Melville House Crashes Anti-Trump Title
Jun 08, 2020
Melville House is crashing the publication of Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers by John Dean and Bob Altermeyer.
The book, Melville House promises, "will be the first book to look at Trump his followers in the context of authoritarianism by using psychological diagnostic tools, as well as polling conducted by The Monmouth University Polling Institute, to offer an eye-opening revelation of how Trump and his supporters have gotten where they are, and to consider where they may go next."
Dean is famous for having as White House counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973. During the Watergate scandal, his Senate testimony helped lead to Nixon's resignation. Altermeyer is a psychology professor at the University of Manitoba who specializes in authoritarianism.
Trump, Barr continue threat to deploy military against nationwide protests
8 June 2020
On Saturday, in the midst of massive nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd, President Donald Trump made clear that he has not abandoned his support for the mobilization of the military to suppress the demonstrations. He was backed Sunday by his attorney general William Barr, who defended Trump’s moves last Monday to crush the protests in Washington, D.C. as part of preparations to establish a presidential dictatorship based on the military and the police.
At 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, while tens of thousands of protesters were marching peacefully through the capital and hundreds of thousands more were demonstrating in cities and towns across the country, Trump tweeted, “LAW & ORDER!” This was an allusion to his fascistic Rose Garden declaration last Monday that he was the “president of law and order.”
Later in the evening he added another tweet: “Much smaller crowd in DC than anticipated. National Guard, Secret Service and DC Police have been doing a fantastic job. Thank you!”
Donald Trump walks from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
On Sunday, Barr was interviewed on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. He ignored denunciations by top retired military officers, including former Trump administration officials, of Trump’s threats to overthrow the Constitution, invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and impose martial law.
Barr categorically supported the right of the President to unilaterally deploy active duty troops to states over the objections of state governors. He also falsely branded as violent the peaceful protest at Lafayette Park that was broken up last Monday on Trump’s orders, and absurdly claimed there was no connection between the violent dispersal of the protesters and Trump’s photo-op holding up a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, which took place only minutes after National Guard troops and federal forces had cleared demonstrators from the location.
The interview began with the anchor, Margaret Brennan, citing a “senior administration official” who told CBS News that Trump, at a White House meeting early last Monday, had demanded the ordering of 10,000 active duty troops onto the streets of the country. According to press reports, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had opposed the demand, resulting in a shouting match between Trump and Milley.
Barr called the report “completely false.” After the interview, Brennan stated that CBS News stood by its reporting on the incident.
Barr implied that such a military mobilization had been discussed and acknowledged that elements of the 82nd Airborne Division had been deployed to bases outside the capital. But he said he and Esper agreed that those military police units should be kept on standby but not deployed onto the streets at that time. These troops, as well as troops from the Mountain Division, have since been removed from the D.C. area and returned to their home bases.
Next came the following exchange:
Brennan: Do you think that the president has the authority to unilaterally send in active duty troops if the governors oppose it?Barr: Oh, absolutely. The—under the anti-Insurrection Act, the President can use regular troops to suppress rioting. The Confederacy in our country opposed the use of federal troops to restore order and suppress an insurrection. So the federal government sometimes doesn’t listen to governors in certain circumstances…”
It is highly significant that the precedent Barr cited to justify such an action was the Civil War, in which some 600,000 Americans were killed. Trump has given campaign speeches in which he said any effort to remove him from office would result in a “civil war.”
Then came the following exchange on the violent dispersal of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park across from the White House:
Brennan: Did you think it was appropriate for them to use smoke bombs, tear gas, pepper balls, projectiles at what appeared to be peaceful protesters?Barr: They were not peaceful protesters. And that’s one of the big lies that the media seems to be perpetuating at this point.Brennan: Three of my CBS colleagues were there. We talked to them. … They did not see protesters throwing anything. … And the methods they used you think were appropriate, is that what you’re saying?Barr: When they met resistance, yes.
Brennan then recounted the scene last Monday in which Trump was asserting dictatorial powers and announcing plans to prosecute left-wing “outside agitators” as terrorists at the same time troops were moving against the Lafayette Park protesters to clear the way for Trump’s photo-op:
Brennan: Right around the same time the area is being cleared of what appear to be peaceful protesters, using some force. And after the speech is finished, the President walks out of the White House to the same area where the protesters had been and stands for a photo op. … In an environment where the broader debate is about heavy-handed use of force in law enforcement, was that the right message for Americans to be receiving? ...Barr: Well, it’s the job of the media to tell the truth. They were not connected.
Barr’s full-throated defense of police-military repression of protests was echoed on the Sunday interview programs by Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” Wolf said, “I think we took the right action, and what we’ve seen is we’ve seen governors deploy the National Guard. We’ve seen governors and mayors call the federal government asking for support. And that’s what we’ve given them.”
Pressed on the decision to deploy 1,600 active duty troops to the outskirts of the capital by host Chris Wallace, who asked if that was “overkill,” Wolf indicated that a military mobilization against the protesters remained under consideration. He said, “So, again, from a law enforcement perspective, I would say making sure that we keep all our tools in the toolbox ready and available is very, very important. We don’t want to take anything off the table.”
The other dominant theme of the Sunday news programs was the public opposition of prominent retired generals to Trump’s Rose Garden coup speech and the threat to bring the military against demonstrators. The most significant such statement was the column by retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis published last Wednesday in the Atlantic. Mattis, known as the “butcher of Fallujah” for his role in the homicidal destruction of that Iraqi city, resigned as Trump’s secretary of defense in January of 2019 in protest against Trump’s announced plan to withdraw US forces from Syria.
Mattis openly accused Trump of violating the Constitution and threatening to assume dictatorial powers. He was subsequently seconded by former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen and Martin Dempsey, retired Marine General and former White House chief of staff to Trump John Kelly and other retired military brass.
The statements of these military officers, all of whom have been involved in bloody crimes of US imperialism around the world, were prompted not by devotion to democracy, but by concerns that Trump’s authoritarian moves would trigger an uncontrollable social explosion.
The main guest on CNN’s “State of the Union” program was Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs during the first Persian Gulf War of 1991 and Secretary of State at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Powell was the top military officer in 1992 when President George H. W. Bush sent in active duty troops to put down mass protests in Los Angeles against the police beating of Rodney King.
Powell, posing as a defender of the First Amendment, congratulated the former generals who criticized Trump’s actions and announced that he would vote for Democrat Joe Biden in the November presidential election.
Powell’s most significant statement in the interview was his attack on Congress for failing to address, let alone oppose Trump’s attempted anti-constitutional coup. He said:
And even more troubling, the Congress would just sit there and not in any way resist what the President is doing…I watched the senators heading into the chamber the other day after all this broke, with the reporters saying, what do you have to say, what do you to say?They had nothing to say.
This accurately describes the cowardice and complicity of both big business parties in the ongoing conspiracy against democratic rights that is centered in the White House. The most pernicious role is being played by the Democratic Party, the nominal “opposition” to Trump.
Not a single prominent Democrat—from Obama, the Clintons and Biden to the fake “progressives” Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—has warned the American people of the coup plans of Trump and his cabal of fascists in the White House.
This continued Sunday. Democrats interviewed on the talk shows included Senator Cory Booker, Representative Karen Bass, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Representative Val Demings, a former police chief in Florida who is on Biden’s “short list” to become his running mate. None of them even mentioned Trump’s Rose Garden speech and threats to impose martial law. As the military considers its options, the Democratic Party is allowing it to become the arbiter of the people’s democratic rights.
The Democrats are no less fearful than Trump and the Republicans that the multiracial and multiethnic protests against police violence will encourage a broader movement of the working class, already slammed by mass death and unemployment resulting from the official response to the coronavirus pandemic, which will assume revolutionary proportions.
The Most Shameful Stunt of Trump’s Presidency
Unleashing tear gas and rubber bullets for a photo op is his most dictatorial move yet.
The White House/Flickr
I had it in my mind that I would write something about the odd way that President Trump physically handles the Holy Bible, but I hadn’t come up with anything specific before I saw how McKay Coppins went about it:
He wielded the Bible like a foreign object, awkwardly adjusting his grip as though trying to get comfortable. He examined its cover. He held it up over his right shoulder like a crossing guard presenting a stop sign. He did not open it.“Is that your Bible?” a reporter asked.“It’s a Bible,” the president replied.
I misread this the first time I looked at it. I thought Coppins was asking me to picture President Trump holding a red octagonal sign like he was presenting a gift. On my second reading, I understood he instead meant that Trump looked like a crossing guard holding up traffic, only with a Bible in his hand.
Either image does the job of conveying that there’s something unnatural going on. When Trump flashed the Bible on Monday at St. John’s Church near Washington’s Lafayette Park, he was holding it upside down and backwards, almost as if the book—or any book—has an unknown purpose.
This made is painfully clear that he was using the Bible as a prop, and that his appearance in front of the church was an effort to pander to the religious right.
In order to reach the location of the photo op, a block from the White House, he used the National Guard and the Secret Service to disperse protestors in his path. They utilized tear-gas and flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets to clear Lafayette Park, even though it was only a half hour before an announced citywide curfew and there had been no violence or other threatening disturbances.
Linda Tirado, a freelance photojournalist, was blinded in her left eye by a rubber bullet in Minneapolis. She also lacks heath insurance and is looking perhaps at almost a quarter million dollars in health care costs. Rubber bullets are no joke.
As for tear gas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, “prolonged exposure, especially in an enclosed area, may lead to long-term effects such as eye problems including scarring, glaucoma, and cataracts, and may possibly cause breathing problems such as asthma.”
Using tear gas outside is less likely to cause serious harm, but it’s not without risks. It’s highly immoral to blast tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd without a corresponding risk you’re looking to counteract.
In this case, the risk was that some harm would come to the president of the United States if he attempted to stroll through Lafayette Park while the crowds were still there. But all risk could have been avoided if Trump had decided that a visit to St. John’s Church a half an hour before curfew wasn’t a good idea.
No one in the White House thought to notify the Church that they were coming, and this brought severe condemnation from both the city’s Episcopalian bishop and St. John’s presiding priest:
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, the bishop of Washington who helped organize the clergy presence at the church, said Trump’s arrival at St. John’s happened without warning and left her “outraged.”“The symbolism of him holding a Bible … as a prop and standing in front of our church as a backdrop when everything that he has said is antithetical to the teachings of our traditions and what we stand for as a church — I was horrified,” she told Religion News Service.“He didn’t come to pray. He didn’t come to lament the death of George Floyd. He didn’t come to address the deep wounds that are being expressed through peaceful protest by the thousands upon thousands. He didn’t try to bring calm to situations that are exploding with pain.”The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, also criticized the move, accusing the president of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.”
The president’s behavior was widely criticized throughout the capital, but some on his campaign team believed it had been a success.
By late Monday, campaign officials were already tweeting a black-and-white photo of him walking to the church with a coterie of aides in his wake. Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s top spokesman, posted the picture without a caption.
This was just one incident in an extremely violent day that saw the president implore the nation’s governors to get tough and “dominate” and then watched many of them try to comply.
The president’s short field trip may have given his campaign a nice picture of him “walking to the church with a coterie of aides in his wake,” but it’s likely to be remembered as one of the most shameful stunts of his entire presidency.
Protesters Would Save Him. He Was Wrong.
His gamble on creating a militarized culture war has done the opposite of what he hoped for.
Rosa Pineda/Wikimedia Commons
It seems almost inane to remark on an electoral horse race at such a historic time. Why should we care about Donald Trump’s electoral chances when energized citizens across America are braving injury and arrest to confront white supremacy and police violence? But it’s important nonetheless.
That’s because while these problems have been centuries in the making from slavery to Jim Crow to Ferguson and beyond, Donald Trump’s particular failings as a person and a candidate are fanning the flames of the crisis. Rather than help be a part of the solution, he is intentionally exacerbating the tensions–not only because he himself is a racist whose politics of authoritarian white grievance align with the same forces driving police violence itself, but because he is desperate and in grave political peril.
This isn’t news: he has been for some time. He has consistently trailed all the leading Democratic contenders in national polling since the beginning of the primary campaign—not just nationally, but also in the swing states he needs in the electoral college. If he loses in November he and his defenders will claim he was on a pathway to victory before external forces derailed him, but this would be wrong. Even when the economy was strong, which normally bodes very well for first-term presidents’ odds at winning another four years, much of the persuadable public simply found itself so exhausted by Trump’s ongoing campaign against public decency that they were ready to vote for an alternative who did not take active measures to offend people on a daily basis.
Matters worsened for him when COVID-19 hit the United States and exposed him not just as a divisive buffoon, but a cynically incompetent one. The Administration delayed its response, worried that any action they took would hurt the stock market and erode Trump’s last remaining electoral strength. But even as the job losses mounted into the tens of millions as the nation rushed to try to contain an already widespread pandemic, the President personally promoted miracle quack cures like hydroxychloroquine and demonstrated his unbridled personal buffoonery by wondering aloud about the possibility of drinking bleach and injecting sunlight as a method of curing oneself of coronavirus.
Even before the brutal killing of George Floyd by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, Trump knew that he would need to maximize his culture war appeal to non-college whites to make up ground lost to the faltering economy. There can be little doubt that Trump saw opportunity in the protests that followed to dust off the Nixon playbook, vowing to restore “law and order” in a country furious that the law seemed to protect only some, while enforcing a brutal order on others. If Trump’s actions threatened to turn the culture war into an active shooting war, that would just be collateral damage on the road to his political recovery.
The Trump orbit considers the iconography of jingoistic militarism and the violent suppression of protest to be a political winner. Consider, for instance, Rudy Giuliani’s bizarre 9/11 tribute tweet promoting a video that featured riot police, the military, and high school football squaring off against young protesters replete with counterculture stereotypes, including flag-burners, anti-police sentiment and even men with long hair (how dare they.)
Trump, like Nixon before him, uses “law and order” as a way of “talking about race without talking about race.” In this narrative, a president who supports American “traditional culture” and stands strong against people who agitate for racial justice will win over a “silent majority” of people who just don’t want to be disturbed and want to have some peace and quiet from their politics.
In this context, the killing of George Floyd was not a crisis, but an opportunity.
A president with an ounce of self-respect, dignity and compassion would have done her best to understand the anguish and grief facing the black community as yet another black person was killed needlessly and with zero remorse by a police force accustomed to no accountability. A president who made a semblance of caring about the country as a whole would have made at least a show of sympathy. Trump could not do even this.
This is, first and foremost, because Trump is the same man who published a full-page ad recommending the execution of the innocent Central Park 5, and has refused to apologize for or even retract his position. He is the same man who, as president, implemented a policy of separating immigrant children from their parents to lock them in cages without blankets or toothpaste, as an explicit deterrent to other potential (nonwhite, of course) immigrants seeking a better life. As Adam Serwer unforgettably said, the cruelty is the point.
Trump enjoys and encourages state brutality against people of color, and black people in particular. It excites him and his most ardent followers. But his response isn’t just based on personal predilections. It’s also based on political considerations. Trump sees shades of a 1968-style law-and-order culture campaign that can carry him to re-election when literally nothing else can.
Any normal president would have made an Oval Office address to the nation as soon as major protests began. Trump, despite his braggadoccio, showed characteristic cowardice and indecision for days, choosing to post inflammatory tweets while hiding in a White House bunker. When he finally did make a public address, it was little more the chest-puffing false bravado of a petty tyrant.
He has encouraged governors to use extreme force against protesters, using “antifa” and a small minority of looters and criminals as an excuse. In a tweet that was flagged with a warning by Twitter for its glorifcation of violence, he used a phrase that harkened back to the segregation era to threaten lethal force against protests. He has repeatedly threatened to use the military to suppress dissent. He has rebuffed the calls of Mayor Muriel Bowser of the District of Columbia to demilitarize the response to the protests, and has vowed to replace the troops she refuses with forces beyond her control. He has turned the District of Columbia, a plurality black city, into a militarized zone with non-uniformed secret police, and the White House as a closed-off fortress in its center.
Across the country, police have intentionally targeted journalists, leaving many with disfiguring injuries. Can there be any doubt that this unprecedented violence against the press was spurred on by Trump’s endless war with any media that holds him accountable? Given that Trump received the support of 84 percent of America’s police officers, how could it be otherwise?
And most egregiously, in what will surely be viewed as one of the most ill-advised stunts in presidential history, the Trump Administration had federal security forces use tear gas and projectiles to vacate Lafayette square by force of arms so Trump could make a show of walking over to St. John’s Church and posing awkwardly with a bible held upside down.
The message that Trump wanted to send with this stunt is not hard to decipher. It cast him as the warrior of white evangelical Christianity, waging a holy crusade by force of arms against those who would oppose it as the dominant force in American electoral politics.
Trump will fail, however, because neither the bastions of white culture nor the nation’s security apparatus are on his side this time. No matter what Trump did previously, the elements that represented these conservative institutional bastions would not condemn him. But Trump’s effort to use the military as both a political and kinetic weapon against Americans exercising their constitutional rights has caused the people who should be his allies to turn against him. It earned him stinging, humiliating rebukes from respected military leaders such as four-star Marine Corps General and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Conservative columnist George Will has called for the removal of Trump and the Congressional leaders who enable him. This despicable act even earned him condemnation from televangelist Pat Robertson, one his bedrock supporters in the white Christian evangelical movement.
Meanwhile, people of all races across America have watched in horror as police continue to commit violent acts of brutality against the people who are legally and peacefully protesting police brutality. Statistically speaking, white people have historically not believed that institutional racism in the police force is an issue worth their attention. Now, for the first time, a majority of whites do, and Americans of all races are overwhelmingly supportive of the protests against the killing of George Floyd. If Trump was planning on dividing Americans by race and cleaving more whites to his side, the plan is backfiring. Trump even seems to have a reverse Midas touch in recent polling on these issues: while Americans were broadly supportive of using the military to quell the civil disturbances at first, Trump’s embrace of the tactic seems to have helped drive those numbers into negative territory in just a few days.
In one sense, he’s right: people are exhausted with chaos, and they do want a respect for law and order. The problem for Trump? The chaos is in large part of his own making, and insofar as it isn’t, he’s in the way of solving the problems created by institutional racism and overlapping hierarchies of oppression. The massive wave of police brutality has woken even many previously disengaged white people up to the need for true equality under the law, and an order in which everyone, including police and the president, are held to account. And many of the same people Trump is trying to persuade now believe that kicking him out of the White House is a necessary prerequisite for making that vision a reality.
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