theintercept--2020-10-24--The Dark Money-Funded Women’s Group Rallying Behind Amy Coney Barrett

the Leadership Institute , a nonprofit that trains conservative political leaders , hosted its monthly “ Wednesday Wake-Up Club Breakfast ” at its headquarters in Arlington , Virginia .
The headliner of this event was Heather Higgins , an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune , as well as the chair of the Independent Women ’ s Forum and the CEO of its political advocacy arm , the Independent Women ’ s Voice , right-wing nonprofits that self-describe as nonpartisan .
For most of the event , Higgins stood before a clear podium and fielded questions on how to build @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revealing that IWF came up with a memo , used by Sen. Susan Collins , R-Maine , on how to support Brett Kavanaugh ’ s 2018 Supreme Court confirmation without alienating the # MeToo movement .
“ I will tell you that I ’ m extraordinarily proud of IWF , ” said Higgins .
“ We wrote a memo .
It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House , Fox News , and elsewhere .
Most important , Susan Collins told me that without that memo , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor , it ’ s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it , which is just so gratifying .
We ’ re watching TV and we ’ re like , ‘ That ’ s ours !
That ’ s ours !
’ ” After Collins ’ s hourlong speech , Sen. Joe Manchin , D-W.V.
, announced that he would vote for Kavanaugh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ necessary to confirm Kavanaugh .
It ’ s not the first time the IWF and IWV have sought to exert conservative influence over the Supreme Court , often by leveraging their positions as women ’ s nonprofits .
IWF rose out of “ Women for Judge Thomas , ” which was formed in 1991 to support Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas amid Anita Hill ’ s accusation of sexual harassment .
In 2016 , IWF and IWV were vocal opponents of President Obama ’ s Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland and in 2017 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , quiet confirmation , including by sharing misleading quizzes on the Supreme Court .
Now , IWF and IWV have turned their attention to pushing for the rapid confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett , including staging an “ I ’ m With Her ” rally outside of the Supreme Court on October 17 , at the same time as a Women ’ s March .
They have been quick to place op-eds in support of Barrett for the Washington Examiner , the Washington Times , and the National Review .
On Fox News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commentators , Kelsey Bolar , a senior policy analyst at IWF , criticized the Women ’ s March for “ advocating against women , protesting a highly qualified female nominee to the Supreme Court ” — part of a broader strategy of casting criticism of Barrett as anti-woman .
IWF and IWV did not return a request for comment .
IWF and IWV are carefully branded as independent nonprofits supporting women , regardless of their policy positions , which include opposing Title IX , employer and tax-funded paid leave , and the Violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Being branded as neutral , but actually having people who know know that you ’ re actually conservative puts us in a unique position , ” Higgins told donors in 2015 , a quote unearthed by the Center for Media and Democracy .
Beyond this neutral front , the groups are financially tied to an anonymously funded nonprofit network advancing conservative control of the courts , which could set the stage for dismantling the Affordable Care Act , the constitutional right to an abortion , marriage equality , and the regulation of pollutants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ block future progressive ( or moderate ) legislation .
The central architect behind this ultraconservative vision is Leonard Leo , former vice president of the Koch-funded Federalist Society and President Donald Trump ’ s adviser responsible for coming with a list of potential Supreme Court nominees .
In 2019 , an investigation by the Washington Post described Leo as “ the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges , ” which has received $ 250 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not require 501 ( c ) ( 4 ) nonprofits to disclose corporate funders , allowing corporations to exert an unlimited amount of financial influence behind a veil of nonprofits , which go largely unregulated .
IWF and IWV are not controlled by Leo , but they receive funding from organizations in his network .
The Freedom and Opportunity Fund , which Leo founded in 2016 , gave a total of $ 4 million in 2016 and 2017 to the Independent Women ’ s Voice , based on tax filings .
In 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ research arm of the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network , gave $ 300,000 to Independent Women ’ s Forum .
( We don ’ t yet know whether IWF or IWV received another influx of money from the Leo-tied network of dark-money nonprofits , coinciding with the current Supreme Court vacancy ; the 990 tax forms for this year won ’ t be publicly available until November 2021 . )
Donors Trust , which Mother Jones called “ the dark money ATM machine of the conservative movement , ” also gave $ 792,000 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ IWF , according to tax filings compiled by DeSmog .
Lisa Graves , a researcher on the influence of dark money in U.S. politics and the founder of True North Research , notes that the influx of money from Leo-tied nonprofits to IWF and IWV coincides with the period when they were working to keep Justice Antonin Scalia ’ s vacancy open , while ultimately pushing forward with confirming Gorsuch in 2017 and Kavanaugh in 2018 to the Supreme Court .
“ We do know that IWF is playing a significant role within @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ’ s nominees , no matter their record , ” said Graves .
Another key strategy to influence the courts by IWF and the broader network of Leo-tied nonprofits has been filing amicus briefs , which can make it appear like there is a wider-ranging support or opposition for an issue than in reality .
“ A small number of donors are trying to orchestrate this legal revolution , but it looks broader than it is because they are throwing their voices through a flotilla of groups , and IWF is one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To push Kavanaugh ’ s and Gorsuch ’ s nominations forward , staff of IWF and IWV made appearances on Fox News , wrote blog posts , and placed op-eds , including in the Boston Globe , and praised Gorsuch on IWF ’ s “ Working for Women ” podcast .
On Tucker Carlson ’ s talk show , Tammy Bruce , the president of IWV , referred to the sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh as a “ political stunt.
” Erin Hawley , a legal fellow at IWF , was quoted in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women think about Kavanaugh , which also included quotes from high-profile politicians , like Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez .
They hosted an “ I stand with Brett ” rally on Capitol Hill , along with other groups , including and the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network and the anti-LGBTQ Concerned Women for America .
Any victory for Barrett does not fully belong to Higgins and the women of IWF and IWV , but to the long shadow of the private donors for IWF , IWV , and others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while wielding increasing power over the most vital decisions , from who we can marry to the quality of the air we breathe .
The brochure from the IWF and IWV ’ s 2019 gala , which lists its private and nonprofit sponsors , offers a partial window into the private corporations funding it .
These include Facebook , Juul , Marathon Petroleum Corporation , the American Beverage Association , the Walton Family Foundation ( Walmart ) , Karen Wright ( the CEO of the Ariel Corporation , the largest global manufacturer of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dick DeVos ( former Amway CEO and the husband of Betsy DeVos , the secretary of education ) .
Who won the gala ’ s “ Woman of Valor ” Award ?
None other than Betsy DeVos .
This money isn ’ t all funneled into IWF and IWV ’ s efforts to restructure the courts ; it could also go to their work advocating for a range of issues that seemingly have little to do with women .
In the past few years , this has included downplaying the risks of pesticides @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arguing the science on climate change is not settled , and arguing for the privatization of school lunch programs .
A 2016 article by Joan Walsh in The Nation describes how IWF and IWV have come to take on a platform increasingly aligned with the Koch brothers .
Walsh traces this shift to 2001 , when Nancy Pfotenhauer , the former top lobbyist for Koch Industries , became the president of IWF .
In 2003 , Pfotenhauer also became president of Americans for Prosperity , a right-wing political advocacy group founded by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ left IWF , the ties remain : Sixteen of the current staff and board members of IWF and IWV have worked for organizations that have received Koch funding , according to an analysis provided to The Intercept by True North Research .
In her acceptance speech at IWF and IWV ’ s gala , DeVos described her goal of chipping away at Title IX , the landmark civil rights law that protects from gender-based discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funding .
“ So , we are working to dismantle the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the previous administration ’ s staggering overreach on Title IX , ” said DeVos , which then credits this policy position to IWF .
“ You were among the first to sound the alarm decades ago about the downstream unintended consequences of that 1972 law.
” Now , as Barrett ’ s confirmation looms , they are closer than ever to this goal .

On March 4, the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that trains conservative political leaders, hosted its monthly “Wednesday Wake-Up Club Breakfast” at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The headliner of this event was Heather Higgins, an heiress to the Vicks VapoRub fortune, as well as the chair of the Independent Women’s Forum and the CEO of its political advocacy arm, the Independent Women’s Voice, right-wing nonprofits that self-describe as nonpartisan. For most of the event, Higgins stood before a clear podium and fielded questions on how to build conservative political influence — at one point revealing that IWF came up with a memo, used by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, on how to support Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court confirmation without alienating the #MeToo movement.
“I will tell you that I’m extraordinarily proud of IWF,” said Higgins. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him. And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’” After Collins’s hourlong speech, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., announced that he would vote for Kavanaugh, helping achieve the threshold of votes necessary to confirm Kavanaugh.
It’s not the first time the IWF and IWV have sought to exert conservative influence over the Supreme Court, often by leveraging their positions as women’s nonprofits. IWF rose out of “Women for Judge Thomas,” which was formed in 1991 to support Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas amid Anita Hill’s accusation of sexual harassment. In 2016, IWF and IWV were vocal opponents of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland and in 2017 pushed for Neil Gorsuch’s quick, quiet confirmation, including by sharing misleading quizzes on the Supreme Court.
Now, IWF and IWV have turned their attention to pushing for the rapid confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, including staging an “I’m With Her” rally outside of the Supreme Court on October 17, at the same time as a Women’s March. They have been quick to place op-eds in support of Barrett for the Washington Examiner, the Washington Times, and the National Review. On Fox News, where IWF and IWV are regular commentators, Kelsey Bolar, a senior policy analyst at IWF, criticized the Women’s March for “advocating against women, protesting a highly qualified female nominee to the Supreme Court” — part of a broader strategy of casting criticism of Barrett as anti-woman. IWF and IWV did not return a request for comment.
IWF and IWV are carefully branded as independent nonprofits supporting women, regardless of their policy positions, which include opposing Title IX, employer and tax-funded paid leave, and the Violence Against Women’s Act. “Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position,” Higgins told donors in 2015, a quote unearthed by the Center for Media and Democracy. Beyond this neutral front, the groups are financially tied to an anonymously funded nonprofit network advancing conservative control of the courts, which could set the stage for dismantling the Affordable Care Act, the constitutional right to an abortion, marriage equality, and the regulation of pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and block future progressive (or moderate) legislation.
The central architect behind this ultraconservative vision is Leonard Leo, former vice president of the Koch-funded Federalist Society and President Donald Trump’s adviser responsible for coming with a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. In 2019, an investigation by the Washington Post described Leo as “the maestro of a network of interlocking nonprofits working on media campaigns and other initiatives to sway lawmakers by generating public support for conservative judges,” which has received $250 million from anonymous donors. IRS rules do not require 501(c)(4) nonprofits to disclose corporate funders, allowing corporations to exert an unlimited amount of financial influence behind a veil of nonprofits, which go largely unregulated.
Leonard Leo speaks at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 2019. Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post/Getty Images
IWF and IWV are not controlled by Leo, but they receive funding from organizations in his network. The Freedom and Opportunity Fund, which Leo founded in 2016, gave a total of $4 million in 2016 and 2017 to the Independent Women’s Voice, based on tax filings. In 2018, the Judicial Education Project, the research arm of the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network, gave $300,000 to Independent Women’s Forum. (We don’t yet know whether IWF or IWV received another influx of money from the Leo-tied network of dark-money nonprofits, coinciding with the current Supreme Court vacancy; the 990 tax forms for this year won’t be publicly available until November 2021.) Donors Trust, which Mother Jones called “the dark money ATM machine of the conservative movement,” also gave $792,000 in 2017 and $625,000 in 2018 to IWF, according to tax filings compiled by DeSmog.
Lisa Graves, a researcher on the influence of dark money in U.S. politics and the founder of True North Research, notes that the influx of money from Leo-tied nonprofits to IWF and IWV coincides with the period when they were working to keep Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacancy open, while ultimately pushing forward with confirming Gorsuch in 2017 and Kavanaugh in 2018 to the Supreme Court. “We do know that IWF is playing a significant role within this right-wing infrastructure and that includes defending Trump’s nominees, no matter their record,” said Graves.
Another key strategy to influence the courts by IWF and the broader network of Leo-tied nonprofits has been filing amicus briefs, which can make it appear like there is a wider-ranging support or opposition for an issue than in reality. “A small number of donors are trying to orchestrate this legal revolution, but it looks broader than it is because they are throwing their voices through a flotilla of groups, and IWF is one of them,” said Graves.
To push Kavanaugh’s and Gorsuch’s nominations forward, staff of IWF and IWV made appearances on Fox News, wrote blog posts, and placed op-eds, including in the Boston Globe, and praised Gorsuch on IWF’s “Working for Women” podcast. On Tucker Carlson’s talk show, Tammy Bruce, the president of IWV, referred to the sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh as a “political stunt.” Erin Hawley, a legal fellow at IWF, was quoted in a slideshow published by Refinery21 on what women think about Kavanaugh, which also included quotes from high-profile politicians, like Democratic vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They hosted an “I stand with Brett” rally on Capitol Hill, along with other groups, including and the Leo-tied Judicial Crisis Network and the anti-LGBTQ Concerned Women for America.
Any victory for Barrett does not fully belong to Higgins and the women of IWF and IWV, but to the long shadow of the private donors for IWF, IWV, and others — right-wing donors that remain largely concealed while wielding increasing power over the most vital decisions, from who we can marry to the quality of the air we breathe. The brochure from the IWF and IWV’s 2019 gala, which lists its private and nonprofit sponsors, offers a partial window into the private corporations funding it. These include Facebook, Juul, Marathon Petroleum Corporation, the American Beverage Association, the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart), Karen Wright (the CEO of the Ariel Corporation, the largest global manufacturer of gas compressors), Amway, and Dick DeVos (former Amway CEO and the husband of Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education). Who won the gala’s “Woman of Valor” Award? None other than Betsy DeVos.
This money isn’t all funneled into IWF and IWV’s efforts to restructure the courts; it could also go to their work advocating for a range of issues that seemingly have little to do with women. In the past few years, this has included downplaying the risks of pesticides and e-cigarettes, spreading climate disinformation by arguing the science on climate change is not settled, and arguing for the privatization of school lunch programs.
A 2016 article by Joan Walsh in The Nation describes how IWF and IWV have come to take on a platform increasingly aligned with the Koch brothers. Walsh traces this shift to 2001, when Nancy Pfotenhauer, the former top lobbyist for Koch Industries, became the president of IWF. In 2003, Pfotenhauer also became president of Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing political advocacy group founded by the Koch brothers. While Pfotenhauer has since left IWF, the ties remain: Sixteen of the current staff and board members of IWF and IWV have worked for organizations that have received Koch funding, according to an analysis provided to The Intercept by True North Research.
In her acceptance speech at IWF and IWV’s gala, DeVos described her goal of chipping away at Title IX, the landmark civil rights law that protects from gender-based discrimination in any educational program that receives federal funding. “So, we are working to dismantle the government social engineering in education, including the previous administration’s staggering overreach on Title IX,” said DeVos, which then credits this policy position to IWF. “You were among the first to sound the alarm decades ago about the downstream unintended consequences of that 1972 law.” Now, as Barrett’s confirmation looms, they are closer than ever to this goal.


theintercept--2020-10-25--Portland Reckons With Police Attacks on Protesters After Months of Unrest

nationwide protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd , the Black-led , police accountability group Don ’ t Shoot Portland sued the city of Portland , Oregon , over use of tear gas against protesters .
The lawsuit led to a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Portland Police Bureau from using tear gas , except in narrow circumstances .
But officers quickly switched gears , and in response to growing protests , they ramped up the deployment of OC spray , rubber bullets , pepper balls , flash bangs , and other impact munitions known as “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Don ’ t Shoot Portland again sought and obtained a court order to limit police ’ s use of those weapons .
Then on June 30 , just four days after a federal judge had sided with protesters and issued a restraining order on the use by police of less-lethal weapons , Portland officers meeting protesters outside the local police union building again fired smoke grenades , rubber bullets , and other impact munitions into the crowd , injuring several people .
They then declared the protest a riot and deployed tear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use .
“ They blatantly ignored the order , ” Tai Carpenter , Don ’ t Shoot Portland ’ s board president , told The Intercept .
“ What happened on June 30 was just an all-out attack on civilians .
That night just really stands out for the vast amount of violence that was being inflicted on the street.
” In August , as protests in Portland continued uninterrupted for a third month , Don ’ t Shoot Portland filed a new motion , asking the federal judge in the case to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over police use of “ less-lethal ” munitions that night .
In a court hearing this week , protesters testified in graphic detail about what they described as an unprovoked , violent response to a protest that had been largely peaceful .
A spokesperson for the city of Portland declined to comment on pending litigation .
Attorneys for the city said in court that police response “ was based on good faith and reasonable interpretations of the less-lethal order.
” They argued that police were responding to protesters throwing bottles , rocks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , and that officers feared that protesters would set the police union ’ s building on fire .
In court filings , they wrote that plaintiffs had offered “ vague descriptions of uses of force such that it is not possible to begin to evaluate whether the uses violate the Less Lethal Order.
” The implication that a confrontation between protesters and police was too chaotic to discern , and that police were justified in their outsize response by some individuals ’ actions toward them , is one that ’ s been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Often the official narrative established by police is hard to challenge in a court setting , because evidence is usually messy or incomplete , or the chain of events gets obscured in the fog of war surrounding many protests .
But the June 30 incidents were not only among the most violent in Portland ’ s summer of protest , they were also some of the best documented , captured in several long videos shot from different angles by protesters and bystanders .
“ It was one of the most heavily visualized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Carpenter .
“ There were a lot of livestreamers there , there were people on their balconies , because it was in a residential neighborhood.
” In fact , the number and quality of videos has allowed attorneys for Don ’ t Shoot Portland , working with the applied-research group SITU , to produce an unusually detailed reconstruction of that night ’ s events , a granular analysis of a number of incidents of police violence over a 90-minute period of time that clearly shows the circumstances , and lack of justification , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The reconstruction , which was shown in court , offered a forensic analysis of a protest with a level of detail that is usually reserved for criminal investigations .
It provided a rare piece of evidence of abuse by officers that is much harder to dismiss than many witness accounts of police violence , opening the door for an equally rare moment of accountability .
“ What these protests have exposed is the utter contempt that the police bureau has for criticism or even the idea that anybody should question what they do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one of the attorneys representing Don ’ t Shoot Portland , told The Intercept .
“ You can watch it on video what actually happened , ” he added.
“ What we ’ re hopeful of is that this helps the court impose the accountability that the city has been unwilling or unable to impose on the police bureau.
” On the evening of June 30 , protesters who had previously stayed mostly downtown for the first time moved to the more suburban area where the Portland Police Association has its headquarters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people in Portland had begun to protest not only to demand justice for Floyd , but also large cuts to the police bureau ’ s budget and accountability for violence carried out by local police .
In court documents , Don ’ t Shoot Portland called the police union “ the chief obstacle to police accountability in this city.
” Protesters met a line of officers before reaching the union ’ s building and stopped at a distance , chanting or listening to speakers .
Witnesses described seeing a couple plastic bottles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ further criminal conduct and “ nothing shocking or riotous.
” But within minutes of protesters ’ arrival , officers in full riot gear filled the street .
Using a loudspeaker on an LRAD truck , a type of sonic weapon sometimes deployed at protests , they announced that the assembly had been declared unlawful and threatened to deploy force to arrest protesters .
Then , as the crowd complied with orders to move back , police , unprovoked , begun pushing and beating people back with batons .
Almost immediately , and responding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first impact munitions and pepper-sprayed people at close range .
The reconstruction of the following hour and a half that was presented in court zeroed in on four moments that evening during which police deployed multiple types of less-lethal weapons , as well as a moment when they “ bull-rushed ” into the crowd .
It ends showing police as they declared a riot and deployed tear gas .
In the first incident , police can be seen shoving and beating people with batons and pepper-spraying them in the face , before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even as protesters are moving back as directed .
Police are also shown grabbing a protester holding a banner , ripping it , and preventing people from dispersing despite ordering them to do so .
In the second incident , a protester can be seen throwing a bottle on the ground in front of police — in response to which police fire impact munitions at the protester multiple times before rolling a smoke grenade into the receding crowd .
Officers are then seen firing at a different protester who kicked away a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , police are seen shooting impact munitions at a crowd that was posing no threat , from 120 feet away , and then doing so again at a closer distance during a fourth incident .
In court , James Comstock , a lead investigator in the case , walked a judge through SITU ’ s reconstruction , which he explained was built using a laser scan of the area to reproduce a three-dimensional model of the street where the protest took place .
Visual evidence of each incident was then mapped onto the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Each incident was presented from multiple viewpoints , including side views and aerial views captured by a bystander filming from his balcony .
And each deployment of force was shown in the context of the 30 seconds that preceded it , in order to paint as accurate a picture as possible of any action that might have justified it .
“ I don ’ t know that anybody has used a reconstruction like this in a protest case , ” Merrithew told The Intercept .
“ We use them all the time in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ similar reconstructions for police shooting cases.
” “ It gives a really good overview for people to understand what ’ s going on , the movement of the police and the protesters , and the violence , and it ’ s in real-time so you can actually see what ’ s happening , ” echoed Carpenter .
“ It will show a lot of people what we ’ ve been saying , that it was all unprovoked.
” In court , the judge also heard firsthand accounts from protest participants , including Pedro @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot with a rubber bullet after kicking a smoke canister away , and Eric Greatwood , a livestreamer and a regular presence at Portland protests who recorded most of the evening with a video action camera placed on top of a 20-foot pole , and who was shot in the groin with a FN303 round , a type of impact munition that has caused fatal injuries in the past .
Anglada Cordero , who was at the protest with his wife , was retreating from police along with most others in the crowd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him .
Anglada Cordero , who noted that his wife had already been coughing because of the chemical agents in the air , said that he instinctively moved to kick the can away .
When the can barely moved , he took a few more steps and kicked it further away , the video shows .
Police immediately shot him with rubber bullets , hitting him once behind the knee and once in the thigh , and leaving tennis ball-sized bruises later documented in court filings .
“ My first , spontaneous reaction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” he told The Intercept , referring to the canister .
“ It was in my interest to keep our immediate group safe from being exposed to more agents.
” But police took the gesture as an attack on them , and right after he kicked the canister , things escalated quickly , Anglada Cordero said .
Moments later someone who tried to grab and toss a can was tackled to the ground .
In court , city attorneys sought to describe the incidents as evidence of protesters ’ violent conduct .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect his wife , himself , and those in his immediate vicinity .
“ The moment they toss a smoke canister our way and the moment someone kicks it back , that constitutes a reason for them to escalate and retaliate , ” he told The Intercept .
“ So suddenly they are in the right to use ammunition against the crowd , but the crowd has no right to defend themselves.
” Eric Greatwood , an independent livestreamer who has filmed dozens of protests , captured much of the evening on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the reconstruction presented in court .
At one point , officers recognized him and called him by name , ordering him to move back .
“ That just sent the hairs of my arm up , just to call me by my name like that , ” Greatwood told The Intercept .
He complied but kept filming from the sidelines as police arrested protesters .
Then moments later , as Greatwood crouched down to look at an unexploded smoke grenade , police fired an impact munition at him , hitting him in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fact that they did it intentionally because there have been other people who have been fired on in that area , ” said Greatwood , who can be heard moaning in the video as his camera kept rolling .
“ They have sights on those things , they know exactly how to fire them , they are supposed to bounce them off the ground .
They fired directly at me.
” A U.S. Air Force veteran , Greatwood said that anyone in the military caught doing what police did to him would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t know how a man can actually hit another man in the groin , that just completely baffles me , he totally aimed for it.
” The officer who shot him , Brent Taylor , said in court that had had not intended to target Greatwood ’ s groin .
“ I ’ m shooting at a moving target , ” he testified .
“ I ’ m aiming at his lower legs but how quickly he changes his position , I can not control.
” Greatwood , who has filed notice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for using excessive force , said that he was in pain for weeks after being shot and had difficulty using the bathroom .
But he was back the next day to livestream another protest , and many more since then .
“ I just couldn ’ t not film what was happening.
” In court , attorneys for the city pushed back against the reconstruction presented on behalf of Don ’ t Shoot Portland .
“ It wasn ’ t an effort to provide an objective presentation from both police perspective and demonstrator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the city asked Comstock in cross-examination , noting that the reconstruction focused for instance on the actions of Portland police , and not of Oregon State Police who were also on the scene .
“ The purpose of this video is giving context around the video that we ’ ve collected , ” Comstock replied .
In fact , the legal team representing protesters said that they chose to reconstruct the June 30 incidents over other episodes during which police may also have violated court orders in part because of the volume @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s important for the case to be able to give the court the best possible , quality evidence so the court can determine whether or not they violated the order , ” said Merrithew .
But as Portlanders reckon with the historic wave of protests that has gripped the city for months , leading to two deaths and hundreds of arrests , and as the upcoming mayoral race is likely to be determined in large part by officials ’ response to the protests , the broader public also has a right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Merrithew argued .
“ Probably a very small percentage of the public is looking at these things every night and actually paying attention to what ’ s going on ; they ’ re hearing it from a 10,000-foot view , which allows them to sort of be naive in whatever camp they ’ re predisposed to be in , ” he said .
“ We ’ re trying to bring the same quality of evidence to the public as we are to the court , because the public needs to understand that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bureau are false .
The public needs to understand what these public employees are doing in their name.
” The impulse to discern and record what was happening is also what drove Greatwood to start livestreaming the protests in Portland .
“ I ’ ve seen a lot of footage that was basically just the backs of people ’ s heads , and there was a lot of chaos , but you couldn ’ t exactly see anything , ” he said , adding that his video camera , placed on top of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , offers a bird ’ s eye view of the protests .
“ I wanted to figure out if protesters were causing the police ’ s actions or if the police were just being a little bit heavy-handed.
” Greatwood said that he has always been respectful toward officers at protests , getting out of their way when asked and limiting himself to documenting what was happening , including on June 30 .
But he felt he had been targeted that night because he was there with a camera .
“ They are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been acting out of line , and they don ’ t like it being broadcast , ” he said .
“ If you are doing things that are proper , you shouldn ’ t be afraid of a camera and the truth.
” That night , he said , he had seen “ barely anything happening ” before police unleashed on protesters .
“ I saw more things that seemed blown out of proportion when it came to the police providing footage or photos to the press , ” he added .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of gaslighting from the police , and that there was not a whole lot that the protesters were doing to get them egged on.
” Others who testified last week also said that regardless of the outcome in court , it was important for Portland residents to document and address the harm and trauma inflicted on countless protesters over the last months .
“ There are so many people that have gone through something so similar to what I went through that night , ” said Anglada Cordero , who after being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at close range and couldn ’ t breathe .
“ When you go through such an experience , and you see others hurt , then you feel compelled to come out and be in solidarity with others .
And that ’ s what happens every night , when people are getting hurt , more people come out and help each other.
” The judge in the case is expected to rule on whether to hold the city in contempt of court in the coming days .
“ It ’ s hard to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s been proven all your life that your civil liberties don ’ t matter , ” said Carpenter of Don ’ t Shoot Portland .
“ But the trauma and the violence have been clearly documented on the record ; they ’ re facts that can ’ t be ignored .
Even with the way that our justice system works , there has to be accountability .
”

Days into the nationwide protest movement sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, the Black-led, police accountability group Don’t Shoot Portland sued the city of Portland, Oregon, over use of tear gas against protesters. The lawsuit led to a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Portland Police Bureau from using tear gas, except in narrow circumstances. But officers quickly switched gears, and in response to growing protests, they ramped up the deployment of OC spray, rubber bullets, pepper balls, flash bangs, and other impact munitions known as “nonlethal” or “less-lethal” weapons. Don’t Shoot Portland again sought and obtained a court order to limit police’s use of those weapons.
Then on June 30, just four days after a federal judge had sided with protesters and issued a restraining order on the use by police of less-lethal weapons, Portland officers meeting protesters outside the local police union building again fired smoke grenades, rubber bullets, and other impact munitions into the crowd, injuring several people. They then declared the protest a riot and deployed tear gas despite the court order restricting its use.
“They blatantly ignored the order,” Tai Carpenter, Don’t Shoot Portland’s board president, told The Intercept. “What happened on June 30 was just an all-out attack on civilians. That night just really stands out for the vast amount of violence that was being inflicted on the street.”
In August, as protests in Portland continued uninterrupted for a third month, Don’t Shoot Portland filed a new motion, asking the federal judge in the case to hold the city in contempt of court over police use of “less-lethal” munitions that night. In a court hearing this week, protesters testified in graphic detail about what they described as an unprovoked, violent response to a protest that had been largely peaceful.
A spokesperson for the city of Portland declined to comment on pending litigation. Attorneys for the city said in court that police response “was based on good faith and reasonable interpretations of the less-lethal order.” They argued that police were responding to protesters throwing bottles, rocks, and cans and shining green lasers at them, and that officers feared that protesters would set the police union’s building on fire. In court filings, they wrote that plaintiffs had offered “vague descriptions of uses of force such that it is not possible to begin to evaluate whether the uses violate the Less Lethal Order.”
The implication that a confrontation between protesters and police was too chaotic to discern, and that police were justified in their outsize response by some individuals’ actions toward them, is one that’s been regularly invoked following violent repression of protests. Often the official narrative established by police is hard to challenge in a court setting, because evidence is usually messy or incomplete, or the chain of events gets obscured in the fog of war surrounding many protests.
Read Our Complete Coverage Protests for Black Lives
But the June 30 incidents were not only among the most violent in Portland’s summer of protest, they were also some of the best documented, captured in several long videos shot from different angles by protesters and bystanders. “It was one of the most heavily visualized nights of the protests,” said Carpenter. “There were a lot of livestreamers there, there were people on their balconies, because it was in a residential neighborhood.”
In fact, the number and quality of videos has allowed attorneys for Don’t Shoot Portland, working with the applied-research group SITU, to produce an unusually detailed reconstruction of that night’s events, a granular analysis of a number of incidents of police violence over a 90-minute period of time that clearly shows the circumstances, and lack of justification, that preceded each deployment of force. The reconstruction, which was shown in court, offered a forensic analysis of a protest with a level of detail that is usually reserved for criminal investigations. It provided a rare piece of evidence of abuse by officers that is much harder to dismiss than many witness accounts of police violence, opening the door for an equally rare moment of accountability.
“What these protests have exposed is the utter contempt that the police bureau has for criticism or even the idea that anybody should question what they do at any time,” Jesse Merrithew, one of the attorneys representing Don’t Shoot Portland, told The Intercept.
“You can watch it on video what actually happened,” he added.“What we’re hopeful of is that this helps the court impose the accountability that the city has been unwilling or unable to impose on the police bureau.”
The Night of June 30
On the evening of June 30, protesters who had previously stayed mostly downtown for the first time moved to the more suburban area where the Portland Police Association has its headquarters. By then, a growing number of people in Portland had begun to protest not only to demand justice for Floyd, but also large cuts to the police bureau’s budget and accountability for violence carried out by local police. In court documents, Don’t Shoot Portland called the police union “the chief obstacle to police accountability in this city.”
Protesters met a line of officers before reaching the union’s building and stopped at a distance, chanting or listening to speakers. Witnesses described seeing a couple plastic bottles hurled toward the officers, but no further criminal conduct and “nothing shocking or riotous.” But within minutes of protesters’ arrival, officers in full riot gear filled the street. Using a loudspeaker on an LRAD truck, a type of sonic weapon sometimes deployed at protests, they announced that the assembly had been declared unlawful and threatened to deploy force to arrest protesters. Then, as the crowd complied with orders to move back, police, unprovoked, begun pushing and beating people back with batons. Almost immediately, and responding to no visible provocation, they fired the first impact munitions and pepper-sprayed people at close range.
The reconstruction of the following hour and a half that was presented in court zeroed in on four moments that evening during which police deployed multiple types of less-lethal weapons, as well as a moment when they “bull-rushed” into the crowd. It ends showing police as they declared a riot and deployed tear gas.
In the first incident, police can be seen shoving and beating people with batons and pepper-spraying them in the face, before shooting munitions at them at close range, even as protesters are moving back as directed. Police are also shown grabbing a protester holding a banner, ripping it, and preventing people from dispersing despite ordering them to do so. In the second incident, a protester can be seen throwing a bottle on the ground in front of police — in response to which police fire impact munitions at the protester multiple times before rolling a smoke grenade into the receding crowd. Officers are then seen firing at a different protester who kicked away a smoke canister. In the third incident, police are seen shooting impact munitions at a crowd that was posing no threat, from 120 feet away, and then doing so again at a closer distance during a fourth incident.
In court, James Comstock, a lead investigator in the case, walked a judge through SITU’s reconstruction, which he explained was built using a laser scan of the area to reproduce a three-dimensional model of the street where the protest took place. Visual evidence of each incident was then mapped onto the model and replayed in real time. Each incident was presented from multiple viewpoints, including side views and aerial views captured by a bystander filming from his balcony. And each deployment of force was shown in the context of the 30 seconds that preceded it, in order to paint as accurate a picture as possible of any action that might have justified it.
“I don’t know that anybody has used a reconstruction like this in a protest case,” Merrithew told The Intercept. “We use them all the time in criminal cases and we’ve used similar reconstructions for police shooting cases.”
“It gives a really good overview for people to understand what’s going on, the movement of the police and the protesters, and the violence, and it’s in real-time so you can actually see what’s happening,” echoed Carpenter. “It will show a lot of people what we’ve been saying, that it was all unprovoked.”
In court, the judge also heard firsthand accounts from protest participants, including Pedro Anglada Cordero, the protester who was shot with a rubber bullet after kicking a smoke canister away, and Eric Greatwood, a livestreamer and a regular presence at Portland protests who recorded most of the evening with a video action camera placed on top of a 20-foot pole, and who was shot in the groin with a FN303 round, a type of impact munition that has caused fatal injuries in the past.
Anglada Cordero, who was at the protest with his wife, was retreating from police along with most others in the crowd when a smoke canister was tossed toward him. Anglada Cordero, who noted that his wife had already been coughing because of the chemical agents in the air, said that he instinctively moved to kick the can away. When the can barely moved, he took a few more steps and kicked it further away, the video shows. Police immediately shot him with rubber bullets, hitting him once behind the knee and once in the thigh, and leaving tennis ball-sized bruises later documented in court filings.
“My first, spontaneous reaction was to get it away from us,” he told The Intercept, referring to the canister. “It was in my interest to keep our immediate group safe from being exposed to more agents.”
But police took the gesture as an attack on them, and right after he kicked the canister, things escalated quickly, Anglada Cordero said. Moments later someone who tried to grab and toss a can was tackled to the ground. In court, city attorneys sought to describe the incidents as evidence of protesters’ violent conduct. Anglada Cordero said he was just trying to protect his wife, himself, and those in his immediate vicinity.
“The moment they toss a smoke canister our way and the moment someone kicks it back, that constitutes a reason for them to escalate and retaliate,” he told The Intercept. “So suddenly they are in the right to use ammunition against the crowd, but the crowd has no right to defend themselves.”
Eric Greatwood, an independent livestreamer who has filmed dozens of protests, captured much of the evening on video, providing footage that was used for the reconstruction presented in court. At one point, officers recognized him and called him by name, ordering him to move back. “That just sent the hairs of my arm up, just to call me by my name like that,” Greatwood told The Intercept. He complied but kept filming from the sidelines as police arrested protesters. Then moments later, as Greatwood crouched down to look at an unexploded smoke grenade, police fired an impact munition at him, hitting him in the groin.
“I know for a fact that they did it intentionally because there have been other people who have been fired on in that area,” said Greatwood, who can be heard moaning in the video as his camera kept rolling. “They have sights on those things, they know exactly how to fire them, they are supposed to bounce them off the ground. They fired directly at me.”
A U.S. Air Force veteran, Greatwood said that anyone in the military caught doing what police did to him would be in prison. “I don’t know how a man can actually hit another man in the groin, that just completely baffles me, he totally aimed for it.” The officer who shot him, Brent Taylor, said in court that had had not intended to target Greatwood’s groin. “I’m shooting at a moving target,” he testified. “I’m aiming at his lower legs but how quickly he changes his position, I cannot control.”
Greatwood, who has filed notice of his intent to sue the city for using excessive force, said that he was in pain for weeks after being shot and had difficulty using the bathroom. But he was back the next day to livestream another protest, and many more since then. “I just couldn’t not film what was happening.”
Competing Narratives
In court, attorneys for the city pushed back against the reconstruction presented on behalf of Don’t Shoot Portland. “It wasn’t an effort to provide an objective presentation from both police perspective and demonstrator perspective, right?” an attorney for the city asked Comstock in cross-examination, noting that the reconstruction focused for instance on the actions of Portland police, and not of Oregon State Police who were also on the scene. “The purpose of this video is giving context around the video that we’ve collected,” Comstock replied.
In fact, the legal team representing protesters said that they chose to reconstruct the June 30 incidents over other episodes during which police may also have violated court orders in part because of the volume of evidence available about them. “It’s important for the case to be able to give the court the best possible, quality evidence so the court can determine whether or not they violated the order,” said Merrithew.
But as Portlanders reckon with the historic wave of protests that has gripped the city for months, leading to two deaths and hundreds of arrests, and as the upcoming mayoral race is likely to be determined in large part by officials’ response to the protests, the broader public also has a right to see evidence of what happened, Merrithew argued.
“Probably a very small percentage of the public is looking at these things every night and actually paying attention to what’s going on; they’re hearing it from a 10,000-foot view, which allows them to sort of be naive in whatever camp they’re predisposed to be in,” he said. “We’re trying to bring the same quality of evidence to the public as we are to the court, because the public needs to understand that the justifications that are being made by the bureau are false. The public needs to understand what these public employees are doing in their name.”
The impulse to discern and record what was happening is also what drove Greatwood to start livestreaming the protests in Portland. “I’ve seen a lot of footage that was basically just the backs of people’s heads, and there was a lot of chaos, but you couldn’t exactly see anything,” he said, adding that his video camera, placed on top of a pole or sometimes on a drone, offers a bird’s eye view of the protests. “I wanted to figure out if protesters were causing the police’s actions or if the police were just being a little bit heavy-handed.”
Greatwood said that he has always been respectful toward officers at protests, getting out of their way when asked and limiting himself to documenting what was happening, including on June 30. But he felt he had been targeted that night because he was there with a camera. “They are probably upset because they know that they have been acting out of line, and they don’t like it being broadcast,” he said. “If you are doing things that are proper, you shouldn’t be afraid of a camera and the truth.”
That night, he said, he had seen “barely anything happening” before police unleashed on protesters. “I saw more things that seemed blown out of proportion when it came to the police providing footage or photos to the press,” he added. “I felt like there was a lot of gaslighting from the police, and that there was not a whole lot that the protesters were doing to get them egged on.”
Others who testified last week also said that regardless of the outcome in court, it was important for Portland residents to document and address the harm and trauma inflicted on countless protesters over the last months. “There are so many people that have gone through something so similar to what I went through that night,” said Anglada Cordero, who after being shot helped other protesters who were maced at close range and couldn’t breathe. “When you go through such an experience, and you see others hurt, then you feel compelled to come out and be in solidarity with others. And that’s what happens every night, when people are getting hurt, more people come out and help each other.”
The judge in the case is expected to rule on whether to hold the city in contempt of court in the coming days.
“It’s hard to have faith in the court system when it’s been proven all your life that your civil liberties don’t matter,” said Carpenter of Don’t Shoot Portland. “But the trauma and the violence have been clearly documented on the record; they’re facts that can’t be ignored. Even with the way that our justice system works, there has to be accountability.”


theintercept--2020-10-25--I Watched War Erupt in the Balkans. Here's What I See in America Today.

I I wake up in the middle of the night from hallucinatory dreams and don ’ t fall back asleep .
I ’ m obviously not alone with this condition .
Sleeplessness and a kind of narcoleptic fatigue that I have all afternoon are gripping the country , actually the globe .
Last night , I was locked inside a church and pulling the rotten , moldy , wood slats covering the windows to escape .
I kept falling back onto the church floor and seeing bodies against the back wall .
Earlier this summer , as I walked past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside our neighborhood hospital , I remembered my frequent pilgrimages to the morgue in Sarajevo as people searched for missing family during the war more than a quarter century ago .
I can ’ t believe it ’ s that long ago .
Watching what ’ s happening around the country , images from the Bosnian war and from years of my past living amid other people ’ s civil wars have crept into my daily and sleepless life .
What were the precipitating incidents , what were the signs , when did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how did the fear defeat hope , was there some measure that could be codified ?
I don ’ t think we ’ re there yet .
In fact , I can ’ t believe we ’ ll ever be there .
But neither did they .
George Floyd ’ s death , the video of his slow suffocation , his pleas for breath , his call for his mama as he lay dying under the knee of police Officer Derek Chauvin ignited a rising-up against an entrenched and far better organized movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back and back through our history .
During one of the first Black Lives Matter protests in Brooklyn , I stood in a crowd wearing a mask and listened to a Black Episcopalian preacher give a sermon about peaceful anger .
The next day , I was outside Barclays Center just before dusk with a crowd of protesters when another crowd arrived , having marched for miles from Bay Ridge .
They stopped and one woman said they were going to pray , the evening Islamic prayer , and anyone could join or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ young man sang the call to prayer .
The rest of the crowd — Black , white , brown — got down on a knee facing them .
You could feel the surprise among the original crowd who had not expected the Bay Ridge Islamic Center ’ s arrival .
How to react ?
Time passed and the anxiety dissipated as the kneelers watched and listened and some raised a fist .
Bay Ridge ’ s Muslims were saying , Yes we know well how the system wields power , sweeps through neighborhoods @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve joined forces before .
That night , the protesters stayed out after curfew ; the police chased them , many were beaten , locked up .
Groups formed to get people out of prison .
You know the rest : Allies handing out water bottles , curfews , the chanting of names of Black men and women killed by police , police violence , clashes .
And then , on the tails of demands for justice , the extremists flew in .
In the streets of Portland , Oregon , the gun-chested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Homeland Security dudes in riot gear ratcheted up the crisis , with unmarked vans whisking protesters away , with the Boogaloo Bois , the Boojahadeen , the Proud Boys , and antifa .
In early June , helicopters were constantly buzzing overhead in my neighborhood in Brooklyn , and then at night the fireworks began .
All over the city .
At first , it was exciting , celebratory .
I noticed Max , our 6-year-old mutt , who could never get enough of the outdoors night or day , around dusk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d lope to the dining table and duck under .
If I tried to take him out after sundown , his feet cemented in place .
Max wasn ’ t alone .
There was an epidemic of traumatized dogs .
Canines sense an earthquake coming — why not war ?
Max ’ s fear started with the fireworks .
And the fireworks set off more fears , conspiracy theories about government plots to drive people mad with sleeplessness , to stir anxiety in Black and brown communities , to send police fireworks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” — code for protesters .
You could find any and every theory , even that the fireworks were the prelude to war .
Isolation , despair , insomnia , job losses , illness , curfews , police violence , looting — they breed conspiracy theories .
It ’ s the traction of those conspiracy theories that needs to be measured .
I Sarajevo during the war above the Catholic church in the old town called Bascarsija — “ grand bazaar ” in Turkish — with Vera , her husband Drago , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time the phone rang , which wasn ’ t often since the phones were often down during the war , Blacky flipped out .
If you dared to venture forth and pick up the receiver , he ’ d grip your ankle with his teeth and yank .
Everyday around dusk , an archipelago of shell-shocked dogs barked their agony across the city .
Vera , a poet and newspaper editor in her 50s , was convinced that war would never come to Bosnia .
Even in 1991 , the year before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shelling towns on Croatia ’ s Dalmatian coast , with the Yugoslav army besieging the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar , Sarajevans did not believe that war would come to their beautiful city nestled in the mountains .
War in Bosnia ?
No way , said Vera .
It was too mixed up : Muslims , Orthodox , Catholics , Jews , all living together and intermarried .
Vera was Croat .
Vera ’ s former husband was half Croat and half Jewish .
Drago , a retired economist and bank director , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s apartment building lived a Jewish-Croatian Bosnian and his Muslim Bosnian wife and their mixed son .
The whole building was like that .
Drago told Vera that she was naive .
“ The war in Bosnia , ” he said , “ will be longer and bloodier than anywhere else.
” The two rarely agreed on anything .
Vera had been a baby in a bomb shelter in World War II .
Drago had joined the partisans to fight the Nazis and their Croatian allies .
He ended up in a concentration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ starvation .
His sister happened to see his body thrown on a pile of corpses and saved him .
Drago always expected the worst .
And so in early 1992 , with war raging just across the border from Bosnia , Drago drove up north to his family farm where he ’ d once been mayor .
Already , the Bosnian Serbs had declared autonomous zones and were preparing for an independent state .
Drago heard that Ratko Mladic — the charismatic Bosnian Serb military commander who would become notorious for leading the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Srebrenica — was recruiting men for his separatist army .
Drago urged the reservists he knew to resist Mladic and stay home , until a friend warned him to be quiet and leave lest he get thrown in prison or killed .
On his way home , he saw irregular soldiers with beards and long hair wearing patches with crossed swords , a skull , an eagle .
The Chetniks were back , reincarnations of the old nationalist guerrillas who ’ d formed an alliance with the Nazis in World War II to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Radovan Karadzic , the Bosnian Serb political leader , was a great admirer of the Chetniks .
In their honor , he vowed that the Muslims of Bosnia would burn in hell if Bosnia declared independence .
Lately , I ’ ve drifted into Drago ’ s camp .
The images of bulging , bearded men with their ammunition bibs , wielding automatic rifles and a medley of white power symbols — swastikas , Confederate flags , nooses , patches of an arrow through a skull and the words “ death ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a cabal of Chetniks .
They mobilize like the wind thanks to their chat-frats .
They message , “ Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city ?
” — Kenosha , Minnesota .
They threaten to lynch and behead the governor of Michigan .
Drago recently died , but I can hear him telling me , “ Don ’ t be a donkey.
” That ’ s what he called me .
A lot .
Usually for missing signs of trouble , for not being vigilant .
In Sarajevo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital , newsrooms , offices .
Serb friends and colleagues were suddenly off to Belgrade to visit family , or going to the countryside , or getting medical treatment , or just disappearing .
Still few believed that war would come to Sarajevo .
Between February 29 and March 1 , 1992 , Bosnia held a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia .
A nearly unanimous “ yes ” prevailed .
Except that the Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia boycotted the vote .
In fact , they ’ d already declared a separate constitution .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ party was heading toward the old Orthodox church in Bascarsija .
Gunfire scattered the celebrants .
The bridegroom ’ s father was shot and killed .
The Orthodox priest was shot .
Sarajevans were disgusted but not surprised when the killer was rumored to be a local thug , nicknamed Celo , or “ baldy.
” Immediately Bosnian Serb leaders declared , You see ?
We were right .
Independent Bosnia means death to Serbs .
Up went the barricades manned by Serb paramilitaries .
Students removing the barricades were killed .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and other criminals .
Fairly quickly , the Bosnian government formed its own underdog army .
In April , Sarajevans still believed peace was possible .
Because they wanted peace .
Because they felt peace .
They couldn ’ t conceive that anyone would want war .
Hundreds began marching in Dobrinja , the suburb created for the 1984 Winter Olympics .
Hundreds turned to thousands and tens of thousands shouting , We can live together .
They brandished photographs of the late Josip Broz Tito , nostalgic for his autocratic rule when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signs for sex , drugs , and rock and roll .
This was Sarajevo .
Fun town .
Comedians .
Musicians .
Cafe hipsters .
War was for those rural hillbillies .
The protests carried on into the next day .
Some 100,000 Sarajevans calling for peace .
Then the shots rang out again .
Bullets hit dozens of protesters .
Fourteen were killed .
The police figured out that Serb snipers were firing on the protesters from the Holiday Inn , the same hotel that would end up housing the international media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ siege .
That day , April 6 , Bosnia won international recognition of its independence .
And the siege began .
The siege of Sarajevo , the longest in modern Europe ’ s history , was brutal and twisted and yet so intimate .
It ’ s very intimacy made it so unthinkable that friends and neighbors could turn on each other .
How could they ?
How could we ?
One Bosnian Croat writer and boxer I knew who stayed to defend the city told me that his best friend was on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ army .
During the day , they shot at each other .
At night , they talked on the phone and wept .
Ismet Ceric , the head of psychiatry at Sarajevo ’ s main hospital , was Karadzic ’ s boss for 20 years .
He told me that the very day Karadzic ordered the shelling of Sarajevo from the mountains , he called Ceric ’ s mother in Sarajevo .
“ He called to wish her a happy Bajram , ” Ceric told me , referring to the Muslim festival following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Can you believe that ?
Yes , sadly I could .
Karadzic was so obsessed with Ceric that he followed his old boss around the city for the next three years with mortars and grenades .
It was hard to say whether Karadzic wanted to kill him , taunt him , or whether Ceric thought there must be a Karadzic behind every near-miss .
When Karadzic told Serbs to evacuate the city , many refused , because they had nowhere to go , some because they refused to be refugees , and some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pre-war Sarajevo even as the Bosnian army turned more and more Muslim .
As hard as you tried to hold on to your identity as a mother , a doctor , an actor , a journalist , a policeman , that ’ s not how others identified you .
With a flip of a linguistic switch , you were reduced to Serb , Croat , Muslim , Jew .
What flips civil strife into civil war ?
A well-planned agenda , charismatic leaders , and fear .
And perhaps one last ingredient that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down of history and all its complexities into a narrative of collective destiny — ours against theirs , us against them .
T New Yorkers fled the city for the suburbs , the countryside , New England , California .
The New York Post egged on the dystopian fears with headlines like “ New York City Crime Wave Reaches New Heights.
” People have lost their homes , more are living on the streets .
Storefronts and restaurants are empty .
Overturned chairs and tables fossilized in the windows .
My dentist in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to buy guns .
What did you tell them , I asked her .
That they should get them , she said .
Her husband survived the war in Kosovo , he says they would be foolish not to have guns .
A war photographer and friend told me that I should have an escape-survival bag always at the ready .
He thinks us city people are idiots not to have guns .
An author and friend in Charlottesville , Virginia , tells me the feeling in low-income communities is that the mob @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protect them but their own guns .
She says summer of 2017 in Charlottesville was our Fort Sumpter , the first generation of a virus that ’ s morphing .
When a group of Ku Klux Klan showed up to demonstrate , the police had their backs to them .
Who were they facing down ?
The citizens who ’ d come to protest these avatars of violent white power .
They chanted : The cops and Klan go hand in hand .
And when the KKK left , the cops tear-gassed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yeah , we do .
That was two years before George Floyd ’ s death set off demands to defund the police .
After all , who are they defending ?
The KKK ?
The Proud Boys ?
The demonstrators ?
Onlookers ?
Their power ?
FBI documents released recently give proof to the fact that right-wing extremists are infiltrating and recruiting the police .
Daryl Johnson , an agent tasked with investigating domestic terrorism at DHS eleven years ago , was pushed out for his inconvenient findings that right-wing extremist terrorism is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Islamic terrorists .
Recent history in Las Vegas , El Paso , Gilroy , and Charleston just proves his point , a point he now makes in books , articles , interviews , to anyone who will listen .
Hundreds of thousands of well-armed white power extremists are now fully out in the open .
Their violent acts are enshrined in social media and heralded by the president .
They have new charismatic leaders .
They have a clear agenda .
They have a narrative of historic grievances and a shared destiny : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supremacists ’ bibles .
Their conspiracy theories are sticking with acronyms like TEOTWAKI : The End of the World As We Know It .
They could all be called the children of the Turner Diaries .
Residents in Erie and Union City , Pennsylvania tell a New York Times reporter that people on both “ sides ” are ready for violence should the other candidate win .
Biden and Trump supporters live side by side .
Some in the same family .
They all know each other .
And they ’ re all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is coming to the streets .
Because everyone ’ s armed .
Trump supporters say a Biden win would be a Marxist socialist coup — extreme-right rhetoric is now mainstream .
Female Biden supporters like Mary Jo Campbell say they ’ re scared to death .
After Trump was elected , she and her friends started a club they called “ The Drinking Girls ” to meet , drink , plot , talk .
During the pandemic , my women friends , and I ’ m pretty sure thousands of others , took @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I keep looking at the portraits of Campbell and the other people of Erie captured by photographer Libby March .
The faces — weary , drawn with anxiety , tough .
They remind me of the men and women in central Bosnia , where the war hit first , where everyone kept an AK-47 or hunting rifle by the door .
It ’ s impossible to imagine neighbors and friends turning on each other .
Until it ’ s not .
I ’ m trying not to be a donkey , but being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ annoying .
A friend of mine who fled Iran when she was 9 years old balked at my comparisons to Sarajevo .
“ The minute anyone compares completely different countries that share no history , I switch off .
That is never going to happen here.
” I agree , in part .
The U.S. doesn ’ t share a political context or history with Bosnia .
But then there ’ s human nature , how we wield denial to survive , and tribalism when under threat , and how hard it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The two sides have come to stand for so much more than they can possibly hold and now face each other down like the forces of light and dark over Gondor .
Only each side thinks the other is the dark .
People who should be united by economic class are divided by skin color .
The idea that one side is elitist and the other working class is a fallacy .
Look no further than the elitism of the sitting president .
Or the myriad working classes who comprise the so-called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we meet strangers , we know almost instinctively who is a Trump supporter and who is a Biden supporter .
Who is other .
Who is hateable , deplorable , dispensable .
The language of othering slips so easily off the tongue in this fraught moment .
We are in the throes of an inexorable rearrangement .
History moves not like an arrow but a boomerang , Ralph Ellison wrote .
And no one knows which way it will go .
What is known is that none of us can escape from history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Except I prefer the endings of comedy , not tragedy .
My neighborhood park in Brooklyn has come alive as never before : It ’ s an outdoor gym , an outdoor dance floor , people bring their exercise mats and a phone for their online high-intensity training or yoga class .
People are kickboxing , jump-roping , sweating under the British prison ship martyrs ’ monument .
I watch one-woman camera crews filming their friends for a TikTok video .
Nightlife has also moved to the park : Picnics , small parties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because there ’ s nowhere else to go .
Every shape and color and size mingles in the park .
I recently noticed that the hum and menace of a police generator and a police pole with stadium lights are gone .
While ostensibly there to offer safety , the hum and glare stalked you , creating the menacing atmosphere of a dystopian film about surveillance , anomie , and the end of the world .
Their absence has brought calm , respite , and festivity .
And been replaced by nightly drumming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his real-New Yorkers-stick-it-out column , rebutting and lampooning a fellow New Yorker and comedy club owner whining on LinkedIn that the city is dead , his friends have fled , and he ’ s moving to Miami .
Imagine being in a real war with this guy , Seinfeld wrote .
The day after I read it , I was speaking to a friend who wrote one of the definitive books on the wars in Yugoslavia .
“ We have to stay , ” I said .
“ Of course we ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ else are we going to go ?
” Then she said , “ We ’ ll be like the Sarajevans.
” E wins , the divides ripping apart this country will not go away .
But that doesn ’ t mean we will go the way of the Balkans , find ourselves in Sarajevo ’ s siege .
That ’ s the nightmare scenario .
There are millions of people , most in fact , who want to find a way to bridge the divides and face the seismic shift that history is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I walk into a party in Sarajevo .
I plan to surprise Vera .
We haven ’ t seen each other in two decades .
She ’ s on the couch .
She seems angry .
Why didn ’ t you tell me you were coming , or is this just a coincidence because you wanted to go to a party ?
No , no , no , I say , stunned by her anger .
I don ’ t even know these people , I tell her .
She hugs me so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in front of a roaring fire .
The room turns to stone .
The ceiling recedes , cathedral high .
It ’ s so dark .
I take my daughter by the hand to show her the room where I slept without windows , but she is pulling me away , she wants to go talk to the kids outside .
She says something about a new friend , Methody .
Outside Vera ’ s building I see a bent-over old man with long gray hair and a cane .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the crowd .
Everyone looks to him , but he keeps manifesting in different places .
He whispers to me , The structure of things is difficult .
These are not normal times .
The atoms and structures .
It ’ s not a time of normal cause and effect .
Then he vanishes .
This article was supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project .

I can’t sleep anymore. I wake up in the middle of the night from hallucinatory dreams and don’t fall back asleep. I’m obviously not alone with this condition. Sleeplessness and a kind of narcoleptic fatigue that I have all afternoon are gripping the country, actually the globe. Last night, I was locked inside a church and pulling the rotten, moldy, wood slats covering the windows to escape. I kept falling back onto the church floor and seeing bodies against the back wall.
Earlier this summer, as I walked past the hum of the morgue trucks parked outside our neighborhood hospital, I remembered my frequent pilgrimages to the morgue in Sarajevo as people searched for missing family during the war more than a quarter century ago. I can’t believe it’s that long ago. Watching what’s happening around the country, images from the Bosnian war and from years of my past living amid other people’s civil wars have crept into my daily and sleepless life. What were the precipitating incidents, what were the signs, when did rage and fear turn to violence, how did the fear defeat hope, was there some measure that could be codified? I don’t think we’re there yet. In fact, I can’t believe we’ll ever be there. But neither did they.
George Floyd’s death, the video of his slow suffocation, his pleas for breath, his call for his mama as he lay dying under the knee of police Officer Derek Chauvin ignited a rising-up against an entrenched and far better organized movement of white power, one that stretches back and back through our history. During one of the first Black Lives Matter protests in Brooklyn, I stood in a crowd wearing a mask and listened to a Black Episcopalian preacher give a sermon about peaceful anger. The next day, I was outside Barclays Center just before dusk with a crowd of protesters when another crowd arrived, having marched for miles from Bay Ridge. They stopped and one woman said they were going to pray, the evening Islamic prayer, and anyone could join or listen. They formed rows. A young man sang the call to prayer. The rest of the crowd — Black, white, brown — got down on a knee facing them. You could feel the surprise among the original crowd who had not expected the Bay Ridge Islamic Center’s arrival. How to react? Time passed and the anxiety dissipated as the kneelers watched and listened and some raised a fist. Bay Ridge’s Muslims were saying, Yes we know well how the system wields power, sweeps through neighborhoods, crushes minorities. And we’ve joined forces before.
Protesters gathered at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., to protest the death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, on May 29, 2020. Photo: Joel Sheakoski/Barcroft Media/Getty Images
That night, the protesters stayed out after curfew; the police chased them, many were beaten, locked up. Groups formed to get people out of prison. You know the rest: Allies handing out water bottles, curfews, the chanting of names of Black men and women killed by police, police violence, clashes. And then, on the tails of demands for justice, the extremists flew in. In the streets of Portland, Oregon, the gun-chested, beefy, white power anti-maskers and the Homeland Security dudes in riot gear ratcheted up the crisis, with unmarked vans whisking protesters away, with the Boogaloo Bois, the Boojahadeen, the Proud Boys, and antifa. In early June, helicopters were constantly buzzing overhead in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and then at night the fireworks began. All over the city. At first, it was exciting, celebratory. I noticed Max, our 6-year-old mutt, who could never get enough of the outdoors night or day, around dusk, his tail would drop, he’d lope to the dining table and duck under. If I tried to take him out after sundown, his feet cemented in place. Max wasn’t alone. There was an epidemic of traumatized dogs. Canines sense an earthquake coming — why not war?
Max’s fear started with the fireworks. And the fireworks set off more fears, conspiracy theories about government plots to drive people mad with sleeplessness, to stir anxiety in Black and brown communities, to send police fireworks squads into neighborhoods searching for “troublemakers” — code for protesters. You could find any and every theory, even that the fireworks were the prelude to war. Isolation, despair, insomnia, job losses, illness, curfews, police violence, looting — they breed conspiracy theories. It’s the traction of those conspiracy theories that needs to be measured.
A person records with a phone a fireworks display in an empty park in Brooklyn, N.Y., on June 24, 2020. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
I lived in Sarajevo during the war above the Catholic church in the old town called Bascarsija — “grand bazaar” in Turkish — with Vera, her husband Drago, and their traumatized dog, Blacky. Every time the phone rang, which wasn’t often since the phones were often down during the war, Blacky flipped out. If you dared to venture forth and pick up the receiver, he’d grip your ankle with his teeth and yank. Everyday around dusk, an archipelago of shell-shocked dogs barked their agony across the city.
Vera, a poet and newspaper editor in her 50s, was convinced that war would never come to Bosnia. Even in 1991, the year before the war began, with the Yugoslav army shelling towns on Croatia’s Dalmatian coast, with the Yugoslav army besieging the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar, Sarajevans did not believe that war would come to their beautiful city nestled in the mountains. War in Bosnia? No way, said Vera. It was too mixed up: Muslims, Orthodox, Catholics, Jews, all living together and intermarried. Vera was Croat. Vera’s former husband was half Croat and half Jewish. Drago, a retired economist and bank director, was Serb. Upstairs in Vera’s apartment building lived a Jewish-Croatian Bosnian and his Muslim Bosnian wife and their mixed son. The whole building was like that.
Drago told Vera that she was naive. “The war in Bosnia,” he said, “will be longer and bloodier than anywhere else.” The two rarely agreed on anything.
Soldiers walk past bombed buildings riddled with bullet holes after a three-month battle between the Croatian armed forces and the Yugoslav Army in Vukovar in 1991. Photo: Antoine Gyori/Sygma/Getty Images
Vera had been a baby in a bomb shelter in World War II. Drago had joined the partisans to fight the Nazis and their Croatian allies. He ended up in a concentration camp in Austria and nearly died of starvation. His sister happened to see his body thrown on a pile of corpses and saved him.
Drago always expected the worst. And so in early 1992, with war raging just across the border from Bosnia, Drago drove up north to his family farm where he’d once been mayor. Already, the Bosnian Serbs had declared autonomous zones and were preparing for an independent state. Drago heard that Ratko Mladic — the charismatic Bosnian Serb military commander who would become notorious for leading the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica — was recruiting men for his separatist army. Drago urged the reservists he knew to resist Mladic and stay home, until a friend warned him to be quiet and leave lest he get thrown in prison or killed. On his way home, he saw irregular soldiers with beards and long hair wearing patches with crossed swords, a skull, an eagle. The Chetniks were back, reincarnations of the old nationalist guerrillas who’d formed an alliance with the Nazis in World War II to advance their dream of a Greater Serbia. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb political leader, was a great admirer of the Chetniks. In their honor, he vowed that the Muslims of Bosnia would burn in hell if Bosnia declared independence.
Lately, I’ve drifted into Drago’s camp. The images of bulging, bearded men with their ammunition bibs, wielding automatic rifles and a medley of white power symbols — swastikas, Confederate flags, nooses, patches of an arrow through a skull and the words “death” and “victory” — just like a cabal of Chetniks. They mobilize like the wind thanks to their chat-frats. They message, “Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city?”— Kenosha, Wisconsin. They threaten to lynch and behead the governor of Michigan. Drago recently died, but I can hear him telling me, “Don’t be a donkey.” That’s what he called me. A lot. Usually for missing signs of trouble, for not being vigilant.
Left/Top: Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb military commander, and his soldiers during the war in Bosnia, on April 16, 1994. Right/Bottom: Serbian trench in the front of Osijek, Croatia, on March 1992. Photo: Vlastimir Nesic/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images; Francoise De Mulder/Roger Viollet/Getty Images
In Sarajevo, whispers swept through schools, the hospital, newsrooms, offices. Serb friends and colleagues were suddenly off to Belgrade to visit family, or going to the countryside, or getting medical treatment, or just disappearing. Still few believed that war would come to Sarajevo. Between February 29 and March 1, 1992, Bosnia held a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia. A nearly unanimous “yes” prevailed. Except that the Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia boycotted the vote. In fact, they’d already declared a separate constitution.
On March 1, a Serb wedding party was heading toward the old Orthodox church in Bascarsija. Gunfire scattered the celebrants. The bridegroom’s father was shot and killed. The Orthodox priest was shot. Sarajevans were disgusted but not surprised when the killer was rumored to be a local thug, nicknamed Celo, or “baldy.”
Immediately Bosnian Serb leaders declared, You see? We were right. Independent Bosnia means death to Serbs.
Up went the barricades manned by Serb paramilitaries. Students removing the barricades were killed. And up went the barricades manned by Celo and other criminals. Fairly quickly, the Bosnian government formed its own underdog army.
People protest in Sarajevo, April 1992. Photo: Francoise De Mulder/Roger Viollet/Getty Images
In April, Sarajevans still believed peace was possible. Because they wanted peace. Because they felt peace. They couldn’t conceive that anyone would want war. Hundreds began marching in Dobrinja, the suburb created for the 1984 Winter Olympics. Hundreds turned to thousands and tens of thousands shouting, We can live together. They brandished photographs of the late Josip Broz Tito, nostalgic for his autocratic rule when everyone was a Yugoslav. They waved signs for sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This was Sarajevo. Fun town. Comedians. Musicians. Cafe hipsters. War was for those rural hillbillies. The protests carried on into the next day. Some 100,000 Sarajevans calling for peace. Then the shots rang out again. Bullets hit dozens of protesters. Fourteen were killed. The police figured out that Serb snipers were firing on the protesters from the Holiday Inn, the same hotel that would end up housing the international media for three and a half years of siege.
That day, April 6, Bosnia won international recognition of its independence. And the siege began.
The siege of Sarajevo, the longest in modern Europe’s history, was brutal and twisted and yet so intimate. It’s very intimacy made it so unthinkable that friends and neighbors could turn on each other. How could they? How could we? One Bosnian Croat writer and boxer I knew who stayed to defend the city told me that his best friend was on the other side with the Bosnian Serb army. During the day, they shot at each other. At night, they talked on the phone and wept. Ismet Ceric, the head of psychiatry at Sarajevo’s main hospital, was Karadzic’s boss for 20 years. He told me that the very day Karadzic ordered the shelling of Sarajevo from the mountains, he called Ceric’s mother in Sarajevo. “He called to wish her a happy Bajram,” Ceric told me, referring to the Muslim festival following Ramadan. Ceric then asked me, Can you believe that? Yes, sadly I could. Karadzic was so obsessed with Ceric that he followed his old boss around the city for the next three years with mortars and grenades. It was hard to say whether Karadzic wanted to kill him, taunt him, or whether Ceric thought there must be a Karadzic behind every near-miss.
When Karadzic told Serbs to evacuate the city, many refused, because they had nowhere to go, some because they refused to be refugees, and some because they believed in defending the old pre-war Sarajevo even as the Bosnian army turned more and more Muslim. As hard as you tried to hold on to your identity as a mother, a doctor, an actor, a journalist, a policeman, that’s not how others identified you. With a flip of a linguistic switch, you were reduced to Serb, Croat, Muslim, Jew.
What flips civil strife into civil war? A well-planned agenda, charismatic leaders, and fear. And perhaps one last ingredient that pulls together all three: the whittling down of history and all its complexities into a narrative of collective destiny — ours against theirs, us against them.
Left/Top: Bombing of Sarajevo. Right/Bottom: A Bosnian man runs in a Sarajevo street where civilians were hit by sniper fire, in 1992. Photo: Francoise De Mulder/Roger Viollet/Getty Images; David Turnley/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images
T his summer some New Yorkers fled the city for the suburbs, the countryside, New England, California. The New York Post egged on the dystopian fears with headlines like “New York City Crime Wave Reaches New Heights.” People have lost their homes, more are living on the streets. Storefronts and restaurants are empty. Overturned chairs and tables fossilized in the windows. My dentist in Manhattan told me that her colleagues want to buy guns. What did you tell them, I asked her. That they should get them, she said. Her husband survived the war in Kosovo, he says they would be foolish not to have guns. A war photographer and friend told me that I should have an escape-survival bag always at the ready. He thinks we city people are idiots not to have guns.
An author and friend in Charlottesville, Virginia, tells me the feeling in low-income communities is that the mob is coming, and no one will protect them but their own guns. She says summer of 2017 in Charlottesville was our Fort Sumter, the first generation of a virus that’s morphing. When a group of Ku Klux Klan showed up to demonstrate, the police had their backs to them. Who were they facing down? The citizens who’d come to protest these avatars of violent white power. They chanted: The cops and Klan go hand in hand. And when the KKK left, the cops tear-gassed the anti-KKK demonstrators as if to say, Yeah, we do. That was two years before George Floyd’s death set off demands to defund the police. After all, who are they defending? The KKK? The Proud Boys? The demonstrators? Onlookers? Their power?
FBI documents released recently give proof to the fact that right-wing extremists are infiltrating and recruiting the police. Daryl Johnson, an agent tasked with investigating domestic terrorism at DHS eleven years ago, was pushed out for his inconvenient findings that right-wing extremist terrorism is far more dangerous to the homeland than Islamic terrorists. Recent history in Las Vegas, El Paso, Gilroy, and Charleston just proves his point, a point he now makes in books, articles, interviews, to anyone who will listen. Hundreds of thousands of well-armed white power extremists are now fully out in the open. Their violent acts are enshrined in social media and heralded by the president. They have new charismatic leaders. They have a clear agenda. They have a narrative of historic grievances and a shared destiny: white power. They have their white supremacists’ bibles. Their conspiracy theories are sticking with acronyms like TEOTWAKI: The End of the World As We Know It. They could all be called the children of the Turner Diaries.
The U.S. doesn’t share a political context or history with Bosnia. But then there’s human nature, how we wield denial to survive, and tribalism when under threat, and how hard it is to turn off the worst of ourselves.
Residents in Erie and Union City, Pennsylvania tell a New York Times reporter that people on both “sides” are ready for violence should the other candidate win. Biden and Trump supporters live side by side. Some in the same family. They all know each other. And they’re all saying, Forget the courts. Trouble is coming to the streets. Because everyone’s armed. Trump supporters say a Biden win would be a Marxist socialist coup — extreme-right rhetoric is now mainstream. Female Biden supporters like Mary Jo Campbell say they’re scared to death. After Trump was elected, she and her friends started a club they called “The Drinking Girls” to meet, drink, plot, talk. During the pandemic, my women friends, and I’m pretty sure thousands of others, took to Zoom-drink sessions for similar reasons.
I keep looking at the portraits of Campbell and the other people of Erie captured by photographer Libby March. The faces — weary, drawn with anxiety, tough. They remind me of the men and women in central Bosnia, where the war hit first, where everyone kept an AK-47 or hunting rifle by the door. It’s impossible to imagine neighbors and friends turning on each other. Until it’s not.
I’m trying not to be a donkey, but being a Cassandra is extremely unrewarding. And annoying. A friend of mine who fled Iran when she was 9 years old balked at my comparisons to Sarajevo. “The minute anyone compares completely different countries that share no history, I switch off. That is never going to happen here.” I agree, in part. The U.S. doesn’t share a political context or history with Bosnia. But then there’s human nature, how we wield denial to survive, and tribalism when under threat, and how hard it is to turn off the worst of ourselves.
The two sides have come to stand for so much more than they can possibly hold and now face each other down like the forces of light and dark over Gondor. Only each side thinks the other is the dark. People who should be united by economic class are divided by skin color. The idea that one side is elitist and the other working class is a fallacy. Look no further than the elitism of the sitting president. Or the myriad working classes who comprise the so-called elitist Democratic Party. Still, when we meet strangers, we know almost instinctively who is a Trump supporter and who is a Biden supporter. Who is other. Who is hateable, deplorable, dispensable. The language of othering slips so easily off the tongue in this fraught moment. We are in the throes of an inexorable rearrangement. History moves not like an arrow but a boomerang, Ralph Ellison wrote. And no one knows which way it will go. What is known is that none of us can escape from history.
New Yorkers on a warm weekend in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., on May 2, 2020. Photo: Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images
I could leave off here. Except I prefer the endings of comedy, not tragedy.
My neighborhood park in Brooklyn has come alive as never before: It’s an outdoor gym, an outdoor dance floor, people bring their exercise mats and a phone for their online high-intensity training or yoga class. People are kickboxing, jump-roping, sweating under the British prison ship martyrs’ monument. I watch one-woman camera crews filming their friends for a TikTok video. Nightlife has also moved to the park: Picnics, small parties, a couple wrapped in a blanket because there’s nowhere else to go. Every shape and color and size mingles in the park. I recently noticed that the hum and menace of a police generator and a police pole with stadium lights are gone. While ostensibly there to offer safety, the hum and glare stalked you, creating the menacing atmosphere of a dystopian film about surveillance, anomie, and the end of the world. Their absence has brought calm, respite, and festivity. And been replaced by nightly drumming sessions.
I loved Jerry Seinfeld for his real-New Yorkers-stick-it-out column, rebutting and lampooning a fellow New Yorker and comedy club owner whining on LinkedIn that the city is dead, his friends have fled, and he’s moving to Miami. Imagine being in a real war with this guy, Seinfeld wrote.
The day after I read it, I was speaking to a friend who wrote one of the definitive books on the wars in Yugoslavia.
“We have to stay,” I said.
“Of course we’re staying,” she said. “Where else are we going to go?”
Then she said, “We’ll be like the Sarajevans.”
E ven if Joe Biden wins, the divides ripping apart this country will not go away. But that doesn’t mean we will go the way of the Balkans, find ourselves in Sarajevo’s siege. That’s the nightmare scenario. There are millions of people, most in fact, who want to find a way to bridge the divides and face the seismic shift that history is demanding.
In a recent dream, I walk into a party in Sarajevo. I plan to surprise Vera. We haven’t seen each other in two decades. She’s on the couch. She seems angry. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming, or is this just a coincidence because you wanted to go to a party? No, no, no, I say, stunned by her anger. I don’t even know these people, I tell her. She hugs me so tight. We’re both crying, in front of a roaring fire. The room turns to stone. The ceiling recedes, cathedral high. It’s so dark. I take my daughter by the hand to show her the room where I slept without windows, but she is pulling me away, she wants to go talk to the kids outside. She says something about a new friend, Methody. Outside Vera’s building I see a bent-over old man with long gray hair and a cane. It’s Mr. Methody, the philosopher-father of the crowd. Everyone looks to him, but he keeps manifesting in different places. He whispers to me, The structure of things is difficult. These are not normal times. The atoms and structures. It’s not a time of normal cause and effect. Then he vanishes.
This article was supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
Correction: November 1, 2020
This story has been corrected to note that Kenosha is in Wisconsin, not Minnesota.