In addition to all the other crises and trauma we are dealing with as a nation, we have to remember to keep an eye on what President Trump and his enablers are up to.
As protests continue to happen around the nation, here are four increasingly bad actions Trump could take to use the protests for his own advantage.
Bad — Use the protests to distract from his feckless, abysmal handling of the pandemic.
For the past week, the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other persons of color at the hands of police or white supremacists have driven almost all other stories out of the news. This has helped take the spotlight off of Trump and his decreasing approval numbers, as even his own supporters were admitting that the federal response had ranged from non-existent to actually harmful.
In Trump’s mind, anything that draws attention away from his own failures is a good thing. As Teri Kanefield points out, Trump governs through chaos and crisis. Those are his chosen means of getting what he wants, or of distracting us while he goes behind our backs to get what he wants.
So, he will keep talking about the protests and the protesters, stirring up everyone and causing all of us to keep spinning in place. The best response will be to ignore the mouth and tweet diarrhea, and continue to calmly and accurately point out what an absolute trainwreck his response and non-leadership has been to both the pandemic and to the protests.
Worse — Use the protests to fire up his white base and bring them back to him.
Just like Republicans for the past 60 years, Trump will use the images of “scary black people” to alarm his white base and get them back on his side before the fall election. And for some of them, or even most of them, it will work.
Trump’s base is not all racist – but many of them are. Many of them are also older white people who don’t like diversity; they’re scared of it, or scared of what it might mean to their own position in life. He will use that fear to rile them up, to tell them that “those people” are the enemy, and that only he can “keep them safe.”
At the same time, in addition to the normal dog-whistles almost all Republicans use, he (and his surrogates) will use the most vile, race-baiting language and images they can find in hundreds of ads and speeches. They will take this campaign even further into the gutter, and will not worry about the long-term damage they are doing to the country. Winning in November will be all that matters.
If Kanefield is right, calling out the racism will only make his base happier. It’s hard to ignore, and sometimes ignoring is itself immoral. But perhaps a better take might be “we have better things to talk about than this call to hate.” Remains to be seen.
Much, much worse — Use the protests as an excuse to expand his powers, even to the point of using the military against civilians.
Here is where we leave the normal Republican race-baiting and fear-mongering, and cross a Rubicon to something completely out of our experience in our lifetimes, if ever.
The Posse Comitatus Act is supposed to “limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States.” It was passed to put some limits on the Insurrection Act of 1807, which said that the president could use the military to “put down” an internal insurrection.
Basically, the military (not the National Guard) is not to be used against citizens within the United States. There are some exceptions, in very specific situations and limited locales (such as after Hurricane Katrina). But, even in these instances, the powers allowed to the military are limited.
With his announcement on Monday, June 1, that he was sending “thousands and thousands of heavily armed troops” to deal with the protests, Trump seemed to be signaling that he is about to invoke the Insurrection Act, and ignore the Posse Comitatus Act.
If this happens, it will be the first time that the military has been deployed across the country to take actions against citizens. It would be a major expansion of the president’s powers, and a giant step toward authoritarianism.
I had a friend ask “is it time to hit the streets yet?” If Trump sends the military into the country to attack our fellow citizens, it’s time to hit the streets.
And the worst – Intentionally or inadvertently cause an actual civil conflict within the country
One weird phrase in his statement on Monday was “to protect your Second Amendment rights.” Was he, in fact, encouraging people to arm themselves? Was he encouraging them to start attacking the protesters? Was he saying that if everyday citizens took the law into their own hands and began using vigilante justice against protesters, even peaceful ones, that he would be okay with that?
All of this is, of course, pure speculation. But there is no doubt that some in Trump’s base have expressed their desire for armed conflict with their fellow citizens. If it begins in one place, will it get out of hand? Will people arm themselves in self-defense, and begin protecting their homes themselves? Will we devolve into anarchy?
Let’s be clear — I think these last two possibilities are remote, especially the last one. In my opinion, there are too many people who would stand up against either scenario, and would have enough clout to stop them.
However, let us not forget that we have massive unemployment, massive inequality, massive injustice, and anger aplenty on both sides of the political divide. The right spark in the right place could start a small fire that turned into a blaze.
Ultimately, the way we avoid that is to reach out to others, even across the political aisle, and build bridges. That is one of the ways you prevent fascism, and that is one of the ways you take the power out of hate.
Let us hope we all pay attention to what Trump is doing (not saying), and let’s do all we can to counter-act it.
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