.@realDonaldTrump: Get your DHS lackey and uninvited
paramilitary actions out of my state. Our communities are not a stage for your
twisted reelection campaign.
Sometimes it is/was a black sedan. Sometime a van, marked or unmarked. Sometimes the occupants are uniformed, other times without any obvious identification. It could be China (and now Hong Kong), Russia, North Korea, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Venezuela, Cuba or any other repressive state. An arrest. Person(s) taken, sometimes never found again. Sometimes “questioned” (that does frequently involve torture) and released, sometimes tried in a “court” where the outcome is preordained, sometimes just held indefinitely, sometimes publicly tried. These are the hallmarks of a police state, catering to an autocratic vision with dire consequences for contradicting the state’s official view, often simply the view of the relevant autocrat.
It does not happen in truly democratic nations. If it were to happen in any nation that claims to have true and free elections (most of the countries named above make that claim even when only one candidate is running), if the judicial system were to condone or be powerless to halt random arrests of dissent voices, then that nation’s claim to being a democracy vaporizes. In the United States, peaceful protestors are protected by the free speech and assembly provisions of the First Amendment in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, the ban on unreasonable searches and seizure (arrests) in the Fourth Amendment, provisions which apply to federal actions and, by the Fourteen Amendment to all of the state governments as well. So “it” cannot happen here, right?
Though the November election is months away, Donald Trump is getting hammered in just about any objective poll conducted in recent weeks. His rallies are not even filling their intended venues or are being canceled on “bad weather” pretexts. Increasingly, even GOP loyalists are beginning to distance themselves from his blatantly failed policies, particularly his dangerously inept handling of the pandemic, which steadily worsens despite his fabricated statements to the contrary. Without much in the way of campaigning, “Sleepy Joe” Biden is eating Donald Trump’s lunch. Trump has what he thinks are his “trump cards”: his evangelical base, traditional right-wing law and order believers, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists… many of whom believe in their and/or Trump’s distorted view of the Constitution and its applicability to their view of gun ownership, peaceful protestors, police power and individual rights to be free of government regulation.
We got a solid glimpse of Trump’s abuse of the Constitution in early June as peaceful protestors were cleared from Lafayette Park by federal Park Police, with US military personnel standing close behind, to enable the President to walk to a nearby church for a photo op (holding a bible outside the church). They used tear gas and “non-lethal” force to accomplish their mission. Trump’s supporters cheered. Constitutional scholars were aghast. Department of Defense and military leaders later pled that they did not know what was about to occur, distancing themselves from this Presidential action.
One of Trump’s many malignant proclivities is to make up a problem, describe that issue in exaggerated and horrific fighting words, and then set about to solve that non-existent matter applying Trump-style autocratic, ultra-right-wing nationalist militarist forces in open defiance of constitutional rights. In short, flaunting constitutional tradition to cater to that litany of his immutable constituents noted above.
Trump manufactured a problem in Portland, Oregon, where mostly peaceful protestors were railing against police brutality and endemic racism. By a wave of his magic mouth, labeling these protestors as “violent anarchists” (a Trump favorite expression), he created a justification in ignoring Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, and Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, who completely disagreed with the President’s assessment. Yet Trump ordered military-style officers from the Department of Homeland Security and its U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to march in, quell the protestors and protect federal property. July 16th. Tear gas and “non-lethal” rubber bullets flew. Unmarked vans cruised the streets, far from any federal property, arresting protestors on a seemingly random basis. Officers failed to identify themselves to arrestees.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that its agents had information indicating the person in the video was suspected of assaulting federal agents or destroying federal property… ‘Once CBP agents approached the suspect, a large and violent mob moved toward their location. For everyone’s safety, CBP agents quickly moved the suspect to a safer location,’ the agency said. However, the video shows no mob…
“Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown said Trump is looking for a confrontation in the hopes of winning political points elsewhere and to serve as a distraction from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is causing surging numbers of infections in Oregon and the rest of the nation… Brown’s spokesman, Charles Boyle, said Friday [7/17] that arresting people without probable cause is ‘extraordinarily concerning and a violation of their civil liberties and constitutional rights.’
“The ACLU of Oregon said the federal agents appear to be violating citizens’ rights… Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street, we call it kidnapping,’ said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. ‘The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered.’… Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported Thursday. Some have been detained by the federal courthouse, which has been the scene of protests. But others were grabbed blocks away.
“‘This is part of the core media strategy out of Trump’s White House: to use federal troops to bolster his sagging polling data,’ Wheeler said. ‘And it is an absolute abuse of federal law enforcement officials.’… U.S. Atty. Billy J. Williams in Portland said Friday he has requested that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General investigate the actions of DHS personnel.
“Oregon’s two senators and two of its House members announced they will also be asking the DHS inspector general, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, to investigate ‘the unrequested presence and violent actions of federal forces in Portland.’… ‘It’s painfully clear this administration is focused purely on escalating violence without answering my repeated requests for why this expeditionary force is in Portland and under what constitutional authority,’ Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said… ‘Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters,’ Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said in a tweet.’” Associated Press, July 18th.
Trump continues to support his fabricated allegations with this July 19th tweet: “We are trying to help Portland, not hurt it. Their leadership has, for months, lost control of the anarchists and agitators. They are missing in action. We must protect Federal property, AND OUR PEOPLE. These were not merely protesters, these are the real deal!” Repeating a lie does not make it true.
The response: “Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said President Donald Trump doesn't have a clue about what's going on in his city, adding that the Trump administration's tactics in the area ‘are abhorrent.’… ‘Well, the president has a complete misunderstanding of cause and effect,’ Wheeler said in responding to Trump's Sunday morning tweet [above] about Portland. ‘What's happening here is, we have dozens, if not hundreds of federal troops descending upon our city. And what they're doing is, they are sharply escalating the situation… Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism… And it's not helping the situation at all. They're not wanted here. We haven't asked them here. In fact, we want them to leave.’" NBC News, July 19th.
Given a desperate President with apparently serious and diagnosable psychological issues (according to PhD psychologist and Donald Trump’s niece in her detailed book about the President, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man), his ability to apply fabricated labels and his vision articulated by his own legal counsel in testimony before Congress that Trump is the law, there is a seething darkness to the waning days of Trump’s first term. At no time in American history has there ever been a serious belief that a president just might leave office after the expiration of his term of office. Is the American democracy teetering and beginning to unravel? Can the American democracy even vote itself into an autocracy?
I’m
Peter Dekom, and the danger signs suggest that Trump’s campaign is not a
“Transition to Greatness” but a “Transition to a Nationalist Autocracy.”
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