, professor of law at UCLA and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project.

U.S. vs Trump

We’re eight months into the year—and former president Donald Trump has now been indicted three times. On Tuesday, a federal grand jury charged Trump with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction. But what exactly does that mean? And can someone really run for president…while juggling three different trials?

Guest: David Graham, staff writer for “The Atlantic”

Trump indictment: When always striving for ‘more’ turns toxic

It’s an exchange I remember, one that instantly stuck while watching the 2017 movie “All the Money in the World,” a version of the kidnapping and ransom saga of the grandson of J. Paul Getty, a man wealthy beyond measure. A hired middleman, watching Getty haggle as the young man’s life is at stake, proclaiming he has “no money to spare,” incredulously asks: “What would it take for you to feel secure?” Getty, portrayed by the brilliant Christopher Plummer, answers with one word: “More.”

I recalled that scene as real-life events, as startling as any movie plot, have played out. Just this week, a former president of the United States appeared in a Florida courtroom to answer to federal charges that he hoarded classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago home, hedged about having them and refused to give them back.

Like any other person accused of criminal conduct, Donald Trump is awarded the presumption of innocence. The grand jury that indicted him was made up of fellow citizens, and his ultimate fate will be in the hands of the same.

But the crimes presented in the indictment issued by federal prosecutors are serious, and what we already know is astounding.

So, why? Why jeopardize national security by allegedly stashing classified documents in unsecured areas in a ballroom, a storage area and, in one weird instance, a bathroom adorned with an enormous chandelier? (No one ever said that wealth bestows good taste.)

Even those who adore Trump would have to admit the man is not known as a reader, so I doubt he wanted to catch up on information he neglected while “president-ing.”

Isn’t this a man who gained the ultimate prize?

While Trump lost his reelection bid, something he never accepted, the former president scaled heights unknown to most people on the planet. Maybe he might be a bit insecure because his business success needed a boost from his dad — though, even then, he acted as though it was his due. Trump became a television star in a world where celebrity is admired and often worshipped. He was elected to the top office in the United States, stood as a global leader, with all the powers that come with the titles.

Did he still want “more?”

Many Americans really are thinking terrible things — and proudly saying them out loud

“You know why I love Donald Trump? He is the first one who says what everyone’s thinking.” Anyone who has covered Donald Trump through two presidential campaigns — one successful and one that ultimately flopped — has heard that explanation lots of times. I know I have.

When asked exactly which out-loud thoughts resonated, answers varied. But the folks I spoke with at rallies especially reveled in insults once considered, if not taboo, then too edgy to say out loud — about immigrants, city dwellers and Black NFL players who knelt to protest police brutality. Things like that.

I dutifully recorded what caused all the excitement among those who stood in long lines to hear and see their idol, though, ironically, many streamed out of venues large and small once Trump’s shouted litany of grievances stretched past the one-hour mark.

But I wondered just how many Americans could be included in the assumed masses who were thinking such thoughts and felt exhilaration when a presidential candidate spewed them so convincingly.

Turns out Trump’s schtick worked in 2016 and came close in 2020. And after a recent free-for-all town hall on CNN that saw a curated audience of his followers laughing and applauding as he dodged questions on respecting democracy and mocked a woman who convinced a jury that he was liable for defamation and sexual abuse, I’m worried if not surprised.

There are plenty of Americans on the same page as presidential hopeful Donald Trump, and that includes leaders in the Republican Party.

What once was transgressive now defines the GOP, with politicians falling over themselves to demonize and scapegoat.

Reporters’ Roundtable

This is an historic day in presidential politics. Former President Donald Trump found civilly liable of sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll, a deadly mall shooting. The race for the U.S. Senate heats up in Maryland and the killing of Michael Jackson impersonator Jordan Neely. We’re at the Reporter’s Roundtable discussing all of these stories.

Sacrificing democracy to belong to a shrinking ‘club’

It was a scene both disturbing and expected: former President Donald Trump embracing one of the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with the intention of overthrowing the results of the 2020 election.

Micki Larson-Olson was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of resisting police as they tried to clear the grounds that day. Yet, apparently, there are no hard feelings against Trump. In fact, quite the opposite. After driving from Texas to the New Hampshire campaign stop of the current candidate and former president, Larson-Olson got emotional over the recognition, the photographic record of her meeting with him, and his autograph on her backpack.

“And he gave me the pen,” she said, according to a Washington Post report. That she belongs to a QAnon offshoot is also no surprise.

I understand.

She was thrilled to be a member of the club, one that is losing the culture and has been rejected at the ballot box, but needs to feel special, as special as the insecure little boys who once locked their ramshackle clubhouse before scrawling “no girls allowed” on the door.

All those Washington invaders who throw around the word “patriot” as they trash America’s ideals — all those “true believers” in election fraud myths, the Kari Lakes and Mike “My Pillow Guy” Lindells of the world, the veterans and police officers who found themselves on the wrong side of the law that January day — I suspect they realize in their heart of hearts that Joe Biden tallied the most votes in the last presidential election.

Their beef is where many of those votes came from.

Democratic candidates Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Biden may have won the presidency fair and square, but each failed to gain a majority of the white vote. That means a coalition of, in Trump loyalists’ eyes, “other” voters put them over the top — and that breaks the brains of a lot of folks.

A fantasy world of election-rigging schemes attempts to cover up their resentments, but instead it shines a spotlight on them.

Trump Heads to Court

In a history-making move, a grand jury voted to indict a former president. We’ll have more answers about the details of the charges after Donald Trump’s Tuesday arraignment, but what this means for the GOP nomination, the 2024 race, and for future presidents in politically-hostile states is still up in the air.

Guest: Ankush Khardori, former federal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice.