thenation--2020-08-28--The F-Word: No Other Way to Describe Trump’s Fascism 2.0

Since the defeat of fascism in World War II , it ’ s been bad form in America to call a political opponent a fascist—or even a liar .
But given Donald Trump ’ s career of long cons , his cult convention , his recent suggestions about changing Election Day , and his persistent efforts to sabotage the Postal Service , it ’ s now naive not to .
Trump is openly seeking to win reelection by getting within cheating distance of the popular vote—and then hoping that some combination of state voter ID laws , discarded mail-in ballots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and the Electoral College will again make the loser the winner .
He is essentially attempting an unconstitutional putsch from within government to hang on to power .
( See Xi and Putin , and Hitler in the 1930s . )
MAGA Republicans , however , are in the grip of a “ believing is seeing ” content bias that protects their self-esteem and home team at the expense of obvious facts .
Swayed by Trump ’ s cunning ability to use populist rhetoric to camouflage plutocratic policies , this credulous cohort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , disinformation , and epic narcissism , blissfully repeating the excuse du jour whenever he ’ s exposed for some outrage ( it was a “ joke , ” ” the Clintons were worse , ” “ so what ?
, ” ” fake news !
” ) .
But such a one-by-one-by-one approach is akin to seeing only the dots of a pointillist painting while missing the big picture .
Let ’ s calculate the sum of this bill of particulars : • replacing the rule of law with the law of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pardons and praise while enemies are threatened with arbitrary prosecution ; • engaging in multiple obstructions of justice , such as firing FBI director James Comey and urging White House counsel Don McGahn to lie to Mueller ; • basing an entire convention on himself—no platform , Trumps proliferating like Borgias—and on the daily violation of the anti-monarchical Hatch Act because “ no one cares , ” according to apologist Mark Meadows ; • worsening economic inequality by shifting trillions through tax breaks to “ American Oligarchs , ” in Andrea Bernstein ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support his assaults on environmental and consumer laws to make even more money ; • inciting violence by hyperbolic attacks on opponents , embracing neo-Nazis and QAnon while ignoring warnings from the FBI about the number-one domestic threat , right-wing violence ( as seen in the Kenosha murders on Tuesday ) ; • enthusiastically embracing many of the world ’ s leading dictators—Putin , Xi , Bolsonaro , Kim , Sisi , Duterte , Erdogan ; • repeating Covid-19 falsehoods in order to pressure Republican governors to prematurely reopen the economy and schools @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100,000 Americans , so far , according to leading epidemiologists ; • politicizing the civilian-run military by deploying them to cities with Black Lives Matter protests and other “ Democrat cities , ” conflating all peaceful protesters with a a small minority of violent militants ; • attempting to stymie postal delivery to , in effect , steal millions of mail-in ballots… and the election ; • digging his finger into the wounds of racism and dehumanizing people of color and immigrants as “ animals , ” “ scum , ” “ vermin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ excite white nationalists ; • erupting with a lava of lies—now up to an average of 22 a day , according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler—to bury rivals and reality ( Goebbels in 1941 said , “ There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished ” ) ; • attempting to delegitimize the Fourth Estate as “ enemies of the people , ” using Stalin ’ s odious phrase ; • bullying respected , neutral sources of information—the CDC , DNI , FDA , regulatory agencies—to bend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; • rejecting science to advance his hunches and policies—on climate and Covid-19 , for example—that threaten the well-being of millions of people around the world ; • milking public office for private gain by treating “ his ” federal government like he treated the Trump Organization ; • attempting to criminally extort the president of Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden ; • firing career professionals and “ independent ” inspectors general for doing their job , increasingly having a government of cronies , cranks , multimillionaires , relatives , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subpoenas ( when Nixon ignored just one , it became an article in his impeachment , “ Contempt of Congress ” ) ; • and saying things such as “ I alone can fix it ” and “ with Article II , I can do whatever I want , ” as well as praising the Chinese Communist party for showing its “ power of strength ” by slaughtering thousands in Tiananmen Square in June 1989 .
Connect all these dots .
What do you see ?
“ They all have one purpose , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attorney general , “ to remove any check on his abuse of power.
” The emerging picture is not transactional conservatism but rather a deviant fascism American-style .
( For those still offended by the F-word , there ’ s more : For the first time in 58 elections , a president is refusing to agree beforehand to abide by the results . )
That ’ s not mainstream but extreme .
Recent books by Timothy Snyder , Madeleine Albright , and Masha Gessen have traced Trump ’ s growing pattern of lies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidents have occasionally engaged in hyperbole , lying , corner-cutting , or press-bashing , though none have done so daily , if not hourly .
One falsehood does not undermine democracy , but 20,000+ can ; one governmental reversal in court is not tyranny , but scores of such defeats reveal an administration at odds with the constitutional injunction to “ faithfully executive the laws.
” If we added up the anti-democracy maneuvers of the prior 10 presidents over the past 60 years , they wouldn ’ t equal Trump alone in under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ eight close associates of Trump convicted or indicted in his almost-one term of office , that would again exceed those of all presidents combined ( excepting Watergate felons ) from Kennedy to Obama .
Steven Calabresi , a cofounder of the conservative Federalist Society , was driven to label Trump ’ s tweet seeking a postponed election “ fascistic ” and worthy of “ immediate impeachment.
” George Will called his administration a “ gangster regime.
” Ex-intel chiefs Brennan and Comey compared Trump to a mob boss .
After his in-your-face convention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump now violate in order to win reelection ?
Are we approaching America ’ s brownshirt moment ?
If he walks , talks , and acts like a fascist , then good-faith Americans irrespective of party will conclude that Donald Trump is wrecking America so he can keep governing it .
The problem now is an ominous trend-line for the fall campaign : the 11-week interregnum if he loses , or the four years after January should he win another term .
If a president brandishes his contempt for law and truth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to racists and conspiracy theorists , foments a “ culture of corruption , ” provokes violence , coordinates with a hostile power to rig his election and consolidates political and economic power in a corporate elite and then isn ’ t regarded as a fascist—or monarchist or tyrant—who would ever be ?
Or must we wait until it ’ s too late ?
That ’ s why November is as urgent as the 1860 and 1932 presidential elections , when the country came close to tearing itself apart—first over slavery and then over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there ’ s a binary choice : fascism for the few or democracy for all .
After the failures of Mueller and impeachment , it ’ s now up to voters to return a landslide that not even the Electoral College can overturn .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Since the defeat of fascism in World War II, it’s been bad form in America to call a political opponent a fascist—or even a liar. But given Donald Trump’s career of long cons, his cult convention, his recent suggestions about changing Election Day, and his persistent efforts to sabotage the Postal Service, it’s now naive not to.
Trump is openly seeking to win reelection by getting within cheating distance of the popular vote—and then hoping that some combination of state voter ID laws, discarded mail-in ballots, dark-money super PACs, foreign interference, and the Electoral College will again make the loser the winner. He is essentially attempting an unconstitutional putsch from within government to hang on to power. (See Xi and Putin, and Hitler in the 1930s.)
MAGA Republicans, however, are in the grip of a “believing is seeing” content bias that protects their self-esteem and home team at the expense of obvious facts. Swayed by Trump’s cunning ability to use populist rhetoric to camouflage plutocratic policies, this credulous cohort denies all evidence of illegality, incompetence, disinformation, and epic narcissism, blissfully repeating the excuse du jour whenever he’s exposed for some outrage (it was a “joke,””the Clintons were worse,” “so what?,” ”fake news!”). But such a one-by-one-by-one approach is akin to seeing only the dots of a pointillist painting while missing the big picture.
Let’s calculate the sum of this bill of particulars:
• replacing the rule of law with the law of rule—courtesy of Bill Barr—as accused allies receive pardons and praise while enemies are threatened with arbitrary prosecution;
• engaging in multiple obstructions of justice, such as firing FBI director James Comey and urging White House counsel Don McGahn to lie to Mueller;
• basing an entire convention on himself—no platform, Trumps proliferating like Borgias—and on the daily violation of the anti-monarchical Hatch Act because “no one cares,” according to apologist Mark Meadows; Current Issue View our current issue
• worsening economic inequality by shifting trillions through tax breaks to “American Oligarchs,” in Andrea Bernstein’s useful phrase, who then gratefully support his assaults on environmental and consumer laws to make even more money;
• inciting violence by hyperbolic attacks on opponents, embracing neo-Nazis while ignoring warnings from the FBI about the number-one domestic threat, right-wing violence (as seen in the Kenosha murders on Tuesday);
• enthusiastically embracing many of the world’s leading dictators—Putin, Xi, Bolsonaro, Kim, Sisi, Duterte, Erdogan;
• repeating Covid-19 falsehoods in order to pressure Republican governors to prematurely reopen the economy and schools, causing the avoidable deaths of over 100,000 Americans, so far, according to leading epidemiologists; Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
• politicizing the civilian-run military by deploying them to cities with Black Lives Matter protests and other “Democrat cities,” conflating all peaceful protesters with a a small minority of violent militants;
• attempting to stymie postal delivery to, in effect, steal millions of mail-in ballots… and the election;
• digging his finger into the wounds of racism and dehumanizing people of color and immigrants as “animals,” “scum,” “vermin,” and “rapists” to excite white nationalists;
• erupting with a lava of lies—now up to an average of 22 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler—to bury rivals and reality (Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished”);
• attempting to delegitimize the Fourth Estate as “enemies of the people,” using Stalin’s odious phrase;
• bullying neutral sources of information—the CDC, DNI, FDA, regulatory agencies—to bend their expected integrity to his political needs;
• rejecting science to advance his hunches and policies—on climate and Covid-19, for example—that threaten the well-being of millions of people around the world;
• milking public office for private gain by treating “his” federal government like he treated the Trump Organization;
• attempting to criminally extort the president of Ukraine in order to smear Joe Biden;
• firing career professionals and “independent” inspectors general for doing their job, increasingly having a government of cronies, cranks, multimillionaires, relatives, and unconfirmable third-raters;
• ignoring all congressional subpoenas (when Nixon ignored eight of them, it became the third article in his impeachment, “Contempt of Congress”);
• and saying things such as “I alone can fix it” and “with Article II, I can do whatever I want,” as well as praising the Chinese Communist party for showing its “power of strength” by slaughtering thousands in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.
Connect all these dots. What do you see? “They all have one purpose,” said Sally Yates, past acting attorney general, “to remove any check on his abuse of power.” The emerging picture is not transactional conservatism but rather a deviant fascism American-style. (For those still offended by the F-word, there’s more: For the first time in 58 elections, a president is refusing to agree beforehand to abide by the results.) That’s not mainstream but extreme.
Recent books by Timothy Snyder, Masha Gessen, and Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig have traced Trump’s growing pattern of lies and lawlessness. Yes, nearly all presidents have occasionally engaged in hyperbole, lying, corner-cutting, or press-bashing, though none have done so daily, if not hourly. One falsehood does not undermine democracy, but 20,000+ can; one governmental reversal in court is not tyranny, but scores of such defeats reveal an administration at odds with the constitutional injunction to “faithfully executive the laws.”
If we added up the anti-democracy maneuvers of the prior 10 presidents over the past 60 years, they wouldn’t equal Trump alone in under four years—indeed, if you compare the eight close associates of Trump convicted or indicted in his almost-one term of office, that would again exceed those of all presidents combined (excepting Watergate felons) from Kennedy to Obama.
Steven Calabresi, a cofounder of the conservative Federalist Society, was driven to label Trump’s tweet seeking a postponed election “fascistic” and worthy of “immediate impeachment.” George Will called his administration a “gangster regime.” Ex-intel chiefs Brennan and Comey compared Trump to a mob boss.
After his in-your-face convention, what other laws will an unconstrained Trump now violate in order to win reelection? Are we approaching America’s brownshirt moment? If he walks, talks, and acts like a fascist, then good-faith Americans irrespective of party will conclude that Donald Trump is wrecking America so he can keep governing it.
The problem now is an ominous trend-line for the fall campaign: the 11-week interregnum if he loses, or the four years after January should he win another term. If a president brandishes his contempt for law and truth, disdains the separation of powers, appeals to racists and conspiracy theorists, foments a “culture of corruption,” provokes violence, coordinates with a hostile power to rig his election and consolidates political and economic power in a corporate state and then isn’t regarded as a fascist—or monarchist or tyrant—who would ever be? Or must we wait until it’s too late?
That’s why November is as urgent as the 1860 and 1932 presidential elections, when the country came close to tearing itself apart—first over slavery and then over laissez-faire capitalism. Now, too, there’s a binary choice: fascism for the few or democracy for all. After the failures of Mueller and impeachment, it’s now up to voters to return a landslide that not even the Electoral College can overturn.


thenation--2020-08-28--Death Was the Theme of Both the RNC and the DNC

Both the Democratic and the Republican national conventions were death-haunted events , but in very different ways .
The deaths that came up in the DNC were from Covid-19 and cancer , medical problems that are commonly shared worries .
The convention underscored the fact that Joe Biden has been the man of constant sorrow , who lost his wife and daughter in a tragic car accident in 1972 and one of his sons to cancer in 2015 .
The story told of Biden is that these experiences deepened his humanity and made him empathetic .
Viewers of the DNC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ability to comfort the stricken , to give that special hug or kind word that hurting people need in their darkest moment .
Biden is , in effect , running to be the commander in grief , a man who eases the pain of an afflicted nation .
His empathy will be the quality needed , it is implied , to grapple with the suffering wrecked by Covid-19 .
Biden also specifically promised to fund cancer research .
The RNC focused on a different type of death : that caused by violent crime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offered stories of people killed by rioters , undocumented immigrants , and terrorists .
During his acceptance speech , Trump singled out one such story : Here tonight is the grieving family of retired police captain David Dorn , a 38-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department , a great man and a highly respected man by all .
In June , Captain Dorn was shot and killed as he tried to protect a store from rioters and looters , or as the Democrats would call them , peaceful protesters .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re honored to be joined tonight by his wonderful wife Ann and beloved family members Brian and Kielen.To each of you , we will never forget the heroic legacy of Captain David Dorn .
Thank you very much for being here .
Thank you .
Thank you very much .
Great man .
Great man .
As long as I am president , we will defend the absolute right of every American citizen to live in security , dignity and peace .
If the Democrat Party wants to stand with anarchists , agitators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that is up to them .
But I , as your president , will not be a part of it .
The Republican Party will remain the voice of the patriotic heroes who keep America safe and salute the American flag .
This is the story of death that the RNC offered again and again : of good , decent people being killed by evil criminals who enjoy the protection of Democrats .
These were the most emotionally potent moments of the RNC , far more likely to touch the heart than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tax cuts and school choice .
As against the DNC , the RNC generally avoided talking about the ongoing pandemic , except to praise Trump ’ s response and to gesture toward a vaccine that will solve everything .
If Biden wants to be the commander in grief , Trump is running to be the presidential punisher , a vengeful leader who will strike back against those who hurt his people Both Biden and Trump are responding to the fact that America is being shadowed by death in a way it hasn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the last century .
The two death-haunted conventions speak to the fact that America is in a dark place in 2020 , with little hope of an easy recovery .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
Both the Democratic and the Republican national conventions were death-haunted events, but in very different ways. The deaths that came up in the DNC were from Covid-19 and cancer, medical problems that are commonly shared worries. The convention underscored the fact that Joe Biden has been the man of constant sorrow, who lost his wife and daughter in a tragic car accident in 1972 and one of his sons to cancer in 2015. The story told of Biden is that these experiences deepened his humanity and made him empathetic. Viewers of the DNC were repeatedly told of Biden’s ability to comfort the stricken, to give that special hug or kind word that hurting people need in their darkest moment.
Biden is, in effect, running to be the commander in grief, a man who eases the pain of an afflicted nation. His empathy will be the quality needed, it is implied, to grapple with the suffering wrecked by Covid-19. Biden also specifically promised to fund cancer research.
The RNC focused on a different type of death: that caused by violent crime. Again and again, we were offered stories of people killed by rioters, undocumented immigrants, and terrorists. During his acceptance speech, Trump singled out one such story:
Here tonight is the grieving family of retired police captain David Dorn, a 38-year veteran of the St. Louis Police Department, a great man and a highly respected man by all. In June, Captain Dorn was shot and killed as he tried to protect a store from rioters and looters, or as the Democrats would call them, peaceful protesters. They call them peaceful protesters. We’re honored to be joined tonight by his wonderful wife Ann and beloved family members Brian and Kielen.To each of you, we will never forget the heroic legacy of Captain David Dorn. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great man. Great man. As long as I am president, we will defend the absolute right of every American citizen to live in security, dignity and peace. If the Democrat Party wants to stand with anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters and flag burners, that is up to them. But I, as your president, will not be a part of it. The Republican Party will remain the voice of the patriotic heroes who keep America safe and salute the American flag. Current Issue View our current issue
This is the story of death that the RNC offered again and again: of good, decent people being killed by evil criminals who enjoy the protection of Democrats. These were the most emotionally potent moments of the RNC, far more likely to touch the heart than the more conventional Republican talking points of tax cuts and school choice.
As against the DNC, the RNC generally avoided talking about the ongoing pandemic, except to praise Trump’s response and to gesture toward a vaccine that will solve everything.
If Biden wants to be the commander in grief, Trump is running to be the presidential punisher, a vengeful leader who will strike back against those who hurt his people
Both Biden and Trump are responding to the fact that America is being shadowed by death in a way it hasn’t been since the great wars of the last century.
The two death-haunted conventions speak to the fact that America is in a dark place in 2020, with little hope of an easy recovery.


thenation--2020-08-28--Republicans Will Not Stop Screaming ‘Socialism’ Until Democrats Rebuff Them

The Republican National Convention finished as it began , spewing lies , loathing , and fear itself as part of a determined strategy to jump-start Donald Trump ’ s fall campaign .
Convention planners failed on many fronts , but they succeeded in keeping dozens of Trump children and in-laws , retainers and employees , congressional co-conspirators and prospective 2024 presidential candidates on message .
Trump returned to that changeless message at the opening of his Thursday night acceptance speech in which he imagined Democrat Joe Biden as a socialist “ Trojan horse ” rolling toward the White House .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nation , everything we have achieved is now endangered .
This is the most important election in the history of our country .
At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties , two visions , two philosophies , or two agendas , ” Trump declared .
“ This election will decide whether we save the American Dream , or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.
” That ’ s an absurd calculation .
But no more absurd than Vice President Mike Pence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would set America on a path of socialism and decline.
” Or RNC chair Ronna McDaniel ’ s announcement that “ Democrats have chosen to go down the road to socialism.
” Or Lara Trump ’ s claim that “ this is not just a choice between Republican and Democrat or left and right—this is an election that will decide if we keep America America , or if we head down an uncharted , frightening path towards socialism.
” Or Kimberly Guilfoyle ’ s confident assertion that “ Biden , Harris and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Republicans Have Organized a Backlash Convention , and It ’ s Tearing This Country Apart The Party of Whatever the Hell Trump Says Trump ’ s Republican Party has broken with its own traditions and violated most of the norms of American politics .
But when it comes to conventions , Trump ’ s a traditionalist .
Historically , conventions have framed fall campaigns , and this year ’ s Republican convention has done just that .
It has amplified big lies about the “ historic ” Trump economy and managing Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ law-and-order ” rhetoric with all the “ we can never allow mob rule ” subtlety of Spiro Agnew , while denying the reality of systemic racism .
And it has talked about a presumed socialist “ threat ” with such certainty that you would think it was 1945 in the United Kingdom when Prime Minister Winston Churchill ’ s Conservative Party was about to be bumped out of office by the “ Red Flag ” –singing comrades of the old British Labour Party .
But this isn ’ t 1945 in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a socialist campaign .
Far from it .
Joe Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool centrist with deep corporate ties .
He will not govern as did Clement Attlee—the British socialist prime minister whose record of post–World War II accomplishments belies the Republican convention claim of former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that “ we know that socialism has failed everywhere.
” Variations of the socialist theme—democratic socialism , social democracy , the “ cooperative commonwealth ” socialism of the Canadian prairie provinces , the “ sewer socialism ” of American cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the point made by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders , who campaigned in 2020 as a democratic socialist .
Sanders was beaten by an unapologetic centrist , and the Democratic Party will campaign this fall on a platform that eschews Sanders staples such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal .
During the 2020 primary campaign , it was frequently suggested that nominating Sanders would force Democrats to spend the fall countering Republican charges that socialism would ruin America .
But those claims presumed that Republicans would run a reality-based campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Biden is a Trojan horse for socialism , ” Trump announced on the last night of the 2020 convention .
“ If Joe Biden doesn ’ t have the strength to stand up to wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie Sanders and his fellow radicals , then how is he ever going to stand up for you ?
” That ’ s a fantasy that Trump and the Republicans will maintain through the fall .
Which brings us to the question of how Democrats should respond .
Had the party nominated Sanders , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Denmark and FDR ’ s Economic Bill of Rights— “ you are entitled , as an American , to decent housing , to decent health care , to a decent job , to a decent retirement ” —and the confidence of someone who has been talking about democratic socialism for 60 years .
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who was elected in 2018 as a democratic socialist , is equally at ease with the term .
“ So when millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism , we ’ re not talking about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boogeyman .
We ’ re talking about countries and systems that already exist that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world , ” the New York Democrat says .
“ We ’ re talking about single-payer health care that has already been successful in many different models , from Finland to Canada to the UK.
” Death Was the Theme of Both the RNC and the DNC LIVE CHAT : Join Us for the Republican National Convention We Need to Talk About the GOP ’ s ‘ Black Friends @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and AOC are not leading the party , so what of Democrats like Biden and Harris , who have never campaigned as socialists ?
If they want to win , they can ’ t get defensive when confronted with the “ S ” word .
If Democrats seem embarrassed or furtive , the Republicans will double down .
That ’ s what happened in 1988 when Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis struggled with the word “ liberal.
” Better to recognize that socialism is not the political “ turnoff ” that pundits imagine .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year , 76 percent of Democrats said they would back a socialist candidate , as did 45 percent of independents and 17 percent of Republicans .
Biden has options if wants to push back against the GOP ’ s socialist fearmongering .
He could borrow a page from President Harry Truman , who during Joe McCarthy ’ s Red Scare disarmed critics with a history lesson .
“ Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years , ” said Truman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ public power .
Socialism is what they called social security .
Socialism is what they called farm price supports .
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance .
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations .
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
” But the most compelling approach I ’ ve seen of late is that of Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey , who faces a primary challenge next week from Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy III .
Markey has been in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , and he ’ s never identified as a socialist .
But—and here ’ s where Biden and his crew can learn—he ’ s not afraid of the word .
Recalling when he and Ocasio-Cortez introduced their Green New Deal resolution in 2019 , Markey says : If Democrats start talking like Ed Markey , Donald Trump and Mike Pence won ’ t know what hit them .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
The Republican National Convention finished as it began, spewing lies, loathing, and fear itself as part of a determined strategy to jump-start Donald Trump’s fall campaign. Convention planners failed on many fronts, but they succeeded in keeping dozens of Trump children and in-laws, retainers and employees, congressional co-conspirators and prospective 2024 presidential candidates on message.
Trump returned to that changeless message at the opening of his Thursday night acceptance speech in which he imagined Democrat Joe Biden as a socialist “Trojan horse” rolling toward the White House.
“Despite all of our greatness as a nation, everything we have achieved is now endangered. This is the most important election in the history of our country. At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies, or two agendas,” Trump declared. “This election will decide whether we save the American Dream, or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.”
That’s an absurd calculation. But no more absurd than Vice President Mike Pence’s conclusion that “Joe Biden would set America on a path of socialism and decline.” Or RNC chair Ronna McDaniel’s announcement that “Democrats have chosen to go down the road to socialism.” Or Lara Trump’s claim that “this is not just a choice between Republican and Democrat or left and right—this is an election that will decide if we keep America America, or if we head down an uncharted, frightening path towards socialism.” Or Kimberly Guilfoyle’s confident assertion that “Biden, Harris and their socialist comrades will fundamentally change this nation.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
Trump’s Republican Party has broken with its own traditions and violated most of the norms of American politics. But when it comes to conventions, Trump’s a traditionalist. Historically, conventions have framed fall campaigns, and this year’s Republican convention has done just that. It has amplified big lies about the “historic” Trump economy and managing Covid-19 and mass unemployment. It has employed “law-and-order” rhetoric with all the “we can never allow mob rule” subtlety of Spiro Agnew, while denying the reality of systemic racism. And it has talked about a presumed socialist “threat” with such certainty that you would think it was 1945 in the United Kingdom when Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party was about to be bumped out of office by the “Red Flag”–singing comrades of the old British Labour Party. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
But this isn’t 1945 in the UK. The Democrats are not mounting a socialist campaign. Far from it. Joe Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool centrist with deep corporate ties. He will not govern as did Clement Attlee—the British socialist prime minister whose record of post–World War II accomplishments belies the Republican convention claim of former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that “we know that socialism has failed everywhere.” Variations of the socialist theme—democratic socialism, social democracy, the “cooperative commonwealth” socialism of the Canadian prairie provinces, the “sewer socialism” of American cities such as Milwaukee—have often succeeded.
That was the point made by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who campaigned in 2020 as a democratic socialist. Sanders was beaten by an unapologetic centrist, and the Democratic Party will campaign this fall on a platform that eschews Sanders staples such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Current Issue View our current issue
During the 2020 primary campaign, it was frequently suggested that nominating Sanders would force Democrats to spend the fall countering Republican charges that socialism would ruin America. But those claims presumed that Republicans would run a reality-based campaign, which was of course naïve. “Biden is a Trojan horse for socialism,” Trump announced on the last night of the 2020 convention. “If Joe Biden doesn’t have the strength to stand up to wild-eyed Marxists like Bernie Sanders and his fellow radicals, then how is he ever going to stand up for you?”
That’s a fantasy that Trump and the Republicans will maintain through the fall.
Which brings us to the question of how Democrats should respond.
Had the party nominated Sanders, he would have been prepared, with tutorials on Denmark and FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights—“you are entitled, as an American, to decent housing, to decent health care, to a decent job, to a decent retirement”—and the confidence of someone who has been talking about democratic socialism for 60 years.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected in 2018 as a democratic socialist, is equally at ease with the term. “So when millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism, we’re not talking about these kinds of ‘Red Scare’ boogeyman. We’re talking about countries and systems that already exist that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world,” the New York Democrat says. “We’re talking about single-payer health care that has already been successful in many different models, from Finland to Canada to the UK.” 2020 RNC Biden Republicans Are a Political Illusion Jeet Heer GOP Convention: George Wallace Meets ‘Duck Dynasty’ Sasha Abramsky The ‘Abomination’ of a Convention Makes Clear the GOP Threat Eric Alterman
But Sanders and AOC are not leading the party, so what of Democrats like Biden and Harris, who have never campaigned as socialists?
If they want to win, they can’t get defensive when confronted with the “S” word. If Democrats seem embarrassed or furtive, the Republicans will double down. That’s what happened in 1988 when Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis struggled with the word “liberal.”
Better to recognize that socialism is not the political “turnoff” that pundits imagine. When Gallup polled voters about it earlier this year, 76 percent of Democrats said they would back a socialist candidate, as did 45 percent of independents and 17 percent of Republicans.
Biden has options if wants to push back against the GOP’s socialist fearmongering. He could borrow a page from President Harry Truman, who during Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare disarmed critics with a history lesson. “Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years,” said Truman. “Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.”
Former US labor secretary Robert Reich proposes a commonsense argument:
If we don’t want to live in a survival-of-the-fittest society in which only the richest and most powerful can endure, government has to do three basic things: regulate corporations, provide social insurance against unforeseen hardships, and support public investments such as schools and public transportation. All of these require that we pool our resources for the common good. Regardless of whether this is called democratic socialism or enlightened capitalism, all are necessary for a decent society.
But the most compelling approach I’ve seen of late is that of Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, who faces a primary challenge next week from Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy III.
Markey has been in politics for the better part of 50 years, and he’s never identified as a socialist. But—and here’s where Biden and his crew can learn—he’s not afraid of the word. Recalling when he and Ocasio-Cortez introduced their Green New Deal resolution in 2019, Markey says:
The Republicans, Fox News, they called the Green New Deal when Alexandria and I introduced it “socialism.” Well, what do you call tax breaks for 100 years for the oil, for the gas, for the coal industries—the wealthiest industries in America shaking our money out of our pockets for tax breaks for them? What I say is: Give us some of that socialism for wind, and solar, and all-electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrids and storage battery technology. And we will be looking at the fossil-fuel industry in the rear-view mirror of history.
No apologies. No defensiveness.
If Democrats start talking like Ed Markey, Donald Trump and Mike Pence won’t know what hit them.


thenation--2020-08-28--Professional Athletes Are Showing America Just How Powerful Labor Really Is

The wave of strikes by athletes against racist police violence is not ebbing .
On Thursday night , the New York Mets and Miami Marlins took the field , held a 42-second moment of silence ( in honor of Jackie Robinson ) , and then walked off .
They left behind a shirt that read “ Black Lives Matter ” on home plate .
Numerous NFL teams have canceled their practices , with the Baltimore Ravens , after a four-hour team meeting , putting out a remarkable action statement .
NBA referees even organized a march in the Orlando Bubble @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Everyone Against Racism.
” Even the National Hockey League , after first ignoring what was happening , to the chagrin of many players , canceled a slate of games in solidarity with the events swirling around the sports world .
Pro athletes have shown themselves willing to fight and be heard .
Black athletes are saying that they no longer will be a repository of adulation with their uniforms on but a risk to be killed by police when the uniform comes off .
It is a historic moment by any measure , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t know where this is going , or how long it will last .
But folks are already asking what this can actually accomplish beyond raising awareness about the shooting of Jacob Blake .
For now , it ’ s centering the conversation in this country on racist police violence and not the gaslighting “ law and order ” bombast coming out of the RNC , and inspiring people to violence during a time of relentless darkness .
Frankly , if nothing else came out of it , it would still @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more .
Supporters want more .
Everyone strangled by the absence of political oxygen in this broken country want more .
NBA player leaders want the franchise owners to put some “ skin in the game.
” They want the billionaire owners—who are not only wealthy but politically connected to every municipality where they have a publicly funded stadium—to push for legislation and using their influence to fight back .
As NBA insider Shams Charania from The Athletic reported on Twitter from a meeting between players and owners , “ Players challenged owners @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to social justice changes ; create actions , not simply financial commitments.
” The Milwaukee Bucks and Brewers Strike for Racial Justice Masai Ujiri and Police Who Live Above the Law College Football Should Be Totally Shut Down , Even if It Hurts I ’ m all for extracting concessions from billionaires .
But there is another avenue the movement can take .
What these players are doing is nothing less than striking for Black lives .
They are using their power as workers to protest not only the police shooting of Blake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but also the fact that , as one player put it , “ nothing is changing.
” After a summer of marches , uprisings , and occupations , scant legislation has moved and police still act with impunity .
By exercising their power as workers , the players are inspiring an incredibly dormant part of the resistance to racism and Trumpism : the labor movement .
If the NBA can shut down in protest of racist police violence , why not other industries ?
Why not cities ?
Why not entire sectors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Strikes do not have to be about wages and benefits .
There is a long , hidden history in this country of striking for human rights— “ not just bread but roses.
” It ’ s a history the players could help revive .
That may sound far-fetched , but I can say that I received half a dozen calls from unionists or union officials last night telling me that they and their members felt like they had been hit with an electric prod .
The idea that everyone in the country was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place was making so many of these workers feel like they also had power .
This isn ’ t just about solidarity .
This is about results .
If the players want the results they crave , and if the country is as broken as they believe it to be , this is an actual solution : to strike against racist police violence .
to strike against Trumpism , to strike for Black lives .
Nothing else has worked .
But by withdrawing their labor , the players in the NBA have immediately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ launched a national conversation .
If that message blares across the land—and if labor leaders rise to the occasion and respond with equal courage—we could finally see solutions and not feel like we are all poised with bated breath , just waiting for the next hashtag .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
The wave of strikes by athletes against racist police violence is not ebbing. On Thursday night, the New York Mets and Miami Marlins took the field, held a 42-second moment of silence (in honor of Jackie Robinson), and then walked off. They left behind a shirt that read “Black Lives Matter” on home plate.
Numerous NFL teams have canceled their practices, with the Baltimore Ravens, after a four-hour team meeting, putting out a remarkable action statement. NBA referees even organized a march in the Orlando Bubble, wearing T-shirts that read, “Everyone Against Racism.” Even the National Hockey League, after first ignoring what was happening, to the chagrin of many players, canceled a slate of games in solidarity with the events swirling around the sports world.
Pro athletes have shown themselves willing to fight and be heard. Black athletes are saying that they no longer will be a repository of adulation with their uniforms on but a risk to be killed by police when the uniform comes off. It is a historic moment by any measure, and one without a blueprint. We don’t know where this is going, or how long it will last. But folks are already asking what this can actually accomplish beyond raising awareness about the shooting of Jacob Blake.
For now, it’s centering the conversation in this country on racist police violence and not the gaslighting “law and order” bombast coming out of the RNC, and inspiring people to violence during a time of relentless darkness. Frankly, if nothing else came out of it, it would still be important. But the players want more. Supporters want more. Everyone strangled by the absence of political oxygen in this broken country want more.
NBA player leaders want the franchise owners to put some “skin in the game.” They want the billionaire owners—who are not only wealthy but politically connected to every municipality where they have a publicly funded stadium—to push for legislation and using their influence to fight back. As NBA insider Shams Charania from The Athletic reported on Twitter from a meeting between players and owners, “Players challenged owners to be proactive, not reactive, to social justice changes; create actions, not simply financial commitments.” More From Dave Zirin “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash August 15, 2023 Why the Right Wanted the USWNT to Lose August 10, 2023 Carli Lloyd’s Attacks on the USWNT Are Personal—and Political August 1, 2023
I’m all for extracting concessions from billionaires. But there is another avenue the movement can take. What these players are doing is nothing less than striking for Black lives. They are using their power as workers to protest not only the police shooting of Blake and the white supremacist terrorism in Kenosha, but also the fact that, as one player put it, “nothing is changing.” After a summer of marches, uprisings, and occupations, scant legislation has moved and police still act with impunity.
By exercising their power as workers, the players are inspiring an incredibly dormant part of the resistance to racism and Trumpism: the labor movement. If the NBA can shut down in protest of racist police violence, why not other industries? Why not cities? Why not entire sectors of the country’s economy? Strikes do not have to be about wages and benefits. There is a long, hidden history in this country of striking for human rights—“not just bread but roses.” It’s a history the players could help revive.
That may sound far-fetched, but I can say that I received half a dozen calls from unionists or union officials last night telling me that they and their members felt like they had been hit with an electric prod. The idea that everyone in the country was talking about this “strike” taking place was making so many of these workers feel like they also had power.
This isn’t just about solidarity. This is about results. If the players want the results they crave, and if the country is as broken as they believe it to be, this is an actual solution: to strike against racist police violence. to strike against Trumpism, to strike for Black lives. Nothing else has worked. But by withdrawing their labor, the players in the NBA have immediately brought their bosses to the table and launched a national conversation. If that message blares across the land—and if labor leaders rise to the occasion and respond with equal courage—we could finally see solutions and not feel like we are all poised with bated breath, just waiting for the next hashtag.


thenation--2020-08-28--GOP Convention: George Wallace Meets ‘Duck Dynasty’

There are so many Signals this week it ’ s hard to know where to start .
One good place to begin would be with Hurricane Laura , which slammed into the Louisiana Gulf Coast with 150 mile-per-hour winds early Thursday morning .
Laura intensified from a tropical storm to a beast bordering on Category 5 intensity—with winds stronger than any other hurricane to hit Louisiana since 1856—in less than two days , giving Gulf Coast residents little time to prepare or evacuate .
As with the fires in California , the storm ’ s intensity was magnified by super-heated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s waters , which turbocharged the storm .
The hurricane made landfall just hours after Mike Pence delivered a speech laden with fascist overtones to the Republican convention , and less than a day before Trump abused the White House—the People ’ s House—by converting its grounds into a prop for his hour-plus speech , also laden with fascist overtones , accepting the Republican Party ’ s presidential nomination .
Like his boss , who spent this week ginning up law-and-order rhetoric while avoiding discussion of the myriad health , economic , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Pence didn ’ t discuss climate change .
Instead , he dismissed as silly the professional athletes who are protesting police brutality , going all in on the flag-waving , patriotism-and-glory message .
If you thought there were more important issues than attacking athletes for taking part in political protest , think again .
Climate change be damned .
Pandemic be damned .
Mass unemployment and rampaging inequality be damned .
In the run-up to the election , the Trump campaign , banking on a relentless barrage of imagery intended to stoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nothing but Noise hawking its brand of plastic , soulless “ patriotism.
” This vacuous patriotism conflates grievance and cruelty with love of country , shunning the diversity , inclusiveness , and pluralistic culture that give America its true strength .
It is a quintessential example of the patriotism that Samuel Johnson disparaged as the last refuge of the scoundrel .
This use of the Stars and Stripes as a cloak to hide wrongs and camouflage hypocrisies , to cast dissenters and critics—be they basketball players or Washington Post journalists against whom the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traitors and Trumpites as patriots , is the backcloth to Trump ’ s re-election message .
In fact , L ’ état , c ’ est moi was the odious take-away of the GOP convention ; from here on in , Trump and the state are one and the same .
Hence the Führerprinzip absurdity of a GOP platform that eschews all policies and instead says that it endorses anything proposed by Donald Trump .
Presumably that includes using a microwave “ heat ray , ” which make victims feel like their skin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the US-Mexico border .
No , that ’ s not some twisted left-wing caricature of Trump ’ s approach to immigration ; it ’ s what , according to The New York Times , his administration tried to convince Homeland Security agencies to adopt as an anti-immigrant tool in 2018 .
He has also mused aloud about building a moat , filled with alligators , along the border to deter immigrants , urged border agents to shoots them in the legs , and promised officials that if they stopped migration cold , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to ensure that they were never prosecuted .
Which makes Trump ’ s decision to livestream a naturalization ceremony during the GOP convention all the more disgraceful .
For four years , he has beaten up on one category after another of immigrants , dehumanizing and maligning them in language akin to that which Julius Streicher , master-propagandist for the Nazis , unleashed against the Jews .
How dare this malignant man now use immigrants as props at his convention !
Trump ’ s convention-week shamelessness wasn ’ t limited to the naturalization @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American city , Kenosha , Wis. , erupted in protests after yet another act of police violence against a Black man .
Trump ’ s sole response was to order the dispatch of federal agents to put down the protests and rage-tweet about “ LAW and ORDER.
” Nothing about Jacob Blake ’ s being shot seven times in the back while his children watched .
Nothing about the need for a reckoning with systemic racism .
Nothing about the need to rethink policing practices .
After heavily armed right-wing militiamen took to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protesters and one of them shot three people , two fatally , Trump had nothing to say about the perils of vigilante violence , no words of sympathy for the victims and their families , no presidential address on the need to ratchet down tensions .
Instead , he poured more gasoline on the blaze , and America was treated to yet another Twitter tirade against allegedly violent protesters and the anarchy that he claims Democrats threaten to unleash on the country .
It wasn ’ t the only time this week that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left-wing and anti-police-brutality protesters .
In Portland earlier in the week , armed Proud Boys and members of other far-right groups took to the streets and attacked protesters while police stood back and did nothing .
In rural Pennsylvania , a vigilante shot at Black Lives Matter marchers , sending one to the hospital .
Trump isn ’ t talking about this slide into 1930s-style street-fighting .
Instead , in the speeches of his numerous family members and in his own long , painfully dull speech Thursday night , he used the GOP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demagoguery on BLM protesters and those who march with them , banking on winning over working- and middle-class white voters and “ suburban housewives ” with crude appeals to tribal loyalty .
Trump and enablers such as Rudy Giuliani went after flag-burners , anarchists , looters , and alleged suburb-destroyers .
It was George Wallace meets Duck Dynasty , venom vying with cliché for rhetorical dominance .
There are fewer than 10 weeks until the election .
It will be a long , tense 10 weeks .
Having failed as president by every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in his power to stir as much chaos as possible before November 3 .
He realizes that ’ s the only conceivable way he can keep his White House digs past Inauguration Day 2021 .

There are so many Signals this week it’s hard to know where to start.
One good place to begin would be with Hurricane Laura, which slammed into the Louisiana Gulf Coast with 150 mile-per-hour winds early Thursday morning. Laura intensified from a tropical storm to a beast bordering on Category 5 intensity—with winds stronger than any other hurricane to hit Louisiana since 1856—in less than two days, giving Gulf Coast residents little time to prepare or evacuate. As with the fires in California, the storm’s intensity was magnified by super-heated conditions in the Gulf of Mexico’s waters, which turbocharged the storm.
The hurricane made landfall just hours after Mike Pence delivered a speech laden with fascist overtones to the Republican convention, and less than a day before Trump abused the White House—the People’s House—by converting its grounds into a prop for his hour-plus speech, also laden with fascist overtones, accepting the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.
Like his boss, who spent this week ginning up law-and-order rhetoric while avoiding discussion of the myriad health, economic, and environmental crises that are bedeviling the country, Pence didn’t discuss climate change. Instead, he dismissed as silly those who are protesting police brutality, going all in on the flag-waving, patriotism-and-glory message. More Signal:Noise The Climate Apocalypse Has Arrived Sasha Abramsky California Is Burning—and Trump Gathers Kindling Sasha Abramsky
If you thought there were more important issues than attacking people for taking part in political protest, think again. Climate change be damned. Pandemic be damned. Mass unemployment and rampaging inequality be damned. In the run-up to the election, the Trump campaign, banking on a relentless barrage of imagery intended to stoke racial animosity and fear, will be nothing but Noise hawking its brand of plastic, soulless “patriotism.” This vacuous patriotism conflates grievance and cruelty with love of country, shunning the diversity, inclusiveness, and pluralistic culture that give America its true strength. It is a quintessential example of the patriotism that Samuel Johnson disparaged as the last refuge of the scoundrel.
This use of the Stars and Stripes as a cloak to hide wrongs and camouflage hypocrisies, to cast dissenters and critics—be they basketball players or Washington Post journalists against whom the administration boasts that it is compiling dossiers—as traitors and Trumpites as patriots, is the backcloth to Trump’s re-election message. In fact, L’état, c’est moi was the odious take-away of the GOP convention; from here on in, Trump and the state are one and the same. Hence the Führerprinzip absurdity of a GOP platform that eschews all policies and instead says that it endorses anything proposed by Donald Trump. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
Presumably that includes using a microwave “heat ray,” which make victims feel like their skin is on fire, on asylum-seeking migrants on the US-Mexico border. No, that’s not some twisted left-wing caricature of Trump’s approach to immigration; it’s what, according to The New York Times, his administration tried to convince Homeland Security agencies to adopt as an anti-immigrant tool in 2018. He has also mused aloud about building a moat, filled with alligators, along the border to deter immigrants, urged border agents to shoots them in the legs, and promised officials that if they stopped migration cold, he would bend the arc of justice to ensure that they were never prosecuted. Current Issue View our current issue
Which makes Trump’s decision to livestream a naturalization ceremony during the GOP convention all the more disgraceful. For four years, he has beaten up on one category after another of immigrants, dehumanizing and maligning them in language akin to that which Julius Streicher, master-propagandist for the Nazis, unleashed against the Jews. How dare this malignant man now use immigrants as props at his convention!
Trump’s convention-week shamelessness wasn’t limited to the naturalization ceremony. This week, yet another American city, Kenosha, Wis., erupted in protests after yet another act of police violence against a Black man. Trump’s sole response was to order the dispatch of federal agents to put down the protests and rage-tweet about “LAW and ORDER.” Nothing about Jacob Blake’s being shot seven times in the back while his children watched. Nothing about the need for a reckoning with systemic racism. Nothing about the need to rethink policing practices.
After heavily armed right-wing militiamen took to Kenosha’s streets to counter the protesters and one of them shot three people, two fatally, Trump had nothing to say about the perils of vigilante violence, no words of sympathy for the victims and their families, no presidential address on the need to ratchet down tensions. Instead, he poured more gasoline on the blaze, and America was treated to yet another Twitter tirade against allegedly violent protesters and the anarchy that he claims Democrats threaten to unleash on the country.
It wasn’t the only time this week that Trump ignored right-wing street violence while demonizing left-wing and anti-police-brutality protesters. In Portland earlier in the week, armed Proud Boys and members of other far-right groups took to the streets and attacked protesters while police stood back and did nothing. In rural Pennsylvania, a vigilante shot at Black Lives Matter marchers, sending one to the hospital.
Trump isn’t talking about this slide into 1930s-style street-fighting. Instead, in the speeches of his numerous family members and in his own long, painfully dull speech Thursday night, he used the GOP convention to focus the party’s demagoguery on BLM protesters and those who march with them, banking on winning over working- and middle-class white voters and “suburban housewives” with crude appeals to tribal loyalty. Trump and enablers such as Rudy Giuliani went after flag-burners, anarchists, looters, and alleged suburb-destroyers. It was George Wallace meets Duck Dynasty, venom vying with cliché for rhetorical dominance.
There are fewer than 10 weeks until the election. It will be a long, tense 10 weeks. Having failed as president by every rational metric, Trump is doing everything in his power to stir as much chaos as possible before November 3. He realizes that’s the only conceivable way he can keep his White House digs past Inauguration Day 2021.
Correction: The text has been updated to reflect the fact that in his GOP convention speech, Mike Pence did not attack professional athletes for protesting police brutality, but rather people in general who are doing so.


thenation--2020-08-28--US Law Enforcement’s Warrior Complex Is on Full Display in the Streets—and in Leaked Documents

The flyer was heavy on drama and ellipses .
“ 3x as many cops chose to take their own lives last year as died from felonious gunfire… WHY ?
Evil is real … It has a plan to defeat you … ” it said .
Then , a quote : “ ‘ The skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible… ’ —Sun Tzu.
” This bulletin , uploaded to an Alabama law enforcement website in March 2020 and accessed by hackers this summer , advertised to officers a police training course , approved for seven credit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ training commission .
Titled ( in “ oriental ” typeface ) , “ Sun Tzu and the Officer Resiliency Mindset , ” the course promised to use “ the epic war tome , The Art of War , required reading for the CIA , U.S. Military Intelligence and the Marine Corps Reading Program , ” to examine how ancient wartime tactics “ are used to destroy law enforcement officer ’ s [ sic ] psychological well-being.
” “ This course will share ‘ rubber meet the road ’ strategies that will armor up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
” The flyer is part of 269 gigabytes of data stolen in June 2020 by the hacktivist movement known as Anonymous and published by Distributed Denial of Secrets , a transparency collective .
The files , known as BlueLeaks , come from over 250 law enforcement sites , and mostly span from 2007 to mid-June 2020 ; since their release , journalists have used documents swept up in the hack to shine a light on such malfeasance as the militarized targeting of immigrant rights activists , police–social media company collaboration , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some of the most recent BlueLeaks files—which cover the ongoing nationwide protest movement against racism and policing up to roughly its second week—also shed light on what countless videos and police statements this summer have exposed , and what the Sun Tzu flyer so unsubtly illustrated : that US law enforcement has a warrior complex .
In memos , intelligence reports , and other interdepartmental communications from the days following the police killing of George Floyd , domestic law enforcement agencies , especially those on the federal level , put on display @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , their propensity to portray themselves as under constant threat by conniving aggressors , and their willingness—even eagerness—to signal-boost disprovable rumors of dissenters ’ violent intentions .
Taken together , these documents give credence to one of the central observations of the Black Lives Matter movement : that law enforcement in the United States functions as a military occupation .
At the heart of the Anonymous hack are “ fusion centers ” —initiatives created in the wake of September 11 , 2001 , to foster more and better sharing of counterterrorism-related information between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enforcement .
Like so much of the post-9/11 national security apparatus , however , fusion centers have largely failed to live up to their original stated purpose : A Senate investigation in 2012 “ could identify no [ recent fusion center ] reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat.
” The investigation found that , among other deficiencies , “ fusion centers forwarded ‘ intelligence ’ of uneven quality—oftentimes shoddy , rarely timely , sometimes endangering civilians ’ liberties and Privacy Act protections , occasionally taken from already-published sources , and more often than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the BlueLeaks files from the first days of the protests , this description rings true .
They reveal that dozens of fusion centers and similar law enforcement initiatives disseminated documents from federal and state agencies that included transparently flimsy intelligence about the unrest .
Many files read as though law enforcement officials were using the fusion centers to play up the dangerousness of the protests and the threats that cops faced as the movement quickly swept the country .
Several “ intelligence notes ” from the Department of Homeland Security distributed across the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police that protesters were stashing “ caches ” of “ rocks , bottles , and accelerants ” or “ flammable materials , rocks , and other projectiles , ” making them ready for “ breakaway groups to commit violence.
” Rather than the DHS ’ s own reconnaissance or exclusive briefings from local law enforcement , however , the intelligence notes mostly cited local and national news reports to make these assertions ( and one merely cited a “ social media user ” ) .
Those news reports mostly parroted unsubstantiated claims made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of claims turned out to be false , as social media users and police officials across the country mistook construction materials and other common street items for protester weapon stashes .
The “ cache ” intelligence is an example of the abundant evidence in the BlueLeaks files that federal agencies , at least in the early days of the protests , were relying on public sources of information to fill the pages of their daily briefs—thus creating a messy feedback loop between federal law enforcement , local police , and the press that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another instance , a DHS intelligence note claimed that cops in Minneapolis “ were forced to switch to cell phones for tactical communications after learning that their [ radios ] were being monitored by individuals using publicly available police scanner apps to disrupt law enforcement operations.
” The only source cited for the claim was a throwaway line in an article from Coffee or Die , an online magazine sponsored by the “ conservative , pro-military , pro-law enforcement , and pro-2nd Amendment ” Black Rifle Coffee Company .
No other news source @ @ @ @ @ @ @ switch to cell phones during the protest mentioned in the Coffee or Die article ; when asked about the claim , a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department told The Nation , “ I have not seen the article nor do I have any idea if it was attributed to any person in particular.
” Playing War While Dressed to Kill in Portland And in yet another example of questionable intelligence work , the San Antonio division of the FBI warned in a “ potential activity alert ” that as of June 2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paying people in Bitcoin to “ agitate and commit violent acts.
” The hiring plan was “ rumored to be managed by members of Antifa , ” said the memo , which pointed to two websites—crowdsondemand.com and protestjobs.com—as venues “ used to facilitate payments to violent agitators.
” Crowds on Demand is a Beverly Hills–based company that provides clients “ with protests , rallies , flash-mobs , paparazzi events , and other inventive PR stunts , ” according to its website—hardly the violent insurrection scene .
Meanwhile , Protest Jobs is a full-on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make fun of “ paid protester ” conspiracy theories .
While the website posted a disclaimer that it represents a fake company only shortly before the release of the FBI memo , Internet archives show that other telltale signs that the site is satire were prominently displayed in the days prior .
These include an offer for a “ Mega-Protest ” package that promises between 200,000 and 1 million professional protesters , as well as an “ EZ-Riot ” package , which the FBI memo summarized neatly : “ protest packages…include , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paint artists , broken storefront windows , and car and dumpster fire upgrade options.
” The website also includes sardonic “ testimonials ” from some of the company ’ s “ professional protesters and protest organizers ” : • “ I was a broke college student but now I protest professionally and bring in over $ 7,000 a week .
I was even the President ’ s ‘ Black Guy ’ at one event !
How cool is that ?
!
” • “ Protest jobs was great work to supplement my trust @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests a year and make over $ 9,000 for shopping with my girls !
” • “ When I needed 3,000 protesters to show up at my America First rally Protest Jobs came through !
… Thank you protest jobs !
” Not all of the most recent BlueLeaks documents are so comically satisfying .
Many show the alarming sensitivity with which US law enforcement interprets any sort of interference in its operations , such as protesters ’ taking steps to protect themselves from electronic surveillance ; how police meticulously track protester activity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” or “ extremist ” ; and how quick federal agencies are to label protesters as violent threats .
The Border Patrol Was Responsible for an Arrest in Portland In a “ field intelligence report ” dated May 31 , for example , the DHS outlined an incident in which protesters purportedly got their hands on a Minneapolis Police Department portable radio .
A protester “ pressed the radio ’ s emergency button twice , sending an emergency signal to dispatch , ” according to the report .
A protester then broadcast into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ home , ’ ” soon after which officials deactivated the radio remotely .
The report used these two brief actions to label the protester or protesters involved as “ violent opportunists.
” As such , it alerted law enforcement that “ these actors may capitalize on violent extremist narratives often espoused by organized Domestic Violent Extremist ( DVE ) movements…and may attempt to incite others to violence to provide cover for their own illicit activities.
” Concerns over “ extremism ” run throughout other memos , some of which seem to designate protester @ @ @ @ @ @ @ content rather than any specific calls to violence .
A June 5 bulletin from the Colorado Information Analysis Center , a fusion center , lists examples of “ recent threats and attacks by anti-government extremists.
” On the list is an incident in Denver in which “ far-left anarchist individuals vandalized various buildings and structures…with a common anarchist symbol , an encircled ‘ A ’ .
” The list also included a “ call for solidarity ” from the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement , which merely “ referred to the police as ‘ pigs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power to the black insurgency !
Storm their vulnerable bastions of power !
Revolution now and always !
” While the Colorado report conflated violence and political speech , other documents conflated violence with run-of-the-mill protest organizing and safety and privacy precautions .
In an intelligence note titled , “ Some Violent Opportunists Probably Engaging in Organized Activities , ” DHS called attention to the presence of scouts and medics at protests , as well as the use of encrypted communications ( some of the most commonly used texting apps employ end-to-end encryption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intelligence report ” from the Tampa division of the FBI alerted cops that protesters were monitoring police scanners and disabling fingerprint and face-scanning unlock features on their phones , labeling the practices “ sophisticated tradecraft…to impede law enforcement.
” The Tampa FBI report also called attention to protesters ’ use of umbrellas , which they ’ ve used to shield themselves from police ’ s wanton use of tear gas and other “ less lethal ” projectiles , and social media posts advising protesters to cover their faces , tattoos , and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , police recently used facial recognition to hunt down an activist the department wanted to charge with assault for yelling into an officers ’ ear .
In addition to protester tactics , federal agencies displayed an eagerness to document social media posts that could be construed as even mildly threatening .
One “ situational information report ” from the Los Angeles division of the FBI called attention to a tweet that read , “ See a blue lives matter flag , destroy a blue lives matter flag challenge , ” to which another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ blue lives matter ’ crap on it just got all the windows smashed out .
Give em hell tonight .
# AvengeGeorgeFloyd.
” The original tweet had 26 likes and four retweets .
The FBI memo referred to the pair of posts as evidence that “ civil unrest in response to [ the ] death of George Floyd threatens law enforcement supporters ’ safety.
” In no BlueLeaks documents did The Nation find any recognition among law enforcement agencies that police officers across the country were routinely brutalizing protesters .
In fact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mention of police brutality during the protests came from a June 1 DHS memo , which portrayed claims of cop violence as a project of “ foreign influence activity.
” “ Russian , Chinese , and Iranian state media outlets over the weekend published articles concerning protest activities across the United States , selectively amplifying content surrounding riots and portraying the country as divided , hypocritical , and racist , ” the memo said .
“ Russian state media outlets particularly emphasized themes alleging excessive police brutality , police attacks against journalists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ BlueLeaks show that when it comes to policing Black Lives Matter , cops will view anything beyond a docile protest march as a threat .
( Even the dissemination of information is felonious behavior : The BlueLeaks dump prompted the Department of Homeland Security to internally label Distributed Denial of Secrets a “ criminal hacker group , ” despite the collective ’ s claims that it merely published the data after receiving it from an outside source . )
Fast forward to Tuesday night in Kenosha , Wis. Local cops patrolled the streets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the city ’ s 8 pm curfew set in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake .
When they rolled up to a group of white men with assault rifles—self-described militia members—they greeted them over one of the armored cars ’ speaker systems : “ We appreciate you guys , we really do.
” An officer in one of the vehicles stuck his torso out of the hatch and tossed a bottle of water to a rifled teenager in a green T-shirt .
Soon after the encounter , the boy in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ allegedly shot three protesters , killing two of them .
Contrast that with how the demonstrators have been treated .
Police see armed militia members as brethren ; law enforcement is hungry to feed its warrior complex .

Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Get The Nation’s Weekly Newsletter Fridays. The best of the week. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Fridays. The best of the week.
Thank you for signing up for The Nation’s weekly newsletter.
Repro Nation A monthly newsletter on the global fight for reproductive freedom. Email By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here.
Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue
Subscribe to The Nation Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter.
Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine?
The flyer was heavy on drama and ellipses.
“3x as many cops chose to take their own lives last year as died from felonious gunfire… WHY? Evil is real … It has a plan to defeat you …” it said. Then, a quote: “‘The skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible…’—Sun Tzu.”
This bulletin, uploaded to an Alabama law enforcement website in March 2020 and accessed by hackers this summer, advertised to officers a police training course, approved for seven credit hours by the state police standards and training commission. Titled (in “oriental” typeface), “Sun Tzu and the Officer Resiliency Mindset,” the course promised to use “the epic war tome, The Art of War, required reading for the CIA, U.S. Military Intelligence and the Marine Corps Reading Program,” to examine how ancient wartime tactics “are used to destroy law enforcement officer’s [sic] psychological well-being.”
“This course will share ‘rubber meet the road’ strategies that will armor up warriors psychologically, fortifying them against defeat!”
The flyer is part of 269 gigabytes of data stolen in June 2020 by the hacktivist movement known as Anonymous and published by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a transparency collective. The files, known as BlueLeaks, come from over 250 law enforcement sites, and mostly span from 2007 to mid-June 2020; since their release, journalists have used documents swept up in the hack to shine a light on such malfeasance as the militarized targeting of immigrant rights activists, police–social media company collaboration, and the use of junk science interrogation techniques.
Some of the most recent BlueLeaks files—which cover the ongoing nationwide protest movement against racism and policing up to roughly its second week—also shed light on what countless videos and police statements this summer have exposed, and what the Sun Tzu flyer so unsubtly illustrated: that US law enforcement has a warrior complex. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life A Grim Chronicle of Trump’s Corrupt Public Life Chris Lehmann
In memos, intelligence reports, and other interdepartmental communications from the days following the police killing of George Floyd, domestic law enforcement agencies, especially those on the federal level, put on display their zeal for War on Terror–style counterinsurgency, their propensity to portray themselves as under constant threat by conniving aggressors, and their willingness—even eagerness—to signal-boost disprovable rumors of dissenters’ violent intentions. Taken together, these documents give credence to one of the central observations of the Black Lives Matter movement: that law enforcement in the United States functions as a military occupation.
At the heart of the Anonymous hack are “fusion centers”—initiatives created in the wake of September 11, 2001, to foster more and better sharing of counterterrorism-related information between federal, state, and local law enforcement. Like so much of the post-9/11 national security apparatus, however, fusion centers have largely failed to live up to their original stated purpose: A Senate investigation in 2012 “could identify no [recent fusion center] reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat.” The investigation found that, among other deficiencies, “fusion centers forwarded ‘intelligence’ of uneven quality—oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering civilians’ liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published sources, and more often than not unrelated to counterterrorism.”
Reading through the BlueLeaks files from the first days of the protests, this description rings true. They reveal that dozens of fusion centers and similar law enforcement initiatives disseminated documents from federal and state agencies that included transparently flimsy intelligence about the unrest. Many files read as though law enforcement officials were using the fusion centers to play up the dangerousness of the protests and the threats that cops faced as the movement quickly swept the country. Current Issue View our current issue
Several “intelligence notes” from the Department of Homeland Security distributed across the hacked websites, for instance, warned police that protesters were stashing “caches” of “rocks, bottles, and accelerants” or “flammable materials, rocks, and other projectiles,” making them ready for “breakaway groups to commit violence.” Rather than the DHS’s own reconnaissance or exclusive briefings from local law enforcement, however, the intelligence notes mostly cited local and national news reports to make these assertions (and one merely cited a “social media user”). Those news reports mostly parroted unsubstantiated claims made by local police—and many of these types of claims turned out to be false, as social media users and police officials across the country mistook construction materials and other common street items for protester weapon stashes.
The “cache” intelligence is an example of the abundant evidence in the BlueLeaks files that federal agencies, at least in the early days of the protests, were relying on public sources of information to fill the pages of their daily briefs—thus creating a messy feedback loop between federal law enforcement, local police, and the press that was ripe for amplifying misinformation.
In another instance, a DHS intelligence note claimed that cops in Minneapolis “were forced to switch to cell phones for tactical communications after learning that their [radios] were being monitored by individuals using publicly available police scanner apps to disrupt law enforcement operations.” The only source cited for the claim was a throwaway line in an article from Coffee or Die, an online magazine sponsored by the “conservative, pro-military, pro-law enforcement, and pro-2nd Amendment” Black Rifle Coffee Company. No other news source has reported that Minneapolis cops had to switch to cell phones during the protest mentioned in the Coffee or Die article; when asked about the claim, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department told The Nation, “I have not seen the article nor do I have any idea if it was attributed to any person in particular.” Bringing War Home Playing War While Dressed to Kill in Portland Andrew McCormick
And in yet another example of questionable intelligence work, the San Antonio division of the FBI warned in a “potential activity alert” that as of June 2, “unidentified individuals” had discussed paying people in Bitcoin to “agitate and commit violent acts.” The hiring plan was “rumored to be managed by members of Antifa,” said the memo, which pointed to two websites—crowdsondemand.com and protestjobs.com—as venues “used to facilitate payments to violent agitators.” Crowds on Demand is a Beverly Hills–based company that provides clients “with protests, rallies, flash-mobs, paparazzi events, and other inventive PR stunts,” according to its website—hardly the violent insurrection scene.
Meanwhile, Protest Jobs is a full-on gag—and an obvious one at that—meant to make fun of “paid protester” conspiracy theories. While the website posted a disclaimer that it represents a fake company only shortly before the release of the FBI memo, Internet archives show that other telltale signs that the site is satire were prominently displayed in the days prior. These include an offer for a “Mega-Protest” package that promises between 200,000 and 1 million professional protesters, as well as an “EZ-Riot” package, which the FBI memo summarized neatly: “protest packages…include, but are not limited to, providing spray paint artists, broken storefront windows, and car and dumpster fire upgrade options.” The website also includes sardonic “testimonials” from some of the company’s “professional protesters and protest organizers”:
“I was a broke college student but now I protest professionally and bring in over $7,000 a week. I was even the President’s ‘Black Guy’ at one event! How cool is that?!”
“Protest jobs was great work to supplement my trust fund income. I work only 3 protests a year and make over $9,000 for shopping with my girls!”
“When I needed 3,000 protesters to show up at my America First rally Protest Jobs came through!… Thank you protest jobs!”
Not all of the most recent BlueLeaks documents are so comically satisfying. Many show the alarming sensitivity with which US law enforcement interprets any sort of interference in its operations, such as protesters’ taking steps to protect themselves from electronic surveillance; how police meticulously track protester activity, especially those they tag “antifa” or “extremist”; and how quick federal agencies are to label protesters as violent threats. Patrolling the Streets The Border Patrol Was Responsible for an Arrest in Portland Ken Klippenstein
In a “field intelligence report” dated May 31, for example, the DHS outlined an incident in which protesters purportedly got their hands on a Minneapolis Police Department portable radio. A protester “pressed the radio’s emergency button twice, sending an emergency signal to dispatch,” according to the report. A protester then broadcast into the radio, “‘stand down…go home,’” soon after which officials deactivated the radio remotely. The report used these two brief actions to label the protester or protesters involved as “violent opportunists.” As such, it alerted law enforcement that “these actors may capitalize on violent extremist narratives often espoused by organized Domestic Violent Extremist (DVE) movements…and may attempt to incite others to violence to provide cover for their own illicit activities.”
Concerns over “extremism” run throughout other memos, some of which seem to designate protester actions as threatening based on their political content rather than any specific calls to violence. A June 5 bulletin from the Colorado Information Analysis Center, a fusion center, lists examples of “recent threats and attacks by anti-government extremists.” On the list is an incident in Denver in which “far-left anarchist individuals vandalized various buildings and structures…with a common anarchist symbol, an encircled ‘A’.” The list also included a “call for solidarity” from the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement, which merely “referred to the police as ‘pigs’” and bloviated: “All power to the black insurgency! Storm their vulnerable bastions of power! Revolution now and always!”
While the Colorado report conflated violence and political speech, other documents conflated violence with run-of-the-mill protest organizing and safety and privacy precautions. In an intelligence note titled, “Some Violent Opportunists Probably Engaging in Organized Activities,” DHS called attention to the presence of scouts and medics at protests, as well as the use of encrypted communications (some of the most commonly used texting apps employ end-to-end encryption). Meanwhile, a “tactical intelligence report” from the Tampa division of the FBI alerted cops that protesters were monitoring police scanners and disabling fingerprint and face-scanning unlock features on their phones, labeling the practices “sophisticated tradecraft…to impede law enforcement.”
The Tampa FBI report also called attention to protesters’ use of umbrellas, which they’ve used to shield themselves from police’s wanton use of tear gas and other “less lethal” projectiles, and social media posts advising protesters to cover their faces, tattoos, and other identifying features. In New York City, police recently used facial recognition to hunt down an activist the department wanted to charge with assault for yelling into an officers’ ear.
In addition to protester tactics, federal agencies displayed an eagerness to document social media posts that could be construed as even mildly threatening. One “situational information report” from the Los Angeles division of the FBI called attention to a tweet that read, “See a blue lives matter flag, destroy a blue lives matter flag challenge,” to which another Twitter user commented, “Truck with ‘blue lives matter’ crap on it just got all the windows smashed out. Give em hell tonight. #AvengeGeorgeFloyd.” The original tweet had 26 likes and four retweets. The FBI memo referred to the pair of posts as evidence that “civil unrest in response to [the] death of George Floyd threatens law enforcement supporters’ safety.”
In no BlueLeaks documents did The Nation find any recognition among law enforcement agencies that police officers across the country were routinely brutalizing protesters. In fact, what is perhaps the most significant mention of police brutality during the protests came from a June 1 DHS memo, which portrayed claims of cop violence as a project of “foreign influence activity.”
“Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media outlets over the weekend published articles concerning protest activities across the United States, selectively amplifying content surrounding riots and portraying the country as divided, hypocritical, and racist,” the memo said. “Russian state media outlets particularly emphasized themes alleging excessive police brutality, police attacks against journalists, and claims of systemic racism.”
The BlueLeaks show that when it comes to policing Black Lives Matter, cops will view anything beyond a docile protest march as a threat. (Even the dissemination of information is felonious behavior: The BlueLeaks dump prompted the Department of Homeland Security to internally label Distributed Denial of Secrets a “criminal hacker group,” despite the collective’s claims that it merely published the data after receiving it from an outside source.)
Fast forward to Tuesday night in Kenosha, Wis. Local cops patrolled the streets in armored vehicles, seeking to enforce the city’s 8 pm curfew set in the wake of the police shooting of Jacob Blake. When they rolled up to a group of white men with assault rifles—self-described militia members—they greeted them over one of the armored cars’ speaker systems: “We appreciate you guys, we really do.” An officer in one of the vehicles stuck his torso out of the hatch and tossed a bottle of water to a rifled teenager in a green T-shirt.
Soon after the encounter, the boy in the green shirt, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot three protesters, killing two of them.
Contrast that with how the demonstrators have been treated. Police see armed militia members as brethren; law enforcement is hungry to feed its warrior complex.