“Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all of our societies eventually will.” —Anne Applebaum, “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism”
18 U.S. Code § 2331 – Definitions
(5) the term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and
(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States; and
In the days to come, there will be many attempts to describe and analyze what happened in Washington, D.C. when the Save America rally morphed into insurrection. To me, this was yet another, albeit shocking, attempt by whites to deny the changing America. Call it Civil War, Too. The first Civil War was fought to retain and maintain slavery. This, just the latest permutation to prevent people of color from claiming their rightful place in the nation. This moment in time propelled, even demanded, drastic action because a racist Trump administration was about to be replaced by Democrats.
Please connect the dots. The President has always trumpeted his racism and, except for the few self-selected black people strategically placed up front and sprinkled throughout his rallies, his MAGA was about restoring the real America, the white America.
He made clear his intentions when he announced his campaign: “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems … Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
“And our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent … A lot of people up there can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs.”
The hate, and a reason to hate. Not only were they thieves and rapists, but they took your jobs.
Reality check: here, in the Berkshires, most restaurants and many farms couldn’t function without these hard-working people. Throughout the land, including at Trump properties for so many years, they worked tirelessly with few benefits, paying taxes knowing their status would preclude them from Social Security. And yet, Trump’s rhetoric and lies resonated with so many millions.
For those who brushed aside his words as merely the stuff of campaigning, fast forward to his inauguration. Remember the lie he began with, just to soften up the crowd: “Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michele Obama for their gracious aid in this transition …”
That thanks lasted a heartbeat, because they, Trump trumpeted, the previous black-led administration was gone and today “we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or one party to another ,but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”
If you didn’t get it then, how about now? Do you get it now? Did you hear the insurrectionist telling the black police officer, blocking him on his way to loot the Capitol, something like this: “There’s no systemic racism … Do you think my paying you reparations will make white people like black people better?”
Do you think maybe Trump, at his inauguration, was talking about Obama and those who foolishly tolerated and voted for a black man? Their crimes manifest: “For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost … Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge. And the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” [Emphasis added]
One of the things that marks this particular shyster is his awesome lack of irony — wasn’t it Trump University that left its students broke and deprived of knowledge? But, of course, he was really talking about black criminals and black crime. And their white victims. And if it wasn’t young black men in hoodies, it would be the brown-skinned rapists of the caravans. Thus, Trump’s litany of grievance was the perfect meal for the angry and worried whites.
If only any of his rhetoric had become reality. On and on the lies came: “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America First. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families … The Bible tells us, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.”
And did this ever happen in Trumpovia? “We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.”
Having put his hand upon the Bible, probably the closest he’s come to reading it, and having sworn to defend our Constitution, Trump signaled he was predisposed to ignore it. That the government we’ve been used to needed to be replaced by his supporters. The roots of the insurrection. More irony: these were the kinds of people he and his father had exploited as their tenants in Brooklyn, those working at his resorts, and attending his fraudulent university, and those whose healthcare he was planning to take away: “Jan. 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of this country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.”
And so it was the racist would lead the millions by assuring them that, at the very least, they were better than the others, they the Americans, by selling them a bill of goods — the Mexican-paid-for wall, the fantasy factories never built in the rust belt, the reinvigorated coal mines — by offering them an ever-refreshed bundle of mistruths. His inauguration was, of course, “the biggest crowd ever.”
With power, in office, when it was time to clamp down on immigration, the Trumpists were focused on people of color (not Melania’s parents), The Muslim Ban, and making it almost impossible for Latin Americans to make a perfectly legal claim for amnesty, then taking away their children.
The threat was clear: too many black people, and Latinos and Latinas, an almost inevitable changing demographic. Then, even worse, their growing desire to be represented. Yet, each attempt at voter suppression encouraged greater participation.
There’s no minimizing the growing influence of right-wing media. Laura Ingraham, she of FOX propaganda, according to Anne Applebaum, peddled a darkly pessimistic, yet effective depiction of immigration: “illegal immigrants as thieves and murderers, despite overwhelming evidence that immigrants commit fewer crimes overall than native-born Americans. Nor is this a familiar, reasonable call for more restrictions at the border. She has also called on President Trump to end not just illegal immigration but also legal immigration, referring more than once to the ‘massive demographic changes’ in America, ‘changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like.’ In some parts of the country, she said, ‘it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.’ She finished by addressing Trump directly:
“‘This is a national emergency, and he must demand that Congress act now. There is something slipping away in this country, and it’s not about race or ethnicity. It’s what was once a common understanding by both parties that American citizenship is a privilege, and one that at a minimum requires respect for the rule of law and loyalty to our constitution.’”
Remember the caravans of the mid-term election? Well, Trump, addressing Wednesday’s rally, brought them back to life: “But now, the caravans, I think Biden’s getting in, the caravans are forming again. They want to come in again and rip off our country.” [Emphasis added]
Is it a coincidence that, hours after a Jew and a black minister won Senate seats in the deep heart of the Confederacy, the mob grew violent. Violence was always the way to deal with black people — the Master didn’t persuade his slaves, he inflicted slavery with chains and maintained it with whips. When the South lost the Civil War, they responded to black Reconstruction success at the ballot box with segregation and lynching.
There’s a complexity to all this. Slavery was profitable. The southern economy was propelled by cheap labor. But that crassness was polished by a many-faceted justification: the inherent inferiority of blacks, the myth that slaveholders treated slaves better than they deserved, and, if necessary, the imagined Biblical imperative (Genesis 9:25-27: “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers”). And so it was racism became the necessary justification for taking advantage.
Today, there’s a similar complexity at work. The hate was always tolerated by the fabulously wealthy, who’ve increased their fortunes beyond imagination thanks to the Trumpian tax cuts and his willingness to defer to the corrupt marketplace, time and again, over the public good. Our pathetic COVID response is a perfect example. They, of course, could have pulled the plug on Trump so many threats ago, but as long as the money kept flowing … You could say the same of the pathetic Republicans who imagined short-term political gain worth putting up with the growing threats, and allowed them to ignore their increasing cowardice. If there’s karma, imagine Vice-President Pence, who stood beside Trump smiling false smiles, ignoring the blizzard of bald-faced lies, who presided over the ever-increasing unnecessary deaths of COVID, then hiding at the Capitol as the Trumpian mob chanted he should be hung. At the scaffold they had built for him, Pelosi, and the Democrats. The Trumpists equal-opportunity murderers.
What story was it that Pence, Lindsay Graham, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley were telling themselves when Trumpist MAGATs who couldn’t tolerate that he/they lost the Presidency in a fair fight, denied their defeat and stormed the Capitol, some with zip-ties and a noose, looking for blood.
For several decades, after the remarkable successes of the black-white coalition of the civil rights movement, the racists were forced underground as a majority of Americans opted for a more democratic America. Openly expressed bigotry was frowned upon, yet racism always festered. The KKK never went away; it just found new names. In fact, in recent years the FBI grew increasingly concerned by the threat posed by white nationalists and militias.
On June 4, 2019, Michael C. McGarrity, FBI assistant director, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: “We assess domestic terrorists pose a persistent and evolving threat of violence and economic harm to the United States; in fact, there have been more domestic terrorism subjects disrupted by arrest and more deaths caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years.”
Like many of you, as I watched the invasion of our capitol, I kept switching between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX. Not surprisingly, FOX hosts (they don’t deserve even a hint of the word “news”) began twisting themselves into pretzels to blame everyone besides those truly responsible. The kicker was later in the evening, when Laura Ingraham tried to turn her Trumpian sh*t to gold, conjuring up the impossible scenario of Antifa masquerading as right-wing racist zealots. The Right has become so very addicted to blaming the Left and, when it comes to growing right-wing militia violence, blaming Antifa. Of course, I’m betting Laura hasn’t ever faced violent racists or been in a riot, lawless or spurred on by out-of-control law officers. In fact, had anyone outed an Antifa poseur in their midst, his or her beating, most likely death, would have been livestreamed. But morons like Laura and Tucker and four out of the Foxian Five wouldn’t know truth if it bit them on the ass. Because, in fact, they are culpable co-conspirators.
I want to talk about the man who incited the mob. For the last few years, I’ve read and reviewed too many books about our soon-to-be ex-President, some written by used-to-be insiders, some by presidential scholars, and some who had studied the many ties to Russia and other authoritarian regimes. Too many ignored what they tried so hard to tell us.
My Democratic friends never forgave Jim Comey; easier to blame him than the dreadful campaign Hillary ran. But, as I read “A Higher Loyalty,” I found myself appreciating Comey for his intelligence, his ability to poke fun at himself, and his Yonkers’ then New Jersey smarts. More than so many others, he appreciated the coming danger for the nation — a tyrant-in-waiting and a growing domestic terrorism.
Comey’s description of his work as a prosecutor stayed with me, and reverberated time and again as I watched Trump these past years: “The Life of Lies. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. Loyalty oaths. An us-versus-them worldview. Lying about things, large and small, in service to some warped code of loyalty. These rules and standards were hallmarks of the Mafia, but throughout my career I’d be surprised how often I’d find them applied outside of it.”
I spent a great amount of time as a kid on Bronx streets, not all that far from Yonkers — for me, the home of Adventureland and the Raceway, where I first learned how to lose money betting on the trotters. One of the things we had both known, early on, was all about bullies. In fact, his experience with them led him to his career in law enforcement. “Mafia members may dress and talk in distinctive ways, but they are part of a fairly common species — the bully. All bullies are largely the same. They threaten the weak to feed some insecurity that rages inside them. I know. I’ve seen it up close.” Remember this. It’s key to understanding Trumpworld, and their attempt to paralyze our changing democracy.
Here’s Comey describing the intelligence assessment briefing he, Clapper, Brennan, and Mike Rogers gave Donald Trump about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Comey received the short stick and had to brief him about the dossier: “As I was sitting there, the strangest image filled my mind. I kept pushing it away because it seemed too odd and too dramatic, but it kept coming back: I thought of New York Mafia social clubs, an image from my days as a Manhattan federal prosecutor in the 1980s and 1990s. The Ravenite. The Palma Boys. Café Giardino. I couldn’t shake the picture. And looking back, it wasn’t as odd and dramatic as I thought it was at the time …
“The Italian Mafia, as noted earlier, called itself La Cosa Nostra — ‘this thing of ours’ — and always drew a line between someone who was a ‘friend of yours,’ meaning someone outside the family, and someone who was a ‘friend of ours,’ meaning an official member of the family. I sat there thinking, holy crap, they are trying to make each of us an ‘amica nostra’ — friend of ours. To draw us in. As crazy as it sounds, I suddenly had the feeling that, in the blink of an eye, the president-elect was trying to make us all part of the same family and that Team Trump had made it a ‘thing of ours.’ For my entire career, intelligence was a thing of mine and political spin a thing of yours. Team Trump wanted to change that.”
Counterpose MAGA and RINOS (Republicans in Name Only). The Good and The Bad. The Ins and Outs. Or, as Donald Trump Jr. put it at their rally prior to the takeover of the Capitol: the Republicans “did nothing to stop the steal … This gathering should send a message to them; this isn’t their Republican party anymore, this is Donald Trump’s Republican party, this is the Republican party that will put America first.” Then he threatened Republican representatives who wouldn’t vote to throw out the legally established results of the election: “They need to fight for Trump, because if not, I’m gonna be in your backyard in a couple of months,” he said. “If you’re gonna be the zero and not the hero, we’re coming for you.” Another would-be bully who pays to kill exotic animals from far away.
Did you ever wonder why Trump repeatedly felt the need to publicly demean John McCain, former Marine hero Robert Mueller, Gold Star parents, and the generals he asked to serve in his administration? His cowardice haunts him and it somehow paradoxically helps to deny the admirable bravery of others.
It’s important to understand that bullying only works when people surrender to the bully. Why? Fear. For the Trump-loving multitudes, there is so much to fear. Life is chaotic, incomprehensible in its random ability to strike one down. And if bullies have one great gift, it is sniffing out fear.
The story of the Trump presidency is the story of a bully, and the bully’s cruel accomplices — the Bill Barrs and Stephen Millers — and the bullied. Michael Schmidt, in his “Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President,” describes the especially pathetic Rod Rosenstein, who we later learned helped cripple the Mueller investigation, then, alongside Barr, totally mischaracterized its findings:
“McCabe thought Rosenstein was unnerved by Trump. Rosenstein often portrayed himself as just a country lawyer who, armed with the Constitution and a good sense of right or wrong, could bring justice to the world. But the torrent of the Trump presidency, foreign interference in the election, and the resulting political fallout was a more noxious mix than anything he had confronted in his career, and it appeared to have frightened him.”
Talk about fear. Attorney-General Sessions, who had no trouble making it impossible for those fleeing violence in Latin America to make a legal claim for amnesty and citizenship, and had no problem taking their children from them, was reduced to tears when Trump yelled at him. Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, in “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” tell the story of the moment Trump learns about Mueller’s appointment:
“‘You’re serious?’ Trump asked. ‘Serious as a heart attack,’ McGahn replied. There was a palpable pause in the room, unlike anything any of them had experienced from the voluble Trump, who could fill any airtime. The president slumped in his chair and sighed deeply, like someone making room in his lungs to take in more oxygen for a powerful scream. ‘Oh, my God,’ Trump exclaimed. ‘This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked!’ …
“‘It doesn’t matter what the truth is,’ the president said. ‘They just fuck you up the whole time … Then Trump turned his full venom on Sessions. ‘It’s your fucking fault,’ he said. ‘You’re weak. This is all your fault.’ Sessions said blaming him was not fair. ‘If you feel that’s wrong, then I’ll resign,’ the attorney general said. ‘You know what, Jeff?’ Trump said. ‘You’re fucking right. You should fucking resign!’
“Sessions’s eyes welled up. He was holding back tears with everything he had. By this point, McGahn, Pence, and Hunt were watching the president break the attorney general in front of their eyes …”
Andrew McCabe, in “The Threat,” offers another revelatory example of what happened after Comey was fired and he was in line for a promotion: “The president was behind the massive Resolute desk … He stood up and came around to the side. We shook hands. The White House counsel, Don McGahn, was there, and the chief of staff at the time, Reince Priebus, and Vice President Mike Pence. None of them said a word. No one was sitting comfortably in couches or armchairs. A row of little wooden chairs was lined up in front of the president’s desk, and the three men were seated in the chairs like schoolboys who’d been called to the principal’s office. One chair was empty, and I took it. [Emphasis added.]
“The president was sitting on the front edge of his desk chair, leaning forward, with his arms in front of him on the desk. He is tall, and very large, and when he spoke he started to make blunt gestures with his hands — kinetic, coming at you. He started off by telling me, We fired the director, and we want you to be the acting director now. We had to fire him — and people are very happy about it. I think people are very happy that we finally got rid of him. I think there’s a lot of people in the FBI who are glad he’s gone. We had to do it because of all that — you know, the Clinton thing last summer and all his statements and everything, he really mishandled that. He had to go, because of those decisions he made, and for a lot of other reasons …
“The president asked if I knew that Comey had told him three times that he himself was not under investigation. I said I was aware of that … A question was in the air: had I disagreed with Comey’s decisions on the Clinton case — mainly, Comey’s conclusion that Hillary Clinton should not be charged with a crime. I said, No, sir, I didn’t. Jim and I worked together very closely, and I was a part of those decisions.
“The president claimed there had been a rebellion inside the FBI and asked me if it was true that people disliked Director Comey. I replied that some people were frustrated with the outcome of the Clinton investigation last summer, but the general feeling in the FBI about this director seemed positive. He looked at me, with a tilt of the head, an expression of dismay or disagreement, or both. I had not given the answers he expected or wanted. The subtext of everything that he was saying to me, clearly, came down to this: Whose side are you on? … we were not having a conversation. He was not really asking me questions. He was probing me, to find out whether I was on board with him or not. This was my loyalty test …” [Emphasis added]
McCabe failed the test, and Trump’s hatred for those who said no was never-ending. It became increasingly clear that, with the toxic combination of duplicity and ignorance, and with his deference to Putin, the President posed a danger. Michael Cohen described Trump’s preferred method of lying, reminiscent of the Mob. Before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen testified: “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates … In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing …”
Like telling Secretary of State of Georgia Brad Raffensperger that he just needed to find 11,890 votes.
I don’t believe we can completely understand recent events without acknowledging we’re dealing with a dangerous cult. Of course, La Cosa Nostra didn’t have to convince anyone that theirs was a worthy cause, they just broke your leg or burned your store if you didn’t pony up. But there are so many hucksters and autocrats who, out of necessity, opt for brainwashing not beating. In my experience, there is no more apt comparison to MAGA than to other cults. And to adoration.
How else to explain the crowds that routinely stand for hours to hear a speech they’ve heard so many times? Who chant with such predictable fervor? The Trumpian call and response — it hardly matters whether the appropriate cry is “Lock Her Up,” “Build The Wall,” “Fake News,” or “Stop The Steal.” The born-again sheep gleefully purchase the latest Learjet for the shyster minister who assures his flock that Jesus doesn’t want him to fly commercial; the fraudulent gurus demand celibacy from all their followers except the ones they sleep with; Scientologists gladly sell you the one-and-only true way to bliss, one exorbitant step at a time or, if you prefer, the Jonesian poisoned pill, the doorway to doomsday, and a blissful everlasting peace; Hitler blamed the Jews. Only the rap changes, the scam follows a predictable path. Trump practiced till he got it right: overpriced apartments sold to Russian oligarchs looking to launder the billions they stole from the Russian people, mediocre steaks, a phony university, exorbitant Trump Soho condos not even located in Soho. When there are millions of gamblers, and the manifest advantages of the house, how can you fail at gambling?
Then the best scam ever. Turning deplorables into true-blue “real” Americans, the best Americans, wink-wink white Americans. Get yourself a red MAGA hat to prove you’re one of us. A weekly contribution. There’s a reason Trump talked about murdering someone on Fifth Avenue — like all cowards, he and his followers dreamed of such power.
Made easier by the fact we had a black President and still so many were pissed. And because there’s such a reservoir of disappointment, such festering anger that life in the USA is no bowl of cherries, such a simple, easily available explanation worked so well — it’s them and it’s their fault. It has worked throughout history. Scapegoats, from the literal goat exiled to the desert on Yom Kippur to the always convenient Jews, the yarmulke-wearing crooked bankers responsible for others’ lack of money, or the heretics of all stripes, guilty of sins as varied as translating the Bible and an own-goal in the World Cup, the last of the Great Auks killed because someone was convinced it was bewitched.
The enduring American grievance: the ungrateful black slaves who insisted on equal rights. I’ll never forget the hate in the eyes of the Alabama state police, Confederate patches on their uniforms, as we marched to the Montgomery capitol with Martin Luther King and John Lewis. A look that just conceals a barely controlled rage that can erupt in a heartbeat. This time all of America saw its murderous intent.
For all those Republicans who still need to pretend, for all those Tuckers and Hannitys and Lauras who still want to shill for the insurrectionists, you are co-conspirators. The South lost the Civil War; the racists will lose this Civil War, Too.
Georgia elected Jon Ossoff and Reverend Warnock. America elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And we will overcome.
For more information:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/confronting-white-supremacy
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/06/politics/trump-escalator-speech-annotated/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/transcript-read-president-trumps-full-inaugural-address
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-speech-campaign-rally-the-ellipse-january-6-2021
