Despite all of the available evidence to the contrary, there are liberal and progressive optimists who still believe that the "guardrails of democracy" and America's laws will protect the country and the world from Donald Trump.
Such hope is misplaced and dangerously naive. As political activist and analyst Amy Siskind documents every week, Donald Trump is a norm-shattering president who is attempting to remake American society (and the world) in the service of his own malignant reality.
Too many liberals, progressives and centrist Democrats -- especially pundits and journalists -- are unable to accept this reality because of an error in reasoning. Yes, Donald Trump is a singular threat to American democracy. But he would not have such great power if not for his allies and enablers such as the Republican Party, right-wing interest groups, billionaires like the Koch brothers, the right-wing media echo chamber and the tens of millions of Americans who have pledged their fealty to Trump's political cult.
Donald Trump may be a petit-fascist and a demagogue, but he cannot operate the machinery of undermining and destroying America's democratic norms and institutions alone. He needs others to work the levers of his infernal machine.
Trump's allies and enablers have been busy.
Last month, Republicans introduced a bill which explicitly targets the anti-fascist, pro-democracy coalition known as "antifa." Newsweek reports:
Protesters who cover their face or wear a disguise may spend over a decade in prison if Republicans in Congress succeed in passing the "Unmasking Antifa Act of 2018."
Under the bill, anyone who "injures, oppresses, threatens, or intimidates" another person while "in disguise, including wearing a mask" will face up to 15 years of jail time, be forced to pay a fine, or both. ...
But this bill is specifically aimed at Antifa activists, who are leftist radicals who fight against the advancement of white supremacy and fascism. According to a Washington Post report, a majority of the Antifa adherents are communists, socialists or anarchists, and they do not generally trust the police to stop neo-Nazi advocates and organizations.
These fears are not unreasonable. America's police have assisted Donald Trump's assault on civil rights. For example, the Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon, reports:
Newly released draft reports from a city review of how Portland police handled dueling demonstrations last summer reveal cops admitting what activists have long suspected: They saw right-wing protesters as less of a threat than leftist ones.
"One lieutenant felt the right-wing protesters were 'much more mainstream' than the left-wing protesters," the draft report reads, "with a group that was diverse in their viewpoints and tactics."
The Portland Independent Police Review received numerous complaints from members of the public after a far-right group called Patriot Prayer held a rally across from City Hall last June.
The Guardian also describes a similar relationship as revealed in documents obtained following a 2016 clash between white supremacist and counter-protesters:
California police investigating a violent white nationalist event worked with white supremacists in an effort to identify counter-protesters and sought the prosecution of activists with “anti-racist” beliefs, court documents show.
The records, which also showed officers expressing sympathy with white supremacists and trying to protect a neo-Nazi organizer’s identity, were included in a court briefing from three anti-fascist activists who were charged with felonies after protesting at a Sacramento rally. The defendants were urging a judge to dismiss their case and accused California police and prosecutors of a “cover-up and collusion with the fascists.”
Defense lawyers said the case at the state capital offers the latest example of U.S. law enforcement appearing to align with neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups while targeting anti-fascist activists and Donald Trump protesters after violent clashes.
“It is shocking and really angering to see the level of collusion and the amount to which the police covered up for the Nazis,” said Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley teacher and anti-fascist organizer charged with assault and rioting after participating in the June 2016 Sacramento rally, where she said she was stabbed and bludgeoned in the head. “The people who were victimized by the Nazis were then victimized by the police and the district attorneys.”
Steve Grippi, chief deputy district attorney prosecuting the case in Sacramento, vehemently denied the claims of bias in an email to the Guardian, alleging that anti-fascist stabbing victims have been uncooperative and noting that his office has filed charges against one member of the Traditionalist Workers Party (TWP), the neo-Nazi group that organized the rally.
Some California highway patrol (CHP) investigation records, however, raise questions about the police’s investigative tactics and communication with the TWP.
Felarca’s attorneys obtained numerous examples of CHP officers working directly with the TWP, often treating the white nationalist group as victims and the anti-fascists as suspects.
Donald Trump and his allies and enablers are criminalizing dissent. This is a reflection of how authoritarians and fascists have little to no respect for the principle that the law should be neutral; for them, the law is a means of advancing their own political agenda. Trump and his allies have learned this lesson well.
Some examples: More than 200 people were charged with "rioting" and committing other crimes for protesting Donald Trump's 2016 presidential inauguration in Washington. Most of these individuals -- including one journalist -- have had the charges dismissed.
The Trump administration has transferred resources away from investigating white right-wing domestic terrorists (a group which enthusiastically supports Donald Trump) and toward "black identity extemists." The first group has been identified by law enforcement officials and agencies as representing the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. By comparison, "black identity extremists" is a a fictional category intended to legitimate entrapping and imprisoning black Americans who disagree with Donald Trump and his right-wing policies.
Donald Trump is pardoning right-wing extremists and lawbreakers such as Dwight and Steven Hammond and Joe Arpaio.
Donald Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court, perhaps to ensure that he will be protected from any criminal charges which special prosecutor Robert Mueller may bring in connection with the Russia collusion scandal.
One cannot ignore how Donald Trump does not believe that immigrants and refugees have any rights under American law. Moreover, the Trump administration's campaign of cruelty towards refugees and nonwhite immigrants is an act of defiance against both long-standing American legal traditions and international law.
The age of Trump offers a necessary civics lesson. Democracies are not protected just by laws and sacred civic documents such as the U.S. Constitution. There are shared and often unstated norms which also govern how responsible leaders and citizens behave.
Donald Trump and his allies and enablers have no respect for either the letter or spirit of the law. America's democratic norms and culture are viewed as inconveniences to be trampled.
It is not just the rule of law but also a shared understanding of right and wrong that should stop Trump and his assault on American democracy. So far, there is no sign of that happening.
Shares