TRUMP'S CIVIL WAR

Unmarked security forces prowling the streets of big cities. Tear-gas in the air. Protestors being indiscriminately beaten. Snatch squads in cars grabbing people and bundling them away into custody.

Prior to January 2017, if you had read that, you would have likely thought it was reference to apartheid South Africa. Now it is July 2020 and we’ve had three and a half years of the illegal occupation of the White House by Donald Trump, we are not at all surprised that this is his America where he has unleashed heavily armed federal forces, such as the Department of Homeland Security, on peaceful protestors.

We are though not only surprised. We are angry. We are determined. We will not be silent. The protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd are unprecedented in their size, passion and duration. Trump knows that the US has never experienced anything like this before. When confronted with such an outpouring of emotion and anger against police brutality and systemic racism, he defaults to the one and only position he has –the perpetual bully.

By sending in his federal thugs to Portland, and threatening to do the same to the likes of New York, Chicago, and Albuquerque, Trump is perpetuating both a crime against the very people he is supposed to protect and a huge constitutional violation against individual states.

The US is meant to be a nation of laws, not of one of martial law. Trump is using federal clout, in a sinister fashion, to blatantly usurp the role of local law enforcement. How very ironic. When it comes to the Coronavirus pandemic, our very own very stable genius left it up to individual states and cities to figure out what to do. It was almost as if the federal government didn’t exist. Yet when it comes to street protests, Trump has no qualms whatsoever of bringing federal force into play at the expense of various states and cities.

“Trumpism” has to be one of the very worst political concepts ever put forth. It stands for nothing more than whatever whim he has that day. Aside from one thing you can hang your hat on for sure when it comes to “Trumpism” – and that’s his love of brute power.

Despite being a five times draft-dodger, he salivates over both the regular military and his para-military stooges now surging through cities across the country.

Trump is though only a blow-hard tough guy. When protestors got a little too close for comfort, he was rushed into the White House bunker for his protection (when asked about this later, he laughably claimed he was down there “inspecting it”).

The majority of people in the United States have had enough. Enough of police brutality, enough of systemic racism, enough of paramilitary forces on American streets every night, and enough of the pompous buffoon currently directing his tin soldiers around the country like some teenage dictator who was never loved enough by his father and has never served his country in any of the armed forces.

The scenes of para-military brutality against peaceful protestors are profoundly shocking ad disturbing. As many predicted, Trump, actively aided and abetted by AG William Barr, and the silent complicity of the vast majority of the GOP, is dragging the United States further and further down the slippery slope of authoritarianism. This is where Trump always wanted to be – a pseudo-dictator lording his increasingly unaccountable actions over a brow-beaten population.

Power always comes from the bottom up, such as the streets, and never the top down. Authoritarians, such as Trump, will inevitably be deposed and tossed into the trash-can of history where he belongs.

While the American people enter into a new phase of struggle against injustice and oppression, Trump continues to cower. If not in his White House bunker, but inside his own mind.

These are dark days for American democracy. The forces of a madman are trying their best to break the spirit of resistance on the streets of Portland, Chicago, Kansas City and so on.

Sadly, there will be more as Trump’s blood-lust knows no bounds. He will not succeed. American resolve to correct injustice is unbreakable.

Trump is forever on the wrong side of history. Blue States must act accordingly and declare war.