Trump turns mostly peaceful protests into something else

 Column: Winter Park Times published 8/7/20

https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/turning-a-peaceful-protest-into-something-else/  

The Winter Park Times is a version of this posting. The "something else" is violence and making autocracy a hot topic.

 We recently watched President Donald Trump's attempt to demonstrate what a great, strong leader he is by bringing his brand of law and order to Democratic-run cities.  He also delivered messages he did not intend. He also showed he could turn mostly peaceful demonstrators into mostly violent ones.  When he sent federal agents into Portland, Oregon, who were dressed for battle in Afghanistan, the unintended consequences of his actions created a cause that reached beyond racial demonstrations and protests.  He has now made combatting "autocracy" a more publicly burning matter that affects all lives, not just black ones.

 Before our very eyes on the TV and social media, we saw heavily armed uniformed military types dressed for anticipating or provoking violence,  attempting to frighten unarmed protestors into submission. Instead of bringing calm by forceful suppression, the reaction to the  “agents”  increased the level of violence and the size of the demonstrations. We got a taste of what Trump’s second term would look like as he promoted dominating the streets and suppressing protests. What was once a criticism of Trump’s autocratic tendencies, a dry “political science” argument that the public was not able to touch, feel, or see, was now right in front of our eyes

     Trump chose one of the whitest cities in America, Portland to show how he would dominate the streets and put down protestors, tear-gassing and clubbing both peaceful and violent, white or black, moms and veterans. Initially, only media friendly to him covered the story and their film footage was turned into campaign ads. A few days later mainstream media began covering civil rights abuses they saw. The Trump administration used the federal agents outfitted for war.to do much more than just protect federal real estate. Trump looked like he was using dictator’s thugs to foment street violence so he could show how he could fix civil unrest he himself helped provoke. What he did accomplish instead was to show how easy it was to turn mostly peaceful demonstrators into mostly violent ones by using an aggressive force untrained, unrestrained, and unsuited for the task of calming angry waters.  Ignoring any constraints of civil rights laws, federal agents were  "reportedly pulling protestors into unmarked vehicles" and firing rubber bullets into crowds of protestors per a Forbes reporter. Even those not near or even threatening the federal property the agents were supposed to protect were spirited away to be interrogated . One protestor wielding a boom box message amplifier lifted over his head was shot with a rubber bullet, fracturing his skull. 

 For days Trump ignored state and local officials' requests to withdraw his forces because they were making a bad situation worse.  July 31 the battle geared federal agents were withdrawn after negotiation with state and local officials and Trump’s favorable polling numbers continued to sink.

     What we saw in Portland was not my mother’s, father’s, or our founder's version of democracy. It is the opposite, an autocracy. The way most modern autocrats gain power is the use of fear and force and abusing the power they had been given by voters. The history of autocrats from the left or right is to take the power away from people, convincing them to delay elections on some pretext as Trump just attempted, refusing to honor election results as Trump has threatened he would, and using suppression and intimidation as he just demonstrated he could use in Portland.  It does not have to be this way. The alternative is supporting the small d democracy, the kind we have had for the past 240 years.  It calls for allegiance to the rule of law instead of being forced to obey the rule by a person. In small d democracies, the laws should be written by a freely elected representative government and upheld by an independent judiciary. A small d democracy protects freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble to present grievances, an orderly transition of power. All of those concepts the President has challenged including stacking the judiciary, and favoring friendly media while denying critics access as punishment. The only obstacle standing between democracy and autocracy is words on a  piece of paper, the  Constitution, The only sure power left to defend the Constitution and to continue it as we have known it in practice still lies in the hands of the voters in 2020.

Portland, OR incident defines Trump's meaning of law and order that should scare those believing in democracy

Blog column July 18, 2020
Per media reports July 17, Trump ordered federal agents to Portland, OR, battle gear bedecked like figures in computerized war games. They were  "reportedly pulling protestors into unmarked vehicles" and firing rubber bullets into crowds of protestors  https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/07/17/trump-ordered-federal-agents-are-reportedly-pulling-protesters-into-unmarked-vehicles-drawing-outrage/

If Trump is planning to hitch his campaign wagon to his law and order plank, claiming under Biden there will be more strife on the urban streets because of defunding police, he will have a major handicap: Not only do people know Biden for his track record of service over 40 years, he was the first to come out opposing defunding police when the phrase "defunding police" was uttered by some on the left. If anything, Biden has come under fire from the more radical elements of the Democratic Party for supporting some law and order legislation in the past.

 In fact, to make the point Trump's advertising tries to highlight, that there is anarchy in the urban streets, as he calls peaceful protesters exercising their first amendment rights, he has drawn on film footage that has taken place under his own administration. One ad even drew three-year-old footage of pro-democracy protesters in Ukraine.  His proposal to deal with demonstrating opposition is to flood streets with thousands of his secret police troops armed for battle in Afghanistan,  just as he did in Portland.  His proposal to snuff out peaceful demonstrations with Gestapo like action would end democracy as we know it. His love of the tactics of dictators should set up alarm bells. Among his bag of tricks are some actions he already supports,  including suppression of minority voting, using his power of licensing and intimidation to destroy freedom of the press. He would be .turning  us into an authoritarian dictatorship aping the fascists of yore and modern dictators like Putin and Erdogan.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-putting-show-portland/614521/ "The president is deploying the kind of performative authoritarianism that Vladimir Putin pioneered."

MADE FOR TV AND CAMPAIGN ADS

Once again, Trump defines his meaning of law and order by giving a visual example what we can expect if he gets a second term. It should scare the heck out of those who still believe in democracy.
July 22, 2020: Welcome to Germany early 1930's. The same tactic Hitler used to rise to power. Create and stage the street protests to scare the crap out of the less than sophisticated citizens as his campaign ads feature his federal agents confronting Portland peaceful demonstrators. .https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/us/politics/trump-portland-federal-agents.html
However,, Ad Week reports that the picture used to illustrate the out of control Portland was 6 years old taken in Ukraine.  https://www.adweek.com/creativity/trump-ad-about-chaos-in-u-s-actually-used-footage-from-pro-democracy-rally-in-ukraine/

Democracy as I define it is a specific kind:  We have seen before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the dictatorships and totalitarian control by those from the extreme left, the Communists following at worst the Stalinist model.  They were likewise as damaging to humanity and human rights as were the fascists that rose in the 1930s and met their demise in World War II.  Fascism and Communist dictators are not the only alternatives to governance. , There is a form of democracy embraced by the founders of America and post World War II Europe that provides the third way of humane governance we have enjoyed until now.  Most attempts at our kind of democracy have met totalitarianism and dictatorships and the supporters of democracy failed to stop their takeover, by forms of totalitarianism and dictatorships, kings, and tyrants from early Greece and Rome to more modern eras. Our democracy is 250 years old, and only with the grace of those dedicated to democracy of both political parties stand in the way of its demise. Small d democracy calls for allegiance to the rule of law instead of the rule of a person, with the law formed by a freely elected representative government, protecting freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble to present grievances, and other  protections included  among  all those civil rights  addressed in the First Amendment

Additional comment: July 21, 2020: The first act I took after the election of Donald Trump was to become a monthly contributor to the ACLU. I feared what I saw of him during the campaign that he had no respect for freedom of the press or the right to peacefully assemble and protest. His intimidation of journalists who asked the hard questions and his use of his private army of paramilitary to dominate the streets and suppress peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square and Portland, his racism, and praise of armed militia and neo-Nazis, have more than justified my action. His action and words in these three and a half years have validated my fears that civil liberties would be his prime target to get around, ignore, and damage, the most endangered species in .our democracy.
https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-federal-response-portland-protests

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/18/end-unconstitutional-nightmare-aclu-sues-trump-administration-over-use-secret-police

Continuation of the July 18 blog column:
 In Portland Trump duplicated the same kinds of forces and techniques that he used to clear Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, of peaceful demonstrators. In face of generals refusing to allow the active military to clear the streets in the George Floyd demonstrations,  he tried another end-run around them using unbadged military types trained and pulled from various federal agencies picked to do his bidding. In this Portland incident, he used his authority under the legalistic guise of "protecting federal property".  Since some of these troops were positioned away from federal property, it appeared they were also there to intimidate the protestors. A young white man armed with a boom box held high was shot in the head by a rubber bullet cracking his skull. The victim was nowhere near federal property...nor was he a threat. His weapon was a boom box amplified broadcast,  ye gads. It was all caught on cell phone video, including snatching demonstrators and whisking them away in rented unmarked vehicles.  Nearly every civil rights and a couple of laws you could name, or the restraints courts had ordered local police to observe,  were violated by these military-style and trained Federales (a term I applied to federal police used by tin-pot Latin American dictators to quell the masses), but the best term more applicable came from the mouth of Sen.Ron Wyden (Dem, OR): "storm troopers".   That one has roots in Hitler's rise to power and similar techniques he used to consolidate his power.  Kidnapping, holding without charges, and manhandling have been used in recent times by Putin in Russia and China., particularly recently in Hong Kong. Using federally ordered thugs in military gear and secret police are common techniques used by historical and modern dictators to subdue opposition.   What was peculiar about this incident in Portland, the intimidating actions by stormtroopers, was that it was apparently staged for the benefit of FOX and covered only by Trump's loyal media.at first,..but several days later, July 17, the outrage of the Oregon governor and the Portland Mayor and the emergence of videos of weapons firing seriously injuring someone and military types throwing demonstrators into unmarked cars brought it to mainstream media.  Both state and local officials had worked hard to keep the demonstrations peaceful and their concern was that such action would only bring more hardcore protestors to the scene, ready themselves to do violent battle with the stormtroopers.

The purpose of this exercise was political, it appears since the incident coverage was engineered by  Trump media.  This is an indication that the purpose was to keep the favor of the cult-like followers of Trump, to whom the concept of democracy and civil rights seems to be considered a barrier to Trump's power rather than as some ideal worthy to protect. Trump was faced with polling showing his approval ratings had dropped to the high 30%  due to his inept handling of the pandemic and the George Floyd protests. Raising the issue of "law and order" certainly served as a diversion of attention from his tanking poll numbers. That he still maintains support for his economic policies,  seems strange, given conditions that echo the Great Depression. For others less devoted to him and disapproving of his handling of the pandemic and race relations, it was the reminder of a tradeoff:. "If you don't like me or what I do in other matters, I will at least keep you safe from those you fear and hate". 

This kind of military action certainly appeals to the core of the only group of followers who still had the majority of their demographics favoring him: white men with no college education, per recent polling, and followers of the ideology of some of Trump's ardent advisors: dominate the streets with military and suppress demonstrators, peaceful or not.   It was meant to send a message that Trump's law and Trump's techniques to force order would rule,  but the message it sent to the majority of voters who are now not supportive of him was democracy has no place in Trumpland nor did any respect for civil rights or the rule of law. It was what we could expect in a Trump second term.(For more go to the May 29, 2020 posting: Trump fans the flames of violence, yet calls himself the champion of law and order)