With 1984 Approaching, What Must We Do?

Not so long ago, I was more frightened by Ted Cruz than by Donald Trump.  I saw Trump as completely erratic and without strong beliefs in anything but himself, whereas I knew the threat of Cruz’ reactionary vision.  After Trump was elected, I worried that the real Republican strategy was to help Trump be elected, then to impeach him and install Mike Pence in his place.  Pence seemed like another version of Cruz but more in keeping with the Tea Party and the current Congress, which would make him more dangerous. Together they would tear down civil rights, health care, climate advances, and so many other hard-fought progressive victories.  But Pence is also preferable to Trump.

There is a good chance that Trump is rapidly moving this country towards authoritarian government.  Lest you think I’m being hysterical, that there are too Constitutional and cultural restraints on this kind of move, wouldn’t you wager that, under Trump, authoritarian governance has 10% potential?  If so, we need to prepare ourselves.

Almost all modern images of an authoritarian future begin with 1984, which is now the best selling book at Amazon.com.  At core, Orwell’s vision targets information control (through “Newspeak”) leading to mind control (through “Thought Police”).  Big Brother speaks and the population must believe him—or else.  In a parody of Nazi and Communist propaganda, 1984 tells us that “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.” In other words, you can invent any version of the truth and impose it on an intimidated populous.  Trump means to intimidate us.

Trump’s talking head, Kellyanne Conway, offers a contemporary application of this logic by framing lies as “alternative facts.”  Trump’s investigation of voter fraud, which would lead to voter suppression might represent a concrete intervention by the ‘thought police.’  And he’s pushing the investigation in the face of virtually everyone, including the most right wing Republicans, like Jason Chaffetz.  Trump, the bully, will try to push past all opposition.

Trump’s binge of executive orders, without the consultation of Congress, or attorneys to check their legalities, or the cooperation of the people who would be charged with implementing them—without any effort to build consensus—speaks eloquently to his disregard for democratic process.  The use of a private security  service may auger the development of a personal militia.  So, too, the threat to bring federal troops to Chicago.  Bringing the Voice of America onto American soil may enable direct propaganda. I could go on but I think we can agree that the seeds of tyranny are being sown and the need for a massive response from all those who believe in democracy is urgent.

What, then, is to be done.  An opposition movement is already emerging, led by Bernie Sanders “Our Revolution,” by the organizers of the Women’s Marches, by MoveOn.org, by the ACLU, and by People for the American Way.  There are news organizations, like Politico, Think Progress, Slate, The New York Times, and the Washington Post that are gearing up for the opposition.

Almost everyone agrees that the long game requires organizing at the local and state level.  There is no other way to reverse the impact of gerrymandered districts on equal rights and protections under the law.

We need to organize to build a sense of solidarity, strength, and forward motion—and to gain confidence through numbers.  We need to turn ourselves on the way we did during the twin fights for civil rights and the end to the Vietnam War. Just marching together with so many thousands this last weekend furthered the sense that we are a movement.  Opposition to Trump and right-wing Republicans may unite progressive forces far more powerfully than the fight for specific issues like equal educational opportunity and climate repair.

We need to build rapidly and intentionally—before Trump’s authoritarian potential is entrenched. To do so, we need to know ahead of time, how and when to act, and we need to act in the most leveraged ways.  Here are a few suggestions.

First, we need to draw some clear lines in the sand so that we won’t have to figure out how to respond each time Trump transgresses democratic process and principles.  Crossing those lines will indicate that Trump has gone too far, and we must act.

Second, we must oppose every transgression. I read today that the Democratic Party is contemplating a “scorched earth” approach, which means opposing almost everything that Trump proposes.  It means refusing to normalize him.  It means giving up the folly of trying to negotiate with him—or with the Congress.  It means every bit the same kind of cross-the-board opposition as we saw from Senator McConnell and the Tea Party.  We need to act in this way for its own sake and in order to buy time for the Progressive opposition to gain strength.

Third, we need to utilize every possible way to oppose conflicts of interest that are already rife in the Trump administration.  His world-wide holdings make the United States incredibly vulnerable.  How much money and how many troops will we have to dedicate to protect them.  We need to have Trump in court every day, every day.

Fourth, we need to speak truth to power.  We need to say what we see.  We need to deny the Trump-Bannon-Conway lies and disable the disinformation machine that they have been building.  Bannon tells us to “shut up.” We have powerful communication tools.  We must speak up.

Fifth, we need to paint the picture of Trump as Big Brother.  He has survived all of the other portraits—sexist, narcissist, liar—you name it.  But not Big Brother, which should frighten both left and right.  Neither want their rights of free speech and free action abridged as much as he intends.  Or maybe, in order to challenge his narcissism, Trump should be portrayed as Little Brother.

The most important strategic aim is to keep Trump off balance. Any serious challenge to his fragile ego (his TV ratings or finger length) throws him.  We saw that when Hillary Clinton defeated him in debates and beat him in the poplar vote.  We see that now when he is confronted with the far greater size of the Women’s March.  He and his Inauguration organizers were “losers.”  Trump can’t stand to be a loser.  When he is threatened in this way, he lashes out, he blusters and blunders.  He makes mistakes.  He will make mistakes that lead even Republicans to call for impeachment.

Impeachment must be our short term goal.  It will not lead immediately to the realization of progressive goals but it will buy time.  And it will fire up a united Progressive movement.  That seems to me the best we can aim for right now.

The Right to Protest

Dear friends,

I don’t know if you follow sports enough to catch the uproar over Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality.  Kaepernick is a football quarterback playing for the San Francisco Forty Niners.  He’s not great but he generates attention because he began his career so quickly and dramatically.  He’s young and earnest and a little impulsive –like  many young people.

During the playing of the National Anthem, Kaepernick continued to kneel while his teammates stood at attention.  He did so quietly, with little fanfare.  To me, this gesture did not seem very confrontational but the press made a big deal of it..  Gradually, others have either followed his example or tried other ways to stand for the rights of young Black men, like linking arms or raising their right fists the way that Tommy Smith did in the 1968 Olympics.  Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins, among an increasing group of people across American, have joined in common cause with the protesters.

But the general reaction to Kkaepernick’s protest has been negative.  Throughout the country, innumerable politicians, business owners and countless others have offered their often heated objections to Kaepernick’s gesture. The public conversation has not focused on police brutality or equal rights.  It has focused, instead, on Kaepernick’s right to protest versus the “disrespect” he has shown to a patriotic American ritual, the National Anthem.  The challenge to his right has been stunning to me, considering all of the abusive, massively disrespectful behavior we see in local, state, and national politics.  Compare Kaepernick’s behavior to Trump and the outrageous, fact-free Birther challenge to Barak Obama’s presidential legitimacy.  And this is but one sign of disrespect to the dignity of our highest office.  Why should Kaepernick be held to a different standard than the politicians.  In fact, his “protest” was relatively respectful.

On the other hand, the objections that have filled sports pages of newspapers, have, paradoxically, added great fuel to athletes’ desire to protest.  There seems to be a little movement building.  For better or worse, athletes are in the limelight and have some power to influence their fans.  Since so many of these athletes are people of color and have managed to ‘rise’ in one of the arenas most open to them, why shouldn’t they be able to use their success in the service of their values?  Business people certainly do.

New York Times columnist David Brooks addressed this issue in his September 16th column.  I found the article smug and misguided and wrote a Letter to the Editor in response.  Given the substantial response that Brooks’ article received, there seems little likelihood that mine will be published.  So I decided to send it to you in the form of a mini-blog post.  This version is slightly changed just in case The Times does publish it. I hope you like it.

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David Brooks’ invocation of American civic religion, “The Uses of Patriotism,” runs much too close to the 1960’s condemnation of Vietnam War protesters.  “Love it or leave it” was the sanctimonious and divisive cry.  Why can’t we love it and protest when our country does not live to its values?  The right to protest is baked into the American tradition and the American Constitution, which guarantees the freedom of assembly, association, and speech.  The Boston Tea Party, a disrespectful protest of British taxation, helped precipitate the Revolutionary War.   In my view, we honor our nation by continuing practices that led to its formation and that guarantee the values on which it stands.

Brooks, himself, notes that “Every significant American reform movement was shaped by” self-criticism.  Protest is self-criticism in protean form.  Should we not have protested slavery when it was sanctioned by the Founding Fathers and enshrined in the Constitution?  How about the absence of women’s suffrage and discriminatory housing practices that have made it hard for every group of immigrants, from the Irish to the Latinos, to buy their own homes?  Almost all of America’s great social and economic achievements have come on the back of protest.

Every protest is met with resistance and disdain, as though they don’t fit in polite society.  I have written, myself, in favor of a more dignified and restrained presidential politics. (https://barrydym.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/a-call-for-a-more-dignified-and-restrained-presidential-politics/); and I find the current lying, name-calling, and bullying vile.  But, Brooks wants to sanitize protest too much.  He should know that self-criticism is inevitably messy and upsetting; and it does call into question the culture and values of the ruling classes.  In fact, protest, by its nature, arises outside of the halls of power.  It is the means taken by people who lack the institutional power to enact change through formal governmental channels.  In Thursday’s column, Brooks stands with those ruling classes and against the very tradition at whose shrine he asks us to worship.

We must stand with the original Tea Partiers, with the Abolitionists and the Suffragettes, with Martin Luther King, Jr., and his call for nonviolent protest, and with all who seek to highlight the need for changes in law and public behavior—even when they are irreverent.  Irreverence towards one set of “values”—standing for the National Anthem—often signals reverence for another set.  In this case, the more hallowed statement of values comes in both the right of free speech and in equal protection under the law, as it is assured by the 14th Amendment.  I believe that we should be proud of young people who speak up in this way.