This is how fascism comes to America.
--Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, May 18, 2016
I thought you were wrong, nephew. I still hope you are. You still hope you are. From your view as a Canadian working in Los Angeles, you've been saying for four years that the United States is verging on a new civil war. That it would be worse than the last one, because the states are not clearly divided.
That the return of fascism was a distinct possibility.
Even without you in LA and friends elsewhere in the US, the circumstances there would affect me here. I live in the country next door-- grew up, as you know, on the border. Protests have skipped up north, with a large, though largely peaceful, demonstration in Toronto on the weekend and another in Montreal which did see a smaller group engage in violence after the bulk of the marchers went home.
Still, I have been the one to note that protests and race riots turned uglier in the late 1960s, and America survived. I was the one who, when discussing the election and presidency of Donald J. Trump, tried to avoid sliding into Godwin's Law.
Now I wonder.
This last weekend, against the backdrop of COVID-19-related frustration and renewed racial tensions, protests erupted surrounding the killing, on video, of an African-American man in police custody. George Floyd was arrested on May 25, 2020 after a clerk at a convenience store reported that he passed a counterfeit $20.00 bill. Officer Derek Chauvin placed his foot on the man's neck, after apprehending him. Other officers stood by. George Floyd rasped out that he could not breathe. The officer did not relent. Floyd died. Four days later, Chauvin was finally charged with murder.
The protests spread to other cities and often turned to rioting. None of the resulting destruction, it must be noted, helps anyone in the communities most affected by racism.
No one expects Trump to be Robert Kennedy going into Indianapolis, Indiana on the night that Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, but Trump is the American president right now. A leader needs to demonstrate leadership. I'm not a supporter of Ontario's premiere, but I will never deny that he has stepped up during the pandemic. The American president has not-- at least, not in the expected way. Trump, when the protests erupted, had been taking heat for his government's handling of COVID-19. He was in the middle of a tantrum over Twitter, apparently believing that the platform's tagging of inaccuracies in his Tweets has something to do with the First Amendment to the American Constitution which, of course, restricts the government's right to interfere with free expression.
Trump had a rare press conference scheduled for Sunday. Reporters naturally turned out. Trump delivered his message on China, broke from the World Health Organization at the height of a global pandemic, and left with no a word on the riots, and no opportunities for questions.
Since protests and riots started, we have seen thoughtful and varied responses from governors, mayors, police chiefs, and protest organizers. Joe Biden called for an end to the riots, stating that "The act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest." The Canadian prime minister addressed the matter, noting we still have much to do in our own country with regards to racism. Trump, however, returned to Twitter, blamed the "lamestream media" for the violence, linked his political opponents to the riots, and retweeted Brian Meade's claim that he's seen little evidence of white supremacists being involved n the riots (to which Trump added, "TRUE!"). Curious choice of retweets.
Most significantly, on May 21, 2020, Donald J. Trump declared on Twitter (where else?) that the American government would declare ANTIFA a terrorist organization.
Obviously, acting on that announcement presents several problems.
First of all, in order to be a terrorist organization, something has to be, you know, an organization. ANTIFA is a label used by and applied to a broad range of activists. It's a viewpoint, not an organization. One might as well declare essentialists or souvenir spoon collectors a terrorist organization.
Or Muslims.
Or Jews.
Secondly, Trump cannot make such a declaration. There is no such thing, legally, as a domestic terrorist organization in the United States. You know the actual domestic organizations who have engaged in terrorist activity in the United States? They're not prosecuted as terrorists. They are investigated as criminal organizations. They are charged for specific criminal acts. Timothy McVeigh and his associates weren't prosecuted for holding extremist political views or quoting The Turner Diaries. They were prosecuted for blowing up a building and murdering 168 people.
To quote ACLU National Security Project Director Hina Shamsi, "terrorism is an inherently political label, easily abused and misused. There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group. Any such designation would raise significant due process and First Amendment concerns."
If I replace "ANTIFA" with "anyone the president doesn't like right now," the reasons for your fear grow clearer.
Thirdly, it doesn't make any sense to blame "ANTIFA," given the sheer range of people involved in the current events. Peaceful activists. Violent activists. People with a beguiling range of political views. People who are just really angry. Some opportunistic criminals. To what degree any self-identified ANTIFA have been involved remains unknown. It's not a thing that one can determine by watching some TV footage.
None of these things matter to Trump's hardline supporters, as illustrated by their responses on Twitter. For quite a few Americans, "ANTIFA" means anyone currently rioting. Some even have posted elaborate, reality-warping charts explaining Barack Obama or George Soros's culpability. But from one perspective, events could not have been more perfectly timed for Donald J. Trump. Directing anger against outsiders is what Trump has always done best, and if that were my city on fire, I'd be pretty damn angry. I might be looking to put a name to the blame. America has a potential Reichstag Fire that can be used to incite oppression of anyone who opposes the current government, and a double-plague of pandemic and riots that could be used to justify martial law.
People arrested? They were ANTIFA! And anyone can be ANTIFA. Who wouldn't be opposed to fascism?
Of course, a world burning under Trump's watch could also work against him. America experienced racism under previous presidents, but America has not consistently experienced riots. Perhaps enough Americans will notice. Perhaps supporters will turn into footage of community members cleaning up their neighbourhood after riots, or of police in New York and Coral Gables kneeling in solidarity with peaceful protesters. Perhaps the people who have always questioned the stability of the American president, even in a gerrymandered country, will speak up and vote. Elected governments, it has often been said, don't fear rioters. They fear voters.
I thought you were wrong, nephew. I still hope you are.
Remember my young friend, Singularity Girl? She loves Disney, even as an adult woman. Four years ago, when she first became a mother, I asked when she thought she'd be taking her son to a Disney park. She looked at me, a little surprised. "I don't think we'll be going to the U.S. any time soon."
Of course. She's White. Her partner is Black. She's mother to a "racialized" child.
Now, I wouldn't ask.
However, she also reminds me, she personally survived a civil war, an actual shooting war, and Sarajevo has improved considerably since 1996.
Of course, her family survived by leaving.
I text the best man from my wedding. He lives in Detroit, which has also seen protests. He despises Trump but he belongs to the NRA. He's a pretty good example of why the binary metaphor of American politics does not really work, and it certainly doesn't work in the average person's favour. I say to him, "You may need those guns."
I wish I were only kidding.
Take care, stay safe, Godspeed.