Incendiary Speech

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte proselytizes extra-judicial hit squads to clean out his nation’s drug dealers and users. Murder without risk. Poland’s leadership is profoundly anti-immigrant (particularly focused on Muslim refugees) and deeply pro-business. “[The] country's most powerful political figure is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the nationalist-minded ruling Law and Justice party, which won 2015 parliamentary elections.

“Under Kaczynski, the party has moved to rein in the judiciary, sought to muscle media outlets into taking a more pro-government line and advanced various conspiracy theories, including one surrounding the 2010 plane crash in Russia that killed dozens of Polish dignitaries including Kaczynski's twin brother, Lech, who was then president.” Los Angeles Times, 7/5/17. Stacking the highest court in the land (the Constitutional Tribunal) to erase liberal precedents was deemed illegal by that Tribunal… But that reversal did not alter the dilution of judicial power; the political leadership just ignored the ruling. Generally, Poles who disagree with governmental policies place themselves at real physical risk.

In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his party, Fidesz, mirror the severe shift to the right witnessed in Poland… but as reactionary as Orbán may be, the second most popular party in the country, Jobbik — the Movement for a Better Hungary — is even more right wing, with ties to the Kremlin and Iran. Orbán forced a new constitution that centralizes more power under his aegis; freedom appears to be leaving the building.

 In an almost certain victory for right-wing Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, he stands accused of inappropriate speech, fake news and fomenting political violence. Reeling from horrific corruption and a tanking economy, Brazil has produced a reaction against established parties and institutions. Bolsonaro addresses his disenchanted base and “advocates for looser gun laws. Visiting a shooting range in Miami last year, he suggested that Brazilian police officers should carry .50-caliber handguns so they could kill suspects with one shot only and avoid being accused of excessive force.

“His plan to boost the economy includes kicking indigenous people off their land to expand agribusiness. He has said that ‘minorities have to shut up, to fall in line with the majority,’ and he told a crowd of cheering supporters in Acre state to ‘gun down the petralhada,’ a reference to the [leftist] Workers’ Party…

“Bolsonaro’s rhetoric has been widely blamed as a factor in a wave of political violence…The Brazilian investigative journalism organization Publica released a report on Oct. 10 that showed at least 71 politically motivated violent attacks occurred between Sept. 30 and Oct. 10. Of those attacks, 50 were attributed to supporters of Bolsonaro.” Los Angeles Times, October 26^th.

What’s the common thread in each of the above examples? There is a deep shift all over the world in traditional democracies that are rapidly rejecting basic democratic principles in favor of raw autocracy. Nationalism and populism replace democratic principles. Due process, equal representation of all citizens under the law, protection of free speech and minority rights, freedom of religion… are rather dramatically vaporizing under the two most dynamic forces on earth: Malthusian population growth and the decimation of global climate change. The economic consequences have been nothing short of catastrophic. Destabilization with dire consequences.

As once fertile farms in primarily Sunni-held Syrian and Iraqi territory withered into permanent dust, as unsympathetic Shiite-led governments in Damascus and Baghdad denied relief, ISIS, al Nusra, al Qaeda and their ilk stepped in. Civil war redefined the region. Migrants pressed into Western Europe, fleeing both the violence and the loss of their livelihoods. The story was repeated in North Africa. The impact of this mass migration fomented anti-immigrant sentiments all over Europe, contributing to the populists who voted for Brexit the rise of right-wing populism all over the continent. The odor of Germany in the 1930s is rising once again into a global stench.

Incendiary words, condemning entire groups as socially unacceptable – Mexicans are “rapists and criminals,” the Democratic Party is an “angry mob” that wants to destroy America and mass media is the “enemy” of the people – are now acceptable and commonplace statements from the President of the United States.

Violence against members of the press or anyone who disagrees with him is equally acceptable. On October 18^th, Donald Trump openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year. During his campaign for the presidency, in February of 2016, Donald Trump said he wanted to punch a protester ‘in the face’ after the man disrupted a campaign rally in Las Vegas.

Reacting to a widespread notion in many media outlets that the pipe bombs, distributed to CNN and highly-placed Democrats, was a natural result of Trump’s unceasing rhetoric as a great enabler of populist violence, Trump rapidly turned the tables and blamed the vast majority of mainstream media as the real culprits for continuing to publish stories critical of him and his policies. If they flattered Trump and supported his “great” policies and plans, none of this would have ever happened. Like so many autocrats around the world and throughout history, Trump is a self-declared “nationalist.” Forget our constitutional notion of “free speech.” Right-wing conspiracy theorists, with wink-wink from the President, are even telling their sheep that the pipe bombs were in fact sent as part of a Democratic plot to make Trump look bad.

Trump’s fake news is his reality, but to him everything that contradicts his perspective is fake news that needs to be stopped. He has repeatedly called for major changes in the laws of slander and libel (defamation) to force mainstream media to stop the flow of anti-Trump criticism. Constitutional scholars have argued that the First Amendment would preclude any such efforts… but is that really true? There is already evidence that courts are applying new standards in what most lawyers believed has been a very established area of the law.

Writing for the October 26^th Lexology, attorney Mark Sableman (of the law firm of Thompson and Coburn) explains what could become a disturbing trend in defamation law: “In pre-social media, pre-Trump times, if someone accused you of knowingly lying about crucial facts, that would probably be defamatory. So Stormy Daniels’ case against Trump, based on those circumstances, seemed credible. Trump tweeted that a key part of her story, about being threatened, was false. He accused her of knowingly lying about crucial facts.

“But the court, in assessing [the defamation action of] Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels’ real name) versus Donald Trump, considered how people today think about accusations in social media, and (less explicitly) how they think about accusations by President Trump…

“Two things seem to have affected the balance. Today’s discourse, particularly in social media, truly is wild and reckless, across many platforms and many writers, and that recklessness has been given a kind of imprimatur by the Tweeter in Chief. The court in the Clifford case didn’t say it, but in a different case a few years ago, the court suggested that President Trump’s reckless tweeting practices have themselves changed expectations.”

What’s the bottom line here? First, these political trends are not “business as usual” or the normal functioning of the democratic process. These are seminal shifts in global sentiments generated by changing economics, internationalization, too many people with dwindling natural resources exacerbated by climate change plus the impact of rapidly accelerating technology.

Second, displaced incumbents feel betrayed by the systems that are clearly leaving them behind. New rules, new expectations and explosive change produce a need to place blame on scapegoats… incumbents, playing by the rules they have always known, simply do not understand or accept the massive and inevitable changes that have always defined humanity. We’ve been here before. Many times. We just do not seem to be able to learn the lessons of history.

I’m Peter Dekom, and absent the clear and decisive action of responsible people who care, the maxim that “it cannot happen here” will vaporize like water dripped onto a sizzling iron skillet.