March for Justice taking place in Miami Today—Sunday, March 10, 2024 1:30PM Miami Circle

Friends:

Blogging from Miami, Florida. If you're keeping up with the news on DeSantis' "Stop Woke Act," the wind is most definitely in our sails today. Take a minute and read: DeSantis faces pushback in Florida as voters tire of war on woke Conservative lawmakers rejected a host of new culture wars proposals in the legislature. Two important takeaways are that DeSantis' Stop Woke Act is unconstitutional because it “exceeds the bounds” of the First Amendment that gives us all a right to freedom of speech and expression."

Thank God for the First Amendment and that this court upheld it.

Another important, major takeaway is that the Florida legislature is increasingly disenamoured with culture war bills that DeSantis has pushed. Legislatures actually have much more important greater issues to take on than those that beat up on kids and college students and otherwise Gen Z youth that these bills tend to target.

I hope our legislature in Texas heeds these news as we're also fed up with their relentless attacks on the First Amendment, books, teachers, schools, anti-racist curriculum, and our youth.

If you're in the Neighborhood, please join us. Here is today's schedule thanks to my colleague, Dr. Mildred Boveda. Thanks to her, as well, I'll be speaking at the march.

-Angela Valenzuela

#EducatorSolidarity

REFERENCE

Rozsa, L. (2024, March 9). DeSantis faces pushback in Florida as voters tire of war on woke

Conservative lawmakers rejected a host of new culture wars proposals in the legislature, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/03/09/desantis-florida-woke-culture-wars-legislature/

By Lori Rozsa

Updated March 9, 2024 at 1:52 p.m. EST|Published March 9, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Friends and family in Miami. Please plan on joining us tomorrow. (Yes, I’ll be home for a couple of days ). March for Justice! SCHEDULE – Sunday, March 10, 2024

NOON: We are organizing an ART BUILD at Noon at Miami Circle (401 Brickell Avenue). Come and make a sign for the march about why you are in solidarity with Florida educators!

1:30 PM: Gather to March at Miami Circle (401 Brickell Avenue)! We will also have a land recognition ceremony and hear from some local students.

2:00 PM: MARCH to Torch of Friendship

2:30-3:30pm: RALLY with a lineup of amazing speakers (see the flyer for a list of some names!)

Wear Red: The United Teachers of Dade is asking us to wear RED for the march to show our support for RedForEd!

Banned Books: If you are able, please bring a banned book to the rally to be donated to local schools and educators (list of suggested titles: http://tinyurl.com/RecBB (http://tinyurl.com/RecBB)).

Kids: Attending the march and rally with kids is encouraged! The United Teachers of Dade has put great thought into this being a kid-friendly action with “boom sticks” and crowns for kids participating.

Access: Keep in mind that the march will take approximately 30 minutes from the hotel to the park, followed by almost an hour at the rally. There will be a limited number of chairs provided at the rally, but there is not a great deal of shade in the park. Participants are encouraged to wear sunscreen, bring water, and wear comfortable shoes. And to wear red in solidarity with educators!

Safety: Both the march and rally will be permitted with support from United Teachers of Dade, which includes police presence along the march route. While any public action can carry risks, the action will take place in a popular tourist area that is generally understood to be safe per organizers in Miami.

ANNOUNCEMENT: March 2, 2024– Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Statehouse Assemblies

I so admire the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and his advocacy for the poor. Try and attend this if you can. It promises to be inspirational and motivational.

Happening in Austin, Texas, and nationwide.

-Angela Valenzuela

Location:Texas Capitol•1100 Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78701 US

Host Contact Info: texas@poorpeoplescampaign.org

Take Back the Mic! Raise our Voices! Register Our Votes as Demands!

Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Moral March to Statehouse Assembly and to the Polls

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The Human Toll of Greg Abbott’s War at the Border: A dispatch from Eagle Pass, Rolling Stone Magazine

Friends and all who care about the humanitarian crisis occurring along the U.S.-Mexico border. Do remember that people coming into our country have multiple and significant challenges in coming into a new culture, learning a language that's foreign to them, and dealing with trauma that emanates from the places they have left and oftentimes, from the journey itself.

Glad to see the Rolling Stone magazine giving this a lot of ink.  They care. We should all care about Abbott's lethal, macabre, and necropolitical ambitions. It's a feeling for many of us here in Texas of having gotten taken over by a foreign, cruel, and atrocious political power. One wonders how our state officials sleep well at night. Only a heart of metal can walk away from this.

-Angela Valenzuela

DEADLY AMBITION

The Human Toll of Greg Abbott’s War at the Border

A dispatch from Eagle Pass, where the Texas governor has amped up the cruelty toward migrants to boost his profile

National Guard stands behind Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Feb. 4, 2024 in Eagle Pass. RAQUEL NATALICCHIO/HOUSTON CHRONICLE/GETTY IMAGES

EAGLE PASS, Texas — The video is 13 seconds long. In the foreground is an orderly green lawn, lit and safe. In the background, there are the lights of Mexico, Coahuila state. In the middle is the river. It’s a void, darker than the night sky. 

Amid crickets, a woman’s voice echoes from the void, or maybe a child’s. Then a man’s. They’re crying out for help.

The lawn belongs to former state Rep. Poncho Nevárez (D), who represented Eagle Pass in the Texas Legislature for eight years. Some time back, the state of Texas installed rows of concertina wire, the razor-bladed coiled fencing first invented to control cattle and then to mangle soldiers in the First World War. The wire hadn’t stopped anyone from crossing. Sometimes migrants injured themselves trying to cross. Sometimes it trapped them in the river. It is more dangerous than it looks, especially if you’re hungry and tired, and even more so at night.

Nevárez does that night what anyone with a conscience would do: He tries to help. The wire means he can’t easily reach the river. With difficulty, he makes his way into the void, but he can’t locate the source echoing cries with his flashlight. He calls the Border Patrol, but he knows they don’t do water rescues. The cries die out. In the morning, there is no trace of them.

****

Trigger warning. This bone-chilling, macabre news account is like nothing I've read or listened to before. It only matches stories about the thousands of deaths of folks dying in the desert which is not a new phenomenon, but nevertheless a consistent horrific one.

Do go to the NBCNews.com website to listen, in these first responders' own words, what they are witnessing along the U.S.-Mexico border. We don't get much news like these in Texas about the very large numbers of bodies that are getting recovered along the Rio Grande River where people seeking a better life for themselves and families are experiencing.

How can we pride ourselves as a great country and allow for this to happen? We should not get numb to this. No, this is first and foremost a humanitarian crisis. These are people's loved ones, including tiny babies, who are drowning alongside their desperate mothers and fathers in their attempts to cross the river—even despite the inescapable visage of hideous barbed wire that screams the ugliness that our state and nation have become. 

Those doing the traumatizing work of recovering these bodies will similarly be suffering for years to come. Thank God for their humanitarian work, yet no one should ever have a job like this. We need to bring a stop to Gov. Abbott's necropolitics, his politics of death. 

These are crimes against humanity.

-Angela Valenzuela

First responders in a Texas town are struggling to cope with the trauma of recovering bodies from the Rio Grande

After a record-breaking year of migrant crossings, Eagle Pass is applying for a grant to help pay for therapy and other mental health services.

Feb. 25, 2024, 8:00 AM CST

By Morgan Chesky and Alicia Victoria Lozano

EAGLE PASS, Texas — The crisis unfolding at the U.S.-Mexico border since last year has spilled over into the fire engines and ambulances of a small Texas town.

First responders in Eagle Pass say they are overwhelmed and increasingly traumatized by what they see: parents drowned or dying, their children barely holding onto life after attempting to cross the Rio Grande.

The emotional strain on firefighters and EMTs has grown so great that city officials have applied for a state grant that would bring in additional mental health resources for front-line workers.

“It’s an unprecedented crisis,” said Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello. “It’s nothing close to what I experienced while I was on the line. It’s a whole different monster.”

Firefighters say the first calls for help usually blare through the three stations in Eagle Pass while crews are still sipping their morning coffee, bracing themselves for what the day will bring.

Parents with young children might be near drowning or trapped on islands somewhere between the United States and Mexico, surrounded by the fierce currents of the Rio Grande.

On some shifts, firefighters with the Eagle Pass Fire Department can spend three to five hours in the water, helping rescue migrants crossing the river or recovering their drowned bodies.

“It’s something we’ve never gone through,” said Eagle Pass native Marcos Kypuros, who has been a firefighter and EMT for two decades. “It’s been hard having to keep up with that on top of everything else we take care of.”

Eagle Pass has become ground zero in recent months for an unrelenting border crisis that is equal parts political and humanitarian.

With hundreds of thousands of people attempting to cross the border illegally each year near Eagle Pass, city emergency personnel have increasingly been called upon to perform difficult and often dangerous rescues or to retrieve dead bodies, they said. They do this while juggling other emergencies in the city of 28,000 and throughout sparsely populated Maverick County.

“They see decomposing bodies, they see children that have drowned. Babies 2-months-old, with their eyes half-open, their mouths full of mud,” Mello said. “I know that when I signed up, they told me that I would see all of that, but not in the number that these guys are seeing now.”

Call volumes to the fire department surged last summer after Title 42, which set limits on asylum-seekers hoping to enter the United States, was lifted. On a typical day, the department might receive 30 calls, but the number has doubled in recent months, Mello said.

The added strain prompted one of his firefighters, who was still working through the required probationary period, to turn in his gear and switch careers entirely, he added.

After a record-breaking number of illegal crossings in December, federal authorities say the figure dropped by half in January. The most significant decrease was in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass.

But the steady rise in crossings last year has taken a toll on first responders who did not sign up for this kind of work, Kypuros said.

“Those times where we recover four or five, six, up to seven bodies a day — it was just rough,” he said.

As the number of calls for emergencies on the border grew last fall, so did the number of sick days firefighters requested, according to the fire chief.

“I try and leave all this at work, not take it home with me, but it’s so hard,” Kypuros said. “Sometimes it’s hard to cope.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. It was not immediately clear when the funds the city applied for would be awarded.

After the record-breaking number of attempted border crossings last year, Abbott ramped up the state’s immigration enforcement efforts. Last week, he announced the deployment of 1,800 members of the Texas National Guard to Eagle Pass in an effort to curb illegal crossings.

Abbott, a Republican, installed razor wire near the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass as part of the enforcement operation, and previously placed buoys in the river to prevent crossings.

Firefighters have treated lacerations and open wounds from people trying to crawl through the concertina wire, Kypuros said. At times, local hospitals get so overwhelmed with patients from the border that wait times for a bed can stretch to two hours, Garcia added.

As thousands of people without pathways to U.S. citizenship wait in squalid, makeshift camps on the Mexico side of the border, others attempt dangerous river crossings across the Rio Grande, endangering their own lives and those of their loved ones.

Harish Garcia, who has worked as a firefighter EMT in Eagle Pass for three years, still cannot shake the memory of a drowning mother and her young daughter. Garcia’s crew, including a firefighter with a daughter around the same age as the little girl, loaded the two into an ambulance, he said, but it was too late.

When crews returned to the station, some called their families. Others went quiet, Garcia said.

“Unfortunately, calls are going to keep coming in after that, so we can’t hang on to that for too long,” he said months later. “We have to just let it go and move on to the next call.”

Garcia and Kypuros say they’ve lost count of how many bodies they’ve recovered in recent months. The majority are found after failed attempts to cross the river, but other calls have led fire crews into the rough brush of South Texas, where dehydration and exposure can prove just as deadly.

David Black, a psychologist who has worked with the California law enforcement community for more than 20 years, said witnessing the death of a child is often the most traumatizing event a first responder can experience. Without a strong support system both in and out of the workplace, that stress can eat away at them.

“We outsource our worst-case scenarios to first responders,” he said. “If you have your own children, that can really impact how you look at your own family.”

As Eagle Pass waits for the state grant to be approved, agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other federal workers already have access to mental health resources internally.

The services, which include on-site clinicians and field psychologists, are part of a larger effort to “improve resiliency and encourage our colleagues to seek help when they need it,” said Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner.

Mello said that despite the uncertain nature of the border crisis and the political tensions between the White House and the governor’s office, he is optimistic that help will come.

Until then, he knows the calls for help will keep coming.

Morgan Chesky reported from Eagle Pass, Texas, and Alicia Victoria Lozano from Los Angeles.

This awful news came out this past week. Terrible optic. Terrible reality. Texas just always want to be Texas, including when it comes to providing for children and families in need.  This is so sad. Why not do everything possible to help Texas school children? There were earlier efforts to address this by the organization, Every Texan, as follows:

Every Texan petitioned alongside statewide and regional organizations for the program last November, signing a letter to Cecile Young, executive commissioner of HHSC.

“Summer EBT [Electronic Benefit Transfer] is something that we have been advocating for for years, because we know how hard it is in a state as spread out as Texas to access enough food, to be able to afford enough food for their kids when school is closed,” Rachel Cooper told The Texas Tribune.

Geez, there is so much food insecurity and 3.8 million kids are eligible for the program! Why this lack of will? We "throw money" at the border. Why not do so here? 

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas passes on $450 million summer lunch program for low-income families

The USDA estimates the families of 3.8 million children could have received $120 per child to cover summer lunches if the state participated in the new $2.5 billion program launching this summer. Texas is one of 15 states opting out.

BY NINA BANKS

FEB. 22, 202410 AM CENTRAL

Siblings Stacy Hurd, 11, Angelica Hurd, 5, and Sheniya Hurd, 8, eat a free meal together at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, one of more than 70 sites the East Texas Food Bank sponsors in the summer. Credit:
Laura Skelding, Texas Tribune

This year 35 states will participate in a $2.5 billion federal nutrition program that will help low-income parents buy groceries for their children when free school meals are unavailable during the summer months.

But Texas, which has 3.8 million children eligible for the program, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has opted not to join this national effort. If it had, qualifying families would have received $120 per child through a pre-loaded card for the three summer months. The USDA calculated that Texas is passing on a total of $450 million in federal tax dollars that would have gone to eligible families here.

The reason for the pass is simple, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. When the USDA notified HHSC officials of their new Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT program on Dec. 29, that gave the nation’s second largest state only six months to get it up and running and that’s not enough time, said Tiffany Young, a spokesperson for the state agency.

Although the summer program would involve two other agencies as well – the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Department of Agriculture – HHSC would have to bear the brunt of the work because they would have to coordinate and direct the distribution of the preloaded cards to qualifying families.

Already on their plate is the cumbersome unwinding of Medicaid coverage. Since last April, the agency has removed more than 2 million Texans from the program since the federal government lifted continuous coverage rules during the pandemic, forcing those who still qualify for coverage to reapply. From HHSC’s perspective, launching an entirely new program wouldn’t be possible at this time.

Additionally, the USDA would only cover 50% of the administrative expenses for Summer EBT. It would be up to the state to cover the residual cost.

Young wrote that the HHSC, TDA and TEA have been in “active discussions” about each agencies’ responsibilities in accordance with Summer EBT.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture first piloted the summer program with Pandemic EBT, or P-EBT, during the 2019-2020 school year in all 50 states. P-EBT was created in response to children from low-income families who qualified for free and reduced-price school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Federal officials estimate 21 million children in 35 states, five U.S. territories and four tribes participating in the program would receive the extra money during the summer months.

Texas is one of 15 states that will not participate. Among the 15 is Alabama — opting out with similar rationale to Texas — attributing their reasoning to an insufficient amount of time to appropriate the funds necessary for the program.

For more than 3 million Texas children, school lunch may be the only full meal they get each day. According to Feeding Texas, a nonprofit organization that supplies food banks across the state, one in five children are affected by food insecurity — defined as an insufficient amount or unreliable sources of food to sustain oneself.

The Texas Department of Agriculture administers the free and reduced meal program for students during the school year. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said he understands the disappointment some families have about Texas’ decision not to participate this year. . He said his agency would have assisted if the decision was made to participate.

“The problem we’re facing — and we face this at the TDA in our school meals program and our summer feeding programs — everything is so much more expensive,” Miller said. “An extra 40 dollars could have gone a long way to offset that.”

Every Texan petitioned alongside statewide and regional organizations for the program last November, signing a letter to Cecile Young, executive commissioner of HHSC.

“Summer EBT is something that we have been advocating for for years, because we know how hard it is in a state as spread out as Texas to access enough food, to be able to afford enough food for their kids when school is closed,” Rachel Cooper told The Texas Tribune.

Though not as comprehensive as Summer EBT, food insecure children still have options for food assistance during the summer. Miller told the Tribune that “kids aren’t going to get fed any less” on account of the TDA’s expansion of their Summer Meals Program. Children 18 and under are eligible to receive a free meal at their meal sites across the state.

Parents can also find out if their child’s school district is one of many that provide free meals during the summer. National organizations, such as the YMCA and Boys & Girls Club, provide summer meal assistance at select locations. Though it remains possible to secure a balanced meal without Summer EBT, Cooper believes it is still possible and necessary for Texas to join the program in 2025. “Our kids need it,” Cooper said. “They deserve it, and we just need to do our part.”

Disclosure: Every Texan and Feeding Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

We can’t wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas’ breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

Dr. Gerald Horne commentary on Chris Hedges article: "The Collapse of US Media is Accelerating Our Political Crisis"

 Friends,

Listen to this warning by renowned University of Houston historian, Dr. Gerald Horne, speaks on the demise of public media. He responds to Chris Hedges who wrote the following:

"The collapse of U.S. media is accelerating our political crisis a third of all U.S. newspapers have permanently closed. The industry is hemorrhaging reporters and private equity and big tech are to blame."

The news media has found it difficult to compete with big tech, soaking up advertising dollars previously available to them. I can only imagine how this is impacting Journalism Departments in our colleges and universities nationwide.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is another threat that Dr. Horne maintains threatens jobs for reporters, lawyers, and computer code writers. In short, traditional media, including CNN and NPR, are at enormous risk. Traditional media also often align with neocons and neoliberals, for example, their its lack of support, if not actual collusion, against labor. Dr. Horne expresses that the mainstream press is clearly often about the "massaging of our consciousness" rather than reporting the actual news, citing news on Ukraine and Gaza. A lot to unpack here.

My connection to this in the current moment is a lack of attention in the press to the harmfulness of school and district takeovers by Education Management Organizations (EMOs) like Superintendent Mike Moses' The New Education System (NES)" in Houston, Texas. Takeovers are happening in and to various other Texas school districts amounting to a de-democratization of public education. There are some reports, but not enough in my view. Not quite hearing sufficient outcry other than a few select voices. Our communities are therefore at risk without local news, boots on the ground, and ethical reporting.

The lack of a free and honest press is abundantly consequential.

-Angela Valenzuela

Project 2025 and Trump's Well-Planned Revenge in a Second Term [should he win the presidency]

Friends:

We would all do well to inform ourselves on Project 2025. It is authoritarian libertarianism on steroids. It represents the culmination of efforts orchestrated by the Heritage Foundation together with at least 75 other groups to take the entire country toward an anti-democratic path that would, as Dr. Nancy MacLean has been saying, "put democracy in chains."

This agenda is clearly an urgent matter for Jeffrey Clark who is spearheading Project 2025 as he is one of "six unnamed co-conspirators whose actions are described in Trump’s indictment in the federal election interference case." 

We should further heed Liz Cheney's words that "a Republican House majority in 2025 would present a ‘threat’ to the country." Why? Because the Republican part of today "has not chosen the Constitution."

If anything, Project 2025 is precisely about undermining the U.S. Constitution. Read it for yourselves. 

This dystopian vision is no less fully workshopped, strategically planned, and well-funded. We, the people, must not allow this to come to fruition under any name.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

MacLean, N. (2017). Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. Penguin.

Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice 

Department control in a second term

Advisers have also discussed deploying the military to quell potential unrest on Inauguration Day. Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.

By Isaac Arnsdorf

, 

Josh Dawsey

 and 

Devlin Barrett

Updated November 6, 2023 at 1:27 p.m. EST|Published November 5, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST

Former president Donald Trump at the courthouse in Manhattan on Oct. 17. (John Taggart for The Washington Post)

Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

In private, Trump has told advisers and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate onetime officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and former attorney general William P. Barr, as well as his ex-attorney Ty Cobb and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Trump has also talked of prosecuting officials at the FBI and Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said.

In public, Trump has vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family. The former president has frequently made corruption accusations against them that are not supported by available evidence.

To facilitate Trump’s ability to direct Justice Department actions, his associates have been drafting plans to dispense with 50 years of policy and practice intended to shield criminal prosecutions from political considerations. Critics have called such ideas dangerous and unconstitutional.

“It would resemble a banana republic if people came into office and started going after their opponents willy-nilly,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a constitutional law professor at the University of Virginia who studies executive power. “It’s hardly something we should aspire to.”

Much of the planning for a second term has been unofficially outsourced to a partnership of right-wing think tanks in Washington. Dubbed “Project 2025,” the group is developing a plan, to include draft executive orders, that would deploy the military domestically under the Insurrection Act, according to a person involved in those conversations and internal communications reviewed by The Washington Post. The law, last updated in 1871, authorizes the president to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement.

The proposal was identified in internal discussions as an immediate priority, the communications showed. In the final year of his presidency, some of Trump’s supporters urged him to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down unrest after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, but he never did it. Trump has publicly expressed regret about not deploying more federal force and said he would not hesitate to do so in the future.

Supporters listen during the national anthem before Trump arrives to speak at a campaign event at the Kingswood Arts Center on Oct. 9 in Wolfeboro, NH. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not answer questions about specific actions under discussion. “President Trump is focused on crushing his opponents in the primary election and then going on to beat Crooked Joe Biden,” Cheung said. “President Trump has always stood for law and order, and protecting the Constitution.”

The discussions underway reflect Trump’s determination to harness the power of the presidency to exact revenge on those who have challenged or criticized him if he returns to the White House. The former president has frequently threatened to take punitive steps against his perceived enemies, arguing that doing so would be justified by the current prosecutions against him. Trump has claimed without evidence that the criminal charges he is facing — a total of 91 across four state and federal indictments — were made up to damage him politically.

“This is third-world-country stuff, ‘arrest your opponent,’” Trump said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire in October. “And that means I can do that, too.”

Special counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Biden have all said that Smith’s prosecution decisions were made independently of the White House, in accordance with department rules on special counsels.

Trump, the clear polling leader in the GOP race, has made “retribution” a central theme of his campaign, seeking to intertwine his own legal defense with a call for payback against perceived slights and offenses to right-wing Americans. He repeatedly tells his supporters that he is being persecuted on their behalf and holds out a 2024 victory as a shared redemption at their enemies’ expense.