Guns, Terror, and the Paranoid Style

With the Orlando shootings, there has been a spike in the rhetoric surrounding terrorism, its relation to religion and its relation to guns.  On the on side, there is a sense of denial that terrorist act are related to guns.  On the other side, there is a sense of denial that terrorist acts are related to religion.  The first is the peculiar denial of the right, the second the equally peculiar denial of the left.

Let me deal with the issue of guns first.  Let me say from the outset that I do not want to do away with the second amendment of the constitution, though I would not shed a single tear if it were repealed.  We could debate the meaning of the second amendment ad infinitum, and I won't engage in that debate, but simply suggest that there have been perhaps three emergent trends in the argument for nearly universal gun rights.  The first, of course, is the sportsman's argument, the one I am most attuned to defend.  Whether one engages in blood sports or not, I can understand its appeal and there should be few limitations on weapons designed for hunting which would include various forms of shot guns and rifles with limited capacity magazines.  The second is the "self-defense" argument.  Most arguments around self-defense are specious and beggar common sense, but here again I can understand the appeal and there should be few limitations on weapons designed for self-defense, which would include various handguns with limited capacity magazines.  The third is the "armed militia" argument.  Though it is not often openly articulated, it is the assumption that weapons are necessary to a military or police style operations to "defend the homeland," and the greatest threat to the homeland comes from the federal government itself, either through its inaction or its direct acton.

I say "few limitations on the ownership of guns" designed for hunting and self-defense, which implies, of course, that there should be some limitations created around "public safety."  My direct analogy, and it could be administered in almost exactly the same way, is the DMV.  Each weapon should be licensed, and while it might be cumbersome to affix a license plate to a hunting rifle or a handgun, the ownership of a weapon should nevertheless be "registered" and changes in ownership "tracked." This would not prevent the private transfer of a weapon from one individual to another,  and would place the burden of "registration" on the one receiving the weapon.  Failure to register a gun would be a criminal offense, not unlike the failure to register an automobile, and those in possession of "unregistered" guns would be subject to penalty.  Likewise, not unlike an automobile, each gun operator, in order to operate the gun, should be licensed.  This has the added benefit of registering the intent to own and operate weapons just as obtaining a driver's license registers the intent to drive automobiles, along with prior "testing" to determine one's ability to safely operate a weapon and "screening" to determine one's "fitness" to own weapons.  Not unlike a motorcycle "permit" or a commercial permit, special permissions beyond hunting and self-defense could be easily "stamped" on the license -- e.g. a permit to carry a "concealed weapon" or a "special use weapon" like the AR-15.  Moreover, each weapon should be individually insured by the owner in much the same way that automobiles are insured, both as property and as a liability.   Insofar as the "reckless" use of weapons is a public safety issue, not unlike the "reckless" use of an automobile, it is unfair for the general public to bear the cost of injury or death resulting from the improper use and/or storage of a weapon.  Bits and pieces of this are in place here and there, but it has not been "normalized" in the way that automobile registration and insurance has been "normalized" under interstate commerce assumptions and laws with national data-bases.

Who would object to this and why?  Administrative cost should not be a factor because fees could be structured to cover on-going costs.  It would create yet another government bureaucracy and those who object to "big" government might object on principled grounds, but once such a system were "normalized" private ownership of guns would be no different than private ownership of automobiles or real estate.  It wouldn't infringe on the right to "own" firearms, any more than it infringes the right to own real estate, but it would be different than, say, private ownership of a toaster.  I suppose that, given sufficient determination, one can imagine "murder by toaster," but it is difficult to imagine, even for the most determined, mass murder by toaster.  It isn't difficult to imagine mass murder by AR-15, and only the most willfully ignorant gun advocates can claim that guns themselves are NOT a public safety hazard.  It beggars my patience to explain to the willfully ignorant why a "good guy with a gun" is not an answer to the public safety concerns, and it does nothing to dispute a program  like that set out above, which would have the added benefit of additional "research" -- that is to say, the actuarial research and the profit margin of the insurance industry would begin to drive "rational," through the vaunted free market, limitations on the types of weapons available to the general public and at what cost.  Imagine, in other words, if the gun owner's insurance company that had to pay out claims related to the Sandy Hook or the Orlando shootings. Would it have issued insurance to either individual?  At what cost?

So again, who would object and why?  It could be argued that  it would not keep weapons out of the hands of "criminals" or those with malicious intent.  Of course not, but let's follow it through.  On the assumption that gun manufacturers will not engage in a black market, almost all gun sales will originate with a legitimate "dealer," who, by the way, should also be licensed just as liquor dealers are licensed.  One can assume that the original sale of any particular weapon will take place at a legitimate dealer.  Just as a legitimate liquor store dealer won't sell knowingly to minor, thus relieving himself of liability and criminal charges, a legitimate gun dealer won't sell knowingly to a potential customer who is unlicensed, thus relieving himself of liability and criminal charges.   If sufficient incentive were available, would a gun dealer willingly violate the law?  Of course, but he would be a criminal and subject to criminal sanctions, and he would have an "inventory" issue.  He would need to account for the missing "serial numbers" relative to a specific, licensed buyer.  Could he fake the license?  Of course, but routine cross-check audits would likely discover the fraud, particularly if the fraud were pervasive.  Could a "criminal" use a fake license to purchase from a legitimate dealer?  Of course, but the same cross checks would likely discover the fraud, particularly if the dealer had no intent to conceal it, and would alert law enforcement if nothing else.  Could a legitimate buyer use his license to buy a weapon with the intent of distributing it to criminals?  Of course, but that would make the legitimate buy a criminal with criminal intent and, when discovered, subject to criminal prosecution.  No law, or set of laws, is a perfect screen against criminality, but the vast majority of citizens might grumble about the bureaucracy necessary to enforce the law, just as I grumble about the DMV, but they would nevertheless comply and there would be numerous check points to keep the honest citizen honest.

So yet again, who would object and why?  Those who would object to any form of "government incursion and tracking?"  It shouldn't perhaps be surprising that Trevor Noah and others were able to find an Al Queda spokesperson, Adam Gahdan, pointing out the ready availability of guns within the US, an unchecked availability of which the Orlando shooter took full advantage.  Of course, with hindsight, no one would argue that he should have had the weapons he had, but the "licensing" prohibitions that would have prevented his purchase of the weapons was voted down by the republican majority in the Senate.  Sam Harris has been accused of islamaphobia, and I admit that there's something just a wee bit too preachy, something a wee bit too committed to the cause of debunking the notion that "islam is a religion of peace."  At some level, I prefer the urbanity of a Christopher Hitchens, who could quickly and easily debunk the notion that christianity, as it has been practiced historically, is a "religion of peace."  I would be the first to admit that the jihadist terrorist probably represents islam as a whole about as well as the white supremacist National Vanguard represents christianity as a whole.  Nevertheless, the doctrines professed by both the radical islamist and the radical christian have their fundamental roots in the religion practiced by a regional majority, particularly the regional majority of those on the evangelical right, a "demographic" steeped in and susceptible to what Richard Hofstader called the "paranoid style in politics."   Here, for example, is a snippet from the National Vanguard, a white supremacist group, that touches the core of the "paranoid style:"

Except for a relatively small minority of very sick persons who actually relish the idea of surrender and fantasize about being victimized, those who choose to give up their arms are hoping to be protected by the government. They trust the government. They believe the government has their best interests at heart. They think of the government as a friend and generally approve of the government’s policies.

I wouldn't want to suggest that this represents anything but an "extremist" point of view, but so long as we worry about "islamic extremists," we might as well worry about right wing extremists like the National Vanguard, the World Church of the Creator, and the Aryan Nation, all of whom profess to be Christian and all of whom, according to the FBI, represent "a continuing terrorist threat."  They are as virulently anti-government as the most radical "islamic extremist," and lest we forget, an emerging terrorist threat of special interest terrorists or those who occupy "extreme fringes of the animal rights [leftist], pro-life [right], environmental [left], and anti-nuclear [left]."  Though the animal rights and environmental "extremists" tend to resort to vandalism, those who support the "pro-life" movement have shown their willingness to take up arms to demonstrate their support of life.  All are as virulently anti-government as the "islamic extremists."  Obama has received considerable heat for not calling out "radical islam," but the terrorist reality facing the FBI is not limited to islam, and it is a terrorist reality, particularly that from the right, adverse to any form of "government" tracking or control of firearms.

In the original Harper's article he tells us that "the basic elements of right wing thought can be reduced to three."  The first element of right wing thought concerns the familiar refrain around taxation -- i.e. that since the Roosevelt's new deal, there has been a "sustained conspiracy" to "undermine free capitalism, bring the economy under the control of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism."  Although there are clearly remnants of this line of thinking, particularly in the efforts to undermine social welfare programs and the federal taxation that supports them, the communist bug-a-boo has largely dissipated.  There is no real, external communist threat, and the communist nations that remain, particularly China, have become more "capitalist" threats than ideological threats. What to do when one's favorite bug-a-boo has been "defeated?"  One needs, more than anything else, a new "bug-a-boo,"  and 9/11 provided it -- the threat of "international terrorism," particularly that in support of "jihadist ideologies."  These same ideologies had undermined "stability" in the middle east for some time, and disrupted access to oil, but now the threat had been brought to our shores.  There were, of course, conspiracy theories that Bush himself had engineered the attacks for precisely this reason, to advance his own oil interests and provide a new bug-a-boo, but I find that no more credible than any other conspiracy theory.  It was, however, terribly convenient.  It not only provided a new bug-a-boo, but the ideology of "jihadism" and the muslim religion itself was a traditional enemy of christendom.  Substitute the "war on terror" for the "war on communism," and the rhetoric of the right can resume unabated, particularly since there was incontrovertible evidence that they were "out to get us."

The second element of right wing thought is the contention,  according to Hofstader,  that "top government officials have been so infiltrated by communists, that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were consistently and shrewdly selling out American interests."   Here again, substitute the old bug-a-boo of communism with the new bug-a-boo of international terrorists.   With his election, Barack Hussein Obama, the top government official, bar none, became the man "consistently and shrewdly selling out American interests."  Trump's "birther" rants against Obama during the last election cycle, and the repeated claims that he was of  Kenyan descent provides a case in point.  As reported by the Huffington Post, "Trump appeared via telephone on CNBC, where he argued that questions about Obama's birthplace have not been adequately answered, despite Obama releasing a copy of his birth certificate over a year ago.  'Nothing has changed my mind,' he said." Such rhetoric has it's direct correspondence with white supremacist rhetoric, this a headline drawn from the web site of the National Vanguard, "a glimpse at the progressive element of Obama's homeland, Kenya."  Which came first might be difficult to prove, and it's not surprising that "nothing changed his mind," in part because evidence to the contrary, for the conspiracy theorist, is itself evidence of just how "shrewd" those engaged in the conspiracy have become and how effectively they "fake" evidence.  After the mass shooting in Orlando, essentially "I told you so," followed by "insinuations" of Obama's complicity with, or at least sympathy with, the terrorists was reiterated, though the message quickly became confused for reasons that I will touch below.

The third element of right wing thought, according to Hofstader, is that "country is infused with a network of communist agents ... so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans."  The whole apparatus is "political correctness," or the on-going inability to "speak the truth."  In another headline from the white supremacist group, National Vanguard, we are told:

the whole Trump story is a simple one: black, “Muslim” president leads to natiivist backlash, with a consummate salesman-demagogue giving his followers permission to say what had previously been beyond the bounds of polite discourse.

They hold some suspicion of Trump, along with any republican support of Isreal, in part because, as the same author put it, "the high profile jews supporting Trump make me sick."  Nevertheless, they see in Trump's "anti-poitical correctness" campaign at least a partial vindication of their "ideology,"

Let’s take “white supremacy” out of the realm of insult. It is an ideology, after all, not simply a slur, and it is believed by tens of millions of Americans. It is the proposition that the real (“great”) America is white America, and while the “melting pot” can absorb some blacks, Asians and Latinos, the essential core of what America is remains the Christian, European iteration that prevailed for 200 years. It is English-speaking, Merry-Christmas-wishing, and ruled by “real” American men, not by women or people with the middle name Hussein.

I will not attempt to answer the question which comes first, the sorts of extreme paranoid "christian" religion espoused here or the tribal hatred of anyone outside the tribe -- it is ultimately a chicken and egg question.  I will suggest again that it is no different in kind than the extreme paranoid "muslim" religion that fears incursion of secular western culture and their tribal hatred of anyone outside their particular tribe.

It probably goes without saying, but I will say it anyway.  The paranoid style of politics is particularly amenable to the NRA messaging and the proliferation of firearms.  I do put some faith in the notion that my neighbors are mostly benign, regardless of their skin color, religion, or place of origin.  For the very few who are not, I do put some faith in the notion that our government has our "best interests at heart," and that we are "protected by the government" and its agencies.  Those who place their faith elsewhere, believe that their neighbors are malignant, who believe their government facilitates their malignancy, would probably feel the need to arm themselves for "protection."  At the farthest extremes, they would probably feel the need to arm themselves to combat the government itself, if not actively through acts of terrorism, then at least defensively against their incursions.  It is, perhaps, not surprising then that the NRA messaging has found it's natural home in a conservative party that has been "dog-whistling" paranoid political thought for some time, "dog-whistling" that has finally called forth Donald Trump, a hound that cannot seem to restrain its barking.

Here again, I do not believe for an instant that the NRA is in conspiracy with the likes of  Al Queda or the National Vanguard or their ilk.  I believe they are pretty much what they appear to be, representatives of the gun industry.  Ultimately, the ends of the gun industry is to make a profit from the manufacture and sale of firearms.  How they justify that profit to themselves and to others is another matter, and it is that justification (and defense) of the gun industry that leads to ideological statements of one sort or another.   Cynically, however, it is difficult to miss the point that mass shootings and the effectual calls to limit the manufacture and sale of firearms, have resulted in the increased sales of firearms.   Here, as reported by the NYT:

the business climate for gun makers has rarely been better. Firearms enthusiasts, whether they are hunters, target shooters or those concerned with their personal safety, buy more guns after mass shootings and the resulting appeals for stricter gun laws. After the call for sales restrictions after the San Bernardino attacks, more guns were sold in December than almost any other month in nearly two decades, according to federal data released this week.

The same is expected to happen (and is happening) as a result of the latest mass shooting in Orlando, Consequently, “Mr. Obama is the best gun salesman on the planet,” said Mr. Navellier, chairman of the Reno, Nev., investment firm Navellier & Associates, alluding to the notion that the White House’s push for stricter gun laws has driven sharp increases in firearm sales," and "since President Obama took office in 2009, shares of Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger have each increased more than 900 percent, far surpassing the return of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index (up 147 percent) and even outperforming the stock of Apple (up 800 percent)."  Again, I do not think the gun industry is in conspiracy with the likes of a mass shooter.  I would assert, rather forcefully, however, that they resemble the cigarette industry in the 50s and 60s, fully aware that their "product" is a public health and safety hazard, but doing nothing to ameliorate those hazards.   I would assert, rather forcefully, that the republican legislators, who have dog-whistled the most paranoid aspects of our society, who have voted in a block against even rational discussion of gun legislation, are complicit in a wide spread public health and safety debacle.  

Perhaps, however, we have an opening.  The shooting in Orlando has up-ended most of the conventional narratives.  Although a muslim, and despite a phone call to 911 declaring his allegiance to ISIS,  it would stretch the limits of credulity to declare him an ideologically committed terrorist, the bete noir of the right.   Trump, clearly, self indulgently, with his finger on the tweet-trigger, did not call it correctly, and his retreat has been embarrassingly ignominious.   Although the targets were gay, and initial testimony tended to portray him as a typical perpetrator of a hate crime against gays, the bete noir of the left, it is not clear that he perpetrated a "hate crime," at least not with the typical motives of religiously sanctified bigotry and a tribal hatred of the "other."  The more they dig, the more they find that he was himself, very likely, a "closeted-gay."  If there was fear and loathing, it was more likely the self loathing of being what his father and the religion of his father would have called an "abomination."   In a crowded place, with people elbow to elbow, with free-flowing spirits in all senses of the word, with music blaring and nearly everyone in motion, in the lighting of a night club, how exactly would another gun firing away have done anything except increase the number of casualties among the innocent?  Maybe, if the perpetrator had been a brown skinned muslim extremist shooting at white skinned christians at worship, he would have been easily identified.  Maybe, if the perpetrator had been a white skinned christian extremist shooting at a room full of brown and black skinned people.  But this was a brown skinned person shooting in loud, dimly lit room full to brim mostly of other brown skinned people.   Although many, too many, were quick to leap on ideological bandwagons, in the end, the mass shooting will likely turn out to be exactly what it appears to be, a deeply disturbed individual with an AR-15, in an arena where most of the shibboleth's of "self-defense" turn out to be utter non-sense.    Perhaps there is an opening for a rational discussion, and rational action on gun legislation that might affirm our faith that the government really does have the people's best interests at heart, and not simply the profits of the gun industry -- that might affirm its ability to take meaningful action to extend real protection, address issues of public health and safety, and not say, in effect, "every man for themselves.  If you want to protect yourself, buy a gun -- better yet, buy several. "

Trump and the Judge: Identity Politics Broke Bad

One doesn't quite know where to begin, so I will just begin peeling away at the onion and hope it leads me to a better understanding.  Most are aware of the basic "facts."  If you're not, you're living under a rock.  The presumptive republican nominee for the highest office in the land, during an unscripted speech, went on a rant about the judge currently hearing the class action suit against Trump University.  There are numerous clips available on the web, numerous defenses and condemnations, and a thousand reactions within the established press and the blogosphere, so it feels a bit redundant to recapitulate it here.  Nevertheless, he essentially said that the judge in the case, Gonzalo Curiel, held a bias against him because he had made a number of anti-immigrant statements, particularly about Mexican immigrants and the wall, and the judge was of Mexican descent.  Neither he nor his lawyers have offered up evidence of any actual bias.  It was sufficient that he was of Mexican heritage.

One striking aspect of this, and something that most only mention in passing, is that his rant was entirely self-interested.  The judge is hearing a law suit against Trump himself.  Attacks on the judge, if successful, will benefit Trump personally.  There are few other ways of construing it, and those that exist require some extensive tap-dancing around his actual speech, but there is common-sensical  assumption that self-interest in a matter impairs an ability to make rational, dispassionate judgements.  If Judge Curiel did have a self-interest in the case -- i.e. a financial stake in Trump University or had been a student of Trump University -- he would be required to recuse himself.   Judge Curiel does NOT, however, have a self-interest in the case.  The presumptive nominee DOES have a self-interest in the case, and so it would not be surprising if he felt the judge might be biased, particularly if the judge rules against him.  Ultimately, however, his feelings of bias are irrelevant because his self-interest impairs his ability to make rational, dispassionate judgements in the matter.  Although the presumptive nominee has a very large bully pulpit to display his feelings of bias, it is both a matter of law and a matter of moral common sense that we are not our own best judges.

Another striking aspect of his rant was its "racism."  I put "racism" in quotes because I have no special insight into Donald Trump, or his racial feelings, and so cannot determine whether he IS a racist or not.  I suspect he is, and others suspect he is, but the remark has been variously construed as "racist" because it suggests that the judge cannot do his job as a judge -- that is to say, make rational, dispassionate rulings on the law -- only because he is of "Mexican descent."  His statement fits, as Paul Ryan himself suggests, a textbook definition of racism.  There's a sort of double whammy involved in this charge of racism.  The left hook finds the remark reprehensible because Trump is using the charge of "bias," not to suggest that he might bring some special insight into what it means to be of Mexican descent as a class or as a corrective to injustices suffered by those of Mexican descent as a class, but as the source of "injustice" itself.  It flips the usual paradigm of "identity politics," suggesting that the racial or ethnic minority is now the victimizer, not the victim.  It suggests the Mexican is victimizing the rich white guy, and it seems, well, self-serving and perverse for someone like Trump to be playing the "poor me" card, particularly when he also plays the "rich, white, powerful, successful" card at the same time.  The right jab finds the remark reprehensible because it is "illiberal," not in the sense of current politics, but in its most traditional sense -- the universal statement that "all men are created equal" and, as a consequence, all are equally protected by and subject to the law.  The logical extension of Trump's rant suggests that a black judge cannot hear cases involving white men, that women cannot hear cases against men, that muslims cannot hear cases on christians ... the list is nearly infinite and it serves, ultimately, to throw out any semblance of the "rule of law."  If we are to have anything resembling a "rule of law," we must assume that the judge, as judge, will make rational, dispassionate judgements -- that he will treat all cases which come before him "equally" before the law.

OK, before I go on, we all know the assumption of an "unbiased" or "non-racial" legal system is an ideal, not a reality.  Trump's remarks, as he doubled down on them are doubly reprehensible insofar as there is a plethora of evidence to suggest that poor blacks and hispanics, as a class, are afforded more severe treatment within the criminal justice system than poor whites.  It is not solely an economic distinct, but a racial and ethnic distinction, though the poor generally, to include whites, are afforded more severe treatment than the rich.   As Kim Farbota put in the HuffPost, "racial disparities in the application of criminal justice are not the only source of differential incarceration rates.  Poverty, geography, and lacking educational and career opportunities all likely play a role." She goes on to say,  "regardless of the exact factors behind the incarceration gap, it is not some neutral, statistical fact that black people commit more crime.  The gap is the result of numerous interacting factors, not the least of which is racism."  There is a legitimate political discussion of the "exact factors behind the incarceration gap," and how we might narrow the differences between reality and the ideal of "equality before the law," but the sorts of self-interested race baiting that Trump has engaged seems, again, self-serving and perverse.  Achieving "unbiased justice" for rich white guys does not seem to be a particular problem for the legal system, unless of course we are talking about removing systemic bias in their favor.  Nevertheless, it is an ideal that we must assume, and in the assumption strive toward.  What is the alternative?  

OK again, before I go on, yes, judges demonstrate bias.  Let's not be coy.  The republicans want to forestall an Obama appointment to the supreme court because they want to select a judge with a conservative bias.  Some republicans have suggested that, although there are many reasons NOT to support Trump, one very good reason is that he will be charged as POTUS to select at the very least one member of SCOTUS and that one member, if conservative, preserves the conservative bias, if liberal, creates a new liberal bias.  Trump has done a great deal to disrupt republican party unity, and he has done so with smug self-assurance and aggrandizement, but the one thing that he has done to unite the party behind him is to provide a list of potential Supreme Court appointments, reminding them, if nothing else, that HE will be the one doing the appointment.

Additionally, along the same line, in conservative circles, much has been made of Sotomayor's "wise hispanic woman" remark, and it has been used to explain, if not defend, Trump's position relative to Curiel.  Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."  At some level, this is an ill-advised remark, and there has been much discussion of "what the judge really meant," both from the left and from the right.  On the face of it she admits a bias based on the experience of being a member of a particular ethnicity and gender, being an Hispanic woman.  Indeed, but there is a significant moral and ethical difference between the sort of bias demonstrated by Sotomayor and the sort of bias Trump has accused Curiel of demonstrating.  On the one side, Sotomayor is defending her "resume," as one might expect during confirmation hearings.   She is claiming that, based on her background, to include her ethnic and gender "background," she can reach well informed conclusions.  There is some sense of self-puffery and disparagement in the "better" than a "white male," but those who had lived the lives of white males were already well represented on the court, and she claims to bring a perspective that is different and, yes, better, at least in some respects.  There is also some real suggestion that her decisions would advance certain "class interests," and serve a liberal bias in doing so, but there isn't a hint that she would or has taken personal retribution against specific litigants because they were NOT Hispanic females.  On the other side, there are few, if any, class interests at stake in Curiel's decisions regarding Trump University, except of course the narrow class of those who were ostensibly bilked by its claims.  Trump's accusation assumes that Curiel will take personal retribution against Donald Trump personally because Donald Trump personally has made disparaging remarks about his Curiel's personal heritage.   It's all "personal" top to bottom, and one suspects Trump makes that assumption because, well, that's exactly what he has done in response to disparaging remarks in the past and would do again in the future.

Nevertheless, Trump's remarks have brought back the specter of "identify politics."  Identity politics has become something of a bug-a-boo along both party lines, and like "socialism" has taken on a penumbra from bad ideas advanced by bad actors.  Nevertheless, it provides a useful touch point to describe certain aspects of today's political life.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a sufficiently thorough academic discussion, and suggests that "identity politics" (with my own slight modification) "rather than organizing solely around belief systems, programmatic manifestos, or party affiliation, identity political formations typically aim to secure the political freedom of a specific constituency marginalized with a larger context."  Gay and lesbian rights can be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, the LGBT community,  has been marginalized within the larger context and seeks to secure, if not political freedom, per se, at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.  The civil rights activism of the 60s and the Black Lives Matter activism today likewise could be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, the black community, had been marginalized within the larger context and sought to secure at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.   Sotomayor's "wise Latina" remark can be understood as "identity politics."  A specific constituency, women and Hispanic women, have been marginalized within the larger context and her role on SCOTUS was to insure they had at least the same economic and legal rights afforded to others within the larger context.   The list goes on, but I'm sure you get the point.

I have been cautious in my phrasing.  I say "at least the same economic and legal rights" because clearly enough "identity politics" lends itself to other agendas.  If one has been unjustly treated in the "larger context," one might, for example, justifiably seek "justice" and take retribution against the prevailing social structure -- one might, for example, go so far as to over-turn the prevailing social structure and reverse the prevailing power structures.  MLK, for example, sought "the same economic and legal rights" afforded to others within the larger context, but Malcolm X and Huey P Newton sought to overturn the existing power structures.    MLK sought an extension of the universalizing  "liberal agenda" to include the black community, where "all men are created equal" and are afforded the same political privileges and rights as others.   To a certain extent, MLK sought "assimilation" within the larger context, where the differences of race that defined the community made no difference and effectively disappeared, where a person would not be judged on the basis of their race, but solely on the "content of their character."  Huey P Newton and the Black Panther Party wanted no part of assimilation and were willing to use violence to assert the "identity" of the black community as something separate and distinct from the larger community.  As a part of their 10 point program, they wanted "all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from the Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States."

If you don't hear in Trump's accusation of Curiel a specific echo of Huey Newton's 10 point program, let me make it explicit.  Newton is asserting that black people cannot be judged by white people, in part because there has been a long history of reciprocal animosity between the two communities, in part because one must have the shared experience of being part of a community to make judgements on member of that community.  Trump is asserting that white people cannot be judged by brown people, in part because there has been a long history reciprocal animosity between the two communities, an animosity that he has exploited and exacerbated by his own remarks during the election cycle.  "I'm building a wall."  Moreover, he is asserting that having the shared experience of a community, being of Mexican heritage, is in some way "reductively totalizing" and inescapable.  One need ONLY know that Curiel is of Mexican heritage, and that his Mexican heritage CANNOT HELP BUT inform his decisions, so clearly the white man Trump cannot receive fair and impartial judgement by the brown man Curiel.  Trump is, in short, engaging in "identity politics," but the end game, clearly, is not assimilation, but the converse of Huey Newton's "identity politics," a specifically white neo-nationalist "identity politics" of isolation and exclusion. "I'm building a wall."

There is a national holiday and a statue honoring MLK on the national mall, but nothing of the sort for Huey P Newton.  To fully understand why, let me take a step back and "redefine" identity politics along the lines proposed by Stanley Fish in his editorial in the NY Times, "When Identity Politics is rational."  He writes, "you're practicing identity politics when you vote for or against someone because of his or her skin color, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or any other marker that leads you to say yes or no independently of a candidate's ideas or policies."   He goes on to write, "in essence identity politics is an affirmation of the tribe against the claims of ideology, and by ideology I do not mean something bad (a mistake frequently made) but any agenda informed by a vision of what the world should be like."  Identity politics becomes "rational" when it is used in furtherance of an "ideology," a vision of a better world.  MLK practiced a rational form of identity politics, insofar as it asserted identity in order to advance an "agenda informed by a vision of what the world should be like" and for MLK it was the vision of a fully assimilated post-racial America, where differences of race and ethnicity make no difference.  The election of Obama did not signal tha we had arrived at that ideal, and perhaps even set it back a bit insofar as a prima facia case can be made that the black communities, in their overwhelming support of Obama, were practicing a tribal form of "identity politics" -- that they voted for him solely because he was black.  Nevertheless, if we are to understand and correct the differences that DO make a negative difference in the lives of black people, understand and correct the lapses from that universal ideal where "all people are created equal," understand and correct those disparities where some are clearly "more equal than others," a rational form of identity politics will still have a place, and the "liberal" agenda, including Obama's, has been formed and informed by rational identity politics over the last half century.

It is precisely here, however, with the notion of full assimilation, that conservatives tend to disparage and resist "identity politics," and where Trump found his entry into "identity politics."   A couple of truisms.  It is important to note that, within ANY status quo, there are those who are advantaged and those who are disadvantaged, though at times the "disadvantage" takes the form of outright oppression.   It is also important to note that a "rational identity politics" is always "progressive," insofar as it examines the systemic advantages and disadvantages, if not outright oppression, and seeks to ameliorate them as a means of progressing toward the clear American ideal of "liberty and justice for all."   Those who are advantaged within the status quo will tend to resist changes and conserve the status quo, those who are disadvantaged will tend to support progressive changes to the status quo.  Much of the republican resistance to "rational identity politics" can be understood simply as "conservatism," a resistance to change within a status quo that have traditionally advantaged a predominantly white republican base and their progeny.

There is, however,  an inherent hypocrisy involved in the resistance to a "rational identity politics."  One cannot resist progressive change toward the ideal of "liberty and justice for all" as the preservation of inherent systemic advantage, at least not openly, and so one of the more common forms of resistance is denial -- that is to say, the denial that there is any inherent systemic advantages or disadvantages.  In the case of the legal system, if one wants to preserve the current status quo, at least, one must assert that it ALREADY provides "justice for all," regardless of one's "identity," else one opens the door to the sorts of progressive change that would erase advantage.  Trump's assertion that a judge cannot be fair to him SOLELY because he is Mexican up-ends conservative denial.  It opens the door to the worst forms of "irrational identity politics," the sort practiced by Huey Newton and conversely the KKK.  If what Trump asserts is true, if the "identity" of the judge matters and trumps other considerations, then one must assert that the legal system ultimately provides "justice for none," except in those rare cases where judge and jury are truly "peers," who share the same "identity" as the one being judged.  Much of the republican hemming and hawing around the issue can be understood in this light, an attempt to maintain the status quo by asserting that it ALREADY provides "justice for all."

The inherent hypocrisy, however, leads directly and perhaps inevitably to one like Trump.  If the legal system ALREADY provides "justice for all," then denial must take an additional step.  They must deny evidence to the contrary or provide other theories to explain the differences.  It would be difficult to deny the data that blacks and hispanics run afoul of the criminal justice system at greater rates than whites, that their conviction rates are greater than whites, that their sentencing is harsher, et cetera.  Differences must reside, not in the criminal justice system, but in the inherent weaknesses within the black and hispanic communities, and within blacks and hispanics themselves.  There is always a modicum of "truthiness" to such claims, perverse socialization in perverse environments leads to perverse results, but it is not a far step from the sorts of assertions that one finds Trump making about Mexican immigrants -- "it’s people from countries other than Mexico also. We have drug dealers coming across, we have rapists, we have killers, we have murderers."  Trump is asking us to draw lines between friend and foe on any number of "identity" markers -- ethnicity in the case of the judge, country of origin in the remark above, religion in his many comments about Muslims, so on and so forth.  If one knows the ethnicity of the individual, you need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  If one knows the immigration status of an individual, legal or illegal, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  If one knows another or suspects another is Muslim, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.  Trump is playing "identity politics" in its most malignant sense, asking his followers to target, in an almost literal sense, those who do not have the right identity markers.  Such thinking appeals to the lowest common denominator.  It is a tribal or a gang mentality, and it is probably not surprising that there is retaliation in kind with more or less open gang warfare after his rallies. 

BREAKING NEWS

One of the more tragic aspects of American life today is just how banal gun violence, particularly mass shoots, have become.   The "worst" incidence of gun violence occurred two days ago at a gay night club in Orlando, and I was struck by how similar the reporting of the incident was in some ways to the reporting of a tornado.  It's tragic.  It's horrific.  It's as unpredictable as a tornado, but inevitable.  The difference, of course, lies in the perpetrator.  A tornado is an "act of god," but a mass shooting is the act of human beings, but here too the response has become predictably banal.  The Washington Post published an article, "The New Norm: When Tragedy Hits, Americans Stand Divided."  It pretty much lays out the divide.  Obama called the incident an "act of terror" and "an act of hate," but he did NOT single out and vilify the shooter AS a Muslim, despite repeated calls by conservatives that he do exactly that.   RedState, for example, had this headline: "Obama Won't Say "Islam," But Goes Right to Gun Control in Pathetic Address to Nation."  The article itself is rather incoherent, with some of Trump's command of syntax, but it does say "despite the voluminous evidence of Islamic terror, and despite the fact that the shooter literally called 9-11 and swore allegiance to ISIS before the attack, the President at no point mentions Islam, radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, jihad, or even ISIS."  

One might ask why he would fail to do so?  I tend to agree with Sam Harris on the issue of Islam.  Those unfamiliar with his thinking can google him and find his podcasts.  He would agree with RedState that there is "voluminous evidence" of the islamic violence, that it is inherent to mono-theistic religions, including Christianity, but Christianity has at least better constrained its historic tendency toward violence against apostates and unbelievers.  Islam has not, or has not yet, constrained its tendency toward violence.   I can say that, Sam Harris can say that, but having said that, I also tend to agree with Obama's reluctance to call out Islam, and Muslims, in the way conservatives and Trump would have him call them out.  Assume, for the moment, that he did so, what then?  Internationally, of course, he could bomb ISIS and combat terrorism, but he is already doing so.  Domestically, virtually every conceivable response, specific to Muslims, would be a violation of the US constitution and established law.  The constitution states explicitly that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."  That would include, one supposes, Islam.  One could go down the list of amendments, and how contentious virtually every conceivable response specific to Muslims would be, but I will restrain my already unrestrained pedantry.  Suffice it to say, Obama could call it an act of hate directed at the Gay community, and an act of terrorism perpetrated by a Muslim, but that is no different in kind than calling the recent shooting at an abortion clinic an act of hate directed at abortion providers, and an act of terrorism perpetrated by a Christian.  The latter, one suspects, would generate a different kind of response.  

Here again, assume that he did so, that he called it out as "Islamic terror," how exactly could that be interpreted?  Here, I have to answer that it would be "identity politics," but of what sort?   Perhaps it is a failure of imagination, but I cannot find a way to legitimately call it a "rational identity politics" in service to that secular American ideology that demands an equality of "justice for all" regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.  Certainly the victims of the Orlando shooting deserve justice, but is it justice served by the punishment of an individual for a criminal act, or is justice served by the punishment  of an entire religion for its inherent criminality?  There is little to be gained by way of retributive satisfaction by punishment of the individual -- he has, in effect, already been punished -- but what is to be gained by the punishment of an entire religion?   The conservative call to mark the shooter, in way suggested by Red State, is to engage in the most malignant form of "irrational identity politics."  If one knows an individual is a Muslim, one need know nothing else.  They are, ipso facto, the enemy.  Obama's response, on the one hand recognizing the hate directed at the Gay community and on the other refusing to apply ethnic or religious markers to the perpetrator, is fully in line with a "rational identity politics" that sets as its goal the secular American ideology that demands an equality of "justice for all" regardless of race, ethnicity or religion.  As an individual I may call out the shooter as an Islamic terrorist, but for the President to do so, as the representative of the American people as a WHOLE -- white, black, gay, straight, christian, muslim -- would mark the first step toward the "irrational identity politics" practiced by the fascists, the delineation of friend from foe along inherent tribal lines.  If one knows or suspects another of being a Jew, one need know nothing else.  They are the enemy.

History, I have no doubt, will vindicate Obama.  If his "successor" fails and Trump is elected, history, I have no doubt, will mark it as the beginning of the end of the experiment in government so beautifully described by a republican -- a nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."  We will become something else, but it most assuredly will not be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" -- that is to say, "of the people as a whole, by the people as a whole, and for the people as a whole."  We will become a nation as fractured as the nation that occasioned the Gettysburg Address, and what emerges from that dissolution will be anyone's guess.    

The Duty to Tolerate, Violence, and the Succession of Texas

Yesterday I listened to the latest pod cast by Dan Carlin of Hardcore History and Common Sense.   In it, he made a point virtually identical to the point I made in my post of a few days ago.  He asked a question, for which he didn't have an answer:  what to do, in an open society, when our differences have devolved into a hatred so intense that we cannot live together?

There are, of course, several ways to answer that question.  The first, the most obvious, is to cease being an open society.  That, of course, is my over-riding fear.  An open society is predicated on several values, but the most important value, the one that keeps us "open," is the "duty to tolerate."  With free speech, for example, if I wish to speak my mind as a right, then I have a duty to tolerate others who speak their mind, particularly when I find that speech objectionable.  It is no trick to follow through on a "duty to tolerate" when we agree, it is only a trick when we disagree.  We all exist in a world of rife with human frailty, and there are provocations for us all that push us beyond the limits of tolerance, but if it were easy to follow through on a "duty," it wouldn't really even merit the sobriquet of "duty."

Knowing, however, that we live in a world rife with human frailty with provocations for all, there is a corollary value of "civility."  It is difficult to tolerate another's speech when it is aimed at me, as a person, and it lacks any form of civility.  We should not mistake "civility" for "political correctness."  The latter implies an enforced agreement with a comprehensive ideology or doctrine.  The former implies, not enforced agreement -- being a "good communist" or a "true conservative" or a "good christian" -- but simply avoiding offense for the sake of offense -- i.e. avoiding language like the following:

The Republicans have been here before - and will always look away if the target is a Democrat - Funny how many now take issue with Trump. It is simply because he is hurting Republicans. That is the only problem for them. Patriotism means little to these people - power is their only objective. 

Such language is designed to offend and draw boundaries.  The moment we start objectifying people, setting them apart as "these people," and simplifying their world view to the point of non-sense, we have ceased to be civil and have failed in our duty to tolerate.  Of course power is an objective for republicans.   Power is an objective for both republicans AND democrats, and in both cases it is simply instrumental to the fulfillment of a "vision" for the American future.  I disagree, sometimes strenuously, with the world view implicit in the republican vision, but "these people" are nevertheless people who no doubt love and worry for their families as much as we love and worry for our families.  I have to be reminded of this by my wife, who tells me at times that I wear my disdain all too visibly across my face, and I could have plucked examples of incivility from my own blog posts, but the undeniable fact that I am rife with human frailty does not make civility, in a civil society, any less important.

We can look back at history for examples that seem in some ways to mirror today's malaise.  The late 60s/early 70s come quickly to mind -- the racial and ethnic tensions, the weariness with a war that seems never to end and to lack definable "purpose," the growing severity of action and reaction to the political status quo -- but history is always an imperfect mirror.  There is a difference today, and I've alluded to it in my previous post and above -- social media.  It abets communication in many ways, not all of them good.  So much has been written about the "new" phenomenon of cyber bullying, trolling, and the like that I doubt I can add anything new to the discussion, but would simply point out, along with Carlin, that it abets the speed at which "disputes" escalate.  It has removed, as it were, "time for reflection." In the 70s, I wrote several letters to the editor of the Omaha World Herald, only one of which was published.  I have no idea how many "liked" it, nor did it occur to me to care.  I had expressed myself, and was glad that the paper's audience could hear what I had to say.   Today, I can post a response to a response to an article in seconds, but then so can everyone else.  If I want to be noticed amid the babble, if I want to accumulate "likes" or provoke responses, it helps if my position is more "extreme," less "civil," more "provocative."   So much too has been written about the "new" phenomenon of the virtual, echo-chamber community, that here again I doubt that I can add much new to the discussion, but would simply point out that even the most extreme points of view can find their virtual community, their reinforcing and reassuring echo chamber. 

The comment above is taken in response to an article in the Huff Post, entitled "The Media is on the Edge of a Murrow Moment."  It suggests that the current media is about to call out Donald Trump (see, trying to be more civil) in the way that Edward Murrow called out Senator McCarthy.  My gut level response is bologna.  The media today simply cannot have a Murrow moment.  In Murrow's day, there was a sense of journalistic integrity, which meant, in effect, reporting on the day's events with some sense of "objectivity." We assumed that journalists struggled to maintain their objectivity, but that they had a duty to do so, that they had a duty to report all the facts, not just the amenable facts.  In the world of Murrow and Cronkite, where there was a sense of journalistic integrity, it was shocking for a Murrow to call out a Senator McCarthy, for a Cronkite to call out the Vietnam War, a dash of cold water to the face of the American public.  Today, of course, there is little sense of journalistic integrity, and even more mainstream outlets -- Fox News and MSNBC -- have come to resemble the reinforcing and reassuring echo chambers of a "monetized" social media.   For those in the Fox News echo chamber, they have called out President Obama so many times, in so many ways, all of them "pre-escalated" to apocalyptic terms, his malignity has become a head-bobbing truism, not a shocking truth.  He is, as my dinner partner the other night put it, "out to destroy America" with malice aforethought.

The difficulty, of course, is that the walls of the bubbles are growing thicker, less penetrable, more vitriolic in their view of the other bubbles.  Dan Carlin referenced the Trump rally violence in San Jose as a case in point and led him to ponder an America where the vitriol had become so intense, the hatreds so malignant, the threat of violence so pervasive, the duty to tolerate others with civility so burdensome that the differences themselves can no longer be tolerated.   What then?  The response of government forever has been to close down the open society and silence the opposition.   Knowing that, it matters -- it really really matters -- who we put into power.  It becomes imperative -- even absolutely imperative -- that the person in power, the POTUS, reflects our world view.  We, of course, do not want to be shut down.  We want the others shut down.  We do not want their vision of the future imposed upon us.  We want to impose our vision of the future on them.  When we have closed down the open society, we enter a world where civil disagreement, much less civil disobedience, can no longer be tolerated -- where one form or another of "political correctness" actually does reign supreme, where simply expressing an "difference of opinion" has life altering consequences.  Those who long for a "strong leader," one who can simply "over-power" the stagnation in Congress, are asking that we close down the open society.  

What though if you are on the outs?   What if the hated other has taken over the government?  The mass of men and women are more like sheep than wolves, and there is sufficient historical evidence to suggest that the masses would simply keep their head down and go on grazing.  Most of us, however, do not like to think of ourselves in that way.  We assume that, in the face of an opposing tyranny, we would join the resistance.  Does "our vision of the future" matter enough, is our hatred of the other imperative enough, that we resort to violence?   We have, of course, experimented with civil war in the past.  Here again, though, history is an imperfect mirror.  Such a civil war would be "unthinkable" today in part because the federal government and its military is qualitatively "different."  We were verging into modern warfare with artillery and the first rapid fire "machine" guns -- and the introduction of those weapons into traditional military tactics accounted for a good deal of the bloodshed -- but for the most part the average farmer with a rifle and a horse had pretty much the latest in military technology.   The second amendment aside, the average militia man today does not have anything resembling the latest in military technology.   There would be no dividing up and squaring off, as there was during the civil war.  Some Texas legislators fantasize about succession, but their fantasies assume that, given a vote to break away, they would simply be allowed to do so.  I doubt that would be likely.   If the federal government decided that they wanted to maintain the union, however, they could easily quash any "armed" rebellion and restore a semblance of order.  The only on-going alternative for the "rebels" would be a continuous terrorist war against a federal government "forced," so to speak, into countervailing violent repression.  It would mean, effectively, the end of an open society with any semblance of a "right to privacy."  Any such rights would be quickly sacrificed on the alter of "security" and we would become a surveillance state outright.

The previous paragraph is written from a speculative "what if" point of view, but for many who have internalized the over-heated rhetoric of talk radio, the hated other has ALREADY taken over the government.  For many, Obama, and all that he represents, has ALREADY taken away our freedoms. The so-called religious freedom acts, with their insistence on "states rights," are a case in point.  I have talked about the laws in previous posts, but they are dog whistle laws designed, under the cover of religion, to protect a freedom to discriminate, laws that protect individual measures that would free us from the hated other.  In that sense, Obama, as a black president with a "questionable" background, represents a federal government that has, since the Johnson administration, interjected itself more and more to TAKE AWAY their freedom to discriminate, their ability to free themselves from the hated other.   Federal anti-discrimination laws go beyond a simple "duty" to tolerate and create a legal obligation to tolerate those who, for many, are simply intolerable.  What to do when the federal government seems to ignore the will of the people, or at least the will of the people who think and act like ME?  If you live in an "algorithm" driven bubble of Facebook friends, if advertisements feed one a constant stream of "products you might like" along with "opinions you might share," the people who think and act like ME would seem to be legion.  What to do then when the federal government seems so opposed to the will of the people?  For true "patriots," those who feel the federal government has ALREADY "extend[ed] and unwarrantable jurisdiction," those who feel the federal government has ALREADY a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations," it is not difficult to use the language of our founders to initiate a call to "institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It is, of course, easier to live in a bubble if one is rural or one lives in a"gated" community, where the  "other" is mostly an abstraction, and my neighbors are for the most part just like ME.  It is more difficult to live in a bubble if one is urban, where the "other" is the person just ahead of you at the grocery check-out, making small talk about their children with the clerk, who shares the same ethnicity.  It is difficult to sustain a reciprocal duty to tolerate with an abstraction, particularly when that abstraction can be so easily vilified in the on-going media feed.  It is more prudent, if not altogether easier, to sustain a reciprocal duty to tolerate when it is clearly a matter of maintaining the peace and safety between contiguous neighborhoods.  As an aside, even apart from arming a militia to oppose the federal government, it is easier to feel that gun laws are an "unwarrantable jurisdiction" and one is being deprived of constitutionally given rights where guns are used principally for hunting and self-defense is an abstract fantasy.  (Hearing my neighbors talk about self-defense, I always imagine the scene from A Christmas Story where Ralphie uses his red-rider bb gun to "protect" his family from masked robbers slithering over the fence in stripped shirts, but their mental vision is more r-rated and adult but essentially the same.)  It is harder to feel that gun laws are an "injury and usurpation" where guns are used principally as tools of illegal aggression and there is no gun-based self-defense from the stray bullet that comes through your living room wall during a drive by aimed at someone else entirely.   I sketch this rural/urban divide simply to point out that some of the deeper divisions within our country stem from that divide.   Part of the motivation for the religious freedom laws, for example, was to over-turn even more local -- that is to say, more urban -- laws prohibiting discrimination.  

Nevertheless, what if, just for the sake of argument, Texas actually succeeded from the union?   What if the duty to tolerate the hated other and their "injuries and usurpations" became too burdensome?  What if Washington, so to speak, said "peachy fine, see yah" and allowed a peaceful succession because they didn't have the stomach for killing hundreds of thousands of Texans.  It's likely that they would be just a smaller version of the current United States, with many of the same divides. Although Texas is a "red state," about as red as one can get, the majority of the voters in Dallas County, home to Dallas, nevertheless voted for Obama.   The same pattern holds throughout the US, the possible exception being Utah, a predominantly urban state that is consistently conservative mostly because of a Morman stranglehold.  Texas remains red mostly because it is predominantly rural, and while succession would give ascendency to the rural attitudes in the short term, the fundamental divisions and the fundamental problems that go with them would remain.  What if, though, just for the sake of argument, we assumed that Texas was uniformly red, that there were no divisions in the state, and that on succession the people of Texas uniformly and enthusiastically adopted a "true conservative" constitution -- if they did away with social safety net programs like SNAP, Obamacare, medicaid and medicare, and social security then reduced taxes accordingly balancing the budget? -- if they did away with the separation of church and state, put religion back in the schools, and allowed a state sanctioned religion to determine, among other things, a mandatory curriculum in the public schools and universities? -- if they had no restrictions on the purchase and sale of weapons of any sort including those that have only "military" utility like assault rifles and armor piercing rounds?  -- if they deported all "illegal aliens" and built up the "military" to patrol the border and enforce stricter controls on immigration and raised taxes accordingly balancing the budget?  --  if they "relaxed" current fourth amendment protections and increased internal surveillance, particularly on suspected minority populations like Muslims, to improve internal "security?" -- if they relaxed the requirements of the 24th amendment to the current constitution and put into place additional restrictions on "voting" rights to include various forms of "poll" tax?   Would it make Texas a more or less desirable place to live?  For whom?    

Profiles in Cowardice

Response to a Huffington Post Article of the same title by Robert Kuttner:

Although I am anything but a supporter of the trumpeter, to be fair, there are "principled" conservatives. I just happen to disagree with most of the "principles."  More disturbing, and what Kuttner dwells upon, is the "sell out" to the unprincipled candidacy of the trumpeter all in the name of "party unity" and to "stop Hillary."  One might understand the sell out were Hillary as malignant a force as the trumpeter, but she is not.  The so-called Benghazi affair is over-hyped conspiracy theory non-sense, no different in kind from the speculation that Bush engineered the 9/11 attacks.  Though I assume there are no huge revelations to come else they would have come already, the email scandal does not reflect well on her.  It likely could have been put to rest long ago were it not for an unfortunate tendency to tenaciously play out a bad hand.  Had she simply folded, pushed that pot to her opponent, and moved on to the next hand, it would continue to come up, but it would not be an "unfolding" story the way it has been.   

On the other hand, with the trumpeter, there is actual, incontrovertible evidence of an on-going malignancy that runs almost too deep for words.  The whole "business" of Trump University, for example, speaks to a tendency to "lie" blatantly for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and gain.  Even the name, Trump University, demonstrates the tendency to mislead for profit.  It is not a "university," not in any legitimate sense, and I could care less about a football team.  During my own tenure as a community college academic, colleagues at a sister institution spent five years amassing evidence sufficient to the sobriquet "university," which included expanding the range of their offerings to something approaching the universe of knowledge and improving the range and depth of a faculty actually qualified to pass on that knowledge.  It was no mean feat, and when the accreditation agency gave their approval, it was cause for celebration.   Trump University was predicated on the outset on "secret" knowledge from those in on the "secret," those faculty hand picked by the trumpeter himself, and "access" to the inner sanctum would cost you, a lot as it turns out.  Either the trumpeter lied when he claimed in advertisements to hand-pick the faculty or he lied under oath during the deposition when he denied knowing them, but one way or another he misled.   Even RedState.com has published an article titled "The Media are Letting Trump Get Away with Telling These Six Lies about Trump University."

So which is worse, which is the lesser of two evils, the email scandal or Trump University?  Both are potentially criminal, though Clinton's "criminality" hinges on technical issues that I doubt most could adequately explain.  The trumpeter's "criminality" is clearly visible to anyone who has paid more than they could afford for exaggerated claims. I doubt, however, that criminal charges will be brought in either case.  So which is worse?  It depends, I suppose, on who one wants to discredit, but there is considerable available evidence in support of the tag line that the Huff Post uses after every trumpeter story: "Donald Trump regular incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racit, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ball all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S."   Hillary may be "crooked," but the trumpeter is twisted.   

Both issues, however, are red-herrings.  I believe we are witness in this election to the disintegration or re-alignment of the two party system that we have had now for about a half century.  The names will stay the same, Republican/Democrat, but the alignments that have made both parties "electable" on the national stage are coming apart into balkanized, irreconcilable "attitudes."  It's worse on the red side, so let me begin there.  In previous posts, I have suggested that the republican party has been comprised of three rather distinct strains -- the economic conservatives who favor "enhancements" of the existing status quo which clearly favor the already rich, the evangelical conservatives who favor hitting the resent button and reinstating the social mores of the 50s, and the neo-nationalists who favor a well armed militia in order to meet the threat of the alien other. The three strains overlap some and many are two out of three so to speak -- the disparagement of gays and the transgender appeal to both the evangelical and the neo-nationalist -- but the clear outlier is the economic conservative.  They need a broader base because few would vote for an economic policy that, if honestly described, would further enrich the already rich, entrench those riches across generations, and diminish any real opportunities for the upward mobility of the masses, including the working class whites.  

I will come back to the economic conservatives in a moment, but just a quick sketch of the neo-nationalist strain.  As his signature legacy of Lyndon Johnson, a democrat, signed the Voting Rights Act of of '64 and the Civil Rights Act of '65 and more or less ended Jim Crow, the de jure segregation that had been in place since reconstruction.   As with any action, there is a reaction, and many within the republican party, particularly Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, saw it as an opportunity and began working within the disaffected to attract white conservative voters to the republican party.   As his campaign strategist, Kevin Phillips famously put it:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that.  The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.

The so-called southern strategy, over the ensuing two decades, effectively flipped the racial alignments of the two parties.  The democrats, who put in place most of the Jim Crow laws during reconstruction, was now the party dismantling that same segregationist system.  Barry Goldwater, the most prominent of the hard core conservatives, began campaigning, not only on a strong states rights platform in opposition to the strong federal intervention of the voting and civil rights acts both of which interfered in the rights of private persons to discriminate and segregate within their place of business. This has its late echo, of course, in the Religious Freedom laws currently being passed throughout the south, laws repudiated by corporate America because they must operate in states and countries less favorable to such overt legal discrimination, but the Goldwater and later the Nixon campaigns marked the beginning of the so-called "dog whistle" style of republican politics.  Again, as Lee Atwater famously put it:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

The issue of "cutting taxes," for example, might be supported on abstract economic considerations, but the cuts were justified, in part, by proportionate cut backs on "food stamps" and other programs that were believed to benefit the black urban voter at the expense of the white suburban and rural voter.  Such cut backs would, in effect, re-instate old patterns of of white privilege and economic segregation, but the real purpose was to create investment capital and the jobs that followed. The issue of "federal overreach," as another example, might be supported on abstract philosophic considerations, but scaling back federal interventions like "affirmative action" and "equal employment opportunity" meant, in effect, re-instating old patterns of white privilege and economic segregation.  The "purpose" of conservative positions was not overtly segregationist, was not overtly oppressive of minority populations, per se, but the "byproduct" is that "blacks get hurt worse than whites." For those that heard the dog-whistle that was just fine.  

The trumpeter, of course, is smart enough to avoid "nigger, nigger, nigger," but he has tooted overtly at Mexicans and Muslims, job thieves and terrorists.  Whether the trumpeter is or is not actually racist, one might never know, but he has earned points with the racist crowd for NOT engaging in dog-whistle politics, aka "political correctness," for just saying what they had been thinking all along.  Much of the conservative reaction to his more overtly racist and xenophobic language is a reaction to his self-serving failure to play the established "game."   One should find the right pitch, so to speak.  Blow the dog whistle loud enough to be heard, but not so loudly as to be condemned as a racist, because, after all, the "purpose" of cutting taxes, particularly on the wealthy, has really nothing to do with race, more to do with the consolidation, protection, and heritability of wealth.  The "purpose" of scaling back federal interventions, particularly in the arena of finance and environment, has really nothing to do with "states rights" or race, more to do with the unfettered expansion of wealth.  One blew the dog-whistle loudly enough to keep blood hounds and pit bulls barking in the fold, but not so loudly that it drew attention to itself for the wrong reasons.  The dog-whistle, in short, called in the basest part of the new conservative base and fed them  racially motivated by-products.  

As a primary strategy, the trumpeter succeeded in stripping away the neo-nationalist conservatives, those who responded to "dog whistle."   If he is to create party unity, he must bring the "economic conservatives" into the fold.  There are "principled" conservatives, who cannot bring themselves to support the trumpeter and his overtly, text-book definition, racist language and positioning. I would encourage readers of the HuffPost to read the post "David French Annouces his Final Decision on his Presidential Run" at www.redstate.com. They quote him as saying:

we live in a time when patriots are mocked and demagogues celebrated. Even good men have reduced themselves to excusing the inexcusable and defending the indefensible. Last week, Reince Priebus said that those involved in the independent effort were “embarrassing themselves.” But what is more embarrassing? Is it doing your best to defend the nation you love from two people who are unworthy of its highest office? Or is it using your God-given gifts and talents to advance the interests of a man who cares only for himself and who rejects the very values you’ve long claimed to uphold? As I’ve written many times before, nations are built on virtue — and courage is indispensable. But there is also prudence, and it was simply not prudent for me to take on this task. I remain against Trump and against Hillary, but I will do all I can where I am.
 
Prudence, of course, can be interpreted as a form of cowardice.  Although he promises to do "all I can where I am," that seems to be a pious, Pontius Pilate washing and wringing of the hands.  One is reminded of aphorism, "all it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing," and it seems French will be doing next to nothing. There are many economic conservatives who perhaps are betting that the billionaire trumpeter is closeted, is really "one of them" and will come out of the closet when elected and support the republican economic platform -- a platform focused, for example, on cutting those taxes supporting social welfare programs, in part because there may well be a sincere belief in the moral benefits of "work," in part because we most definitely WOULDN'T want to cut the larger expenditures on the military or scale back on our presence abroad.  Why?  In a multi-national, global economy, buttressed by "trade deals," the US military serves as a global police force maintaining sufficient stability to insure the protection of wealth.  In the pre-Reagan era, that meant containing communism and protecting European markets.  In the post-Reagan era, that meant containing regional tribalism (particularly the religious varieties found in the middle east that, until recently, threatened global oil supplies) and the re-alignment of the labor market away from the union dominated US toward China, Mexico, Vietnam, et cetera.  Over simplified, but Chomskian paranoia aside, our policies have always been, on the face of it, America First, if America is General Electric.  The trumpeter, however, has already called into question the intricate web of alliances, to include non-proliferation treaties, that facilitate the US in its role as the global police force.  What to do but hope that he didn't mean it?  

The southern strategy, however, was a faustian bargain.  Once you call the blood hounds and pit bulls to your assistance because you need their votes, it is difficult to "un-call" them, and they may chase you up a tree. The trumpeter has aligned himself with and stripped away the neo-nationalist strain of the republican base, who actually believe we should engage in some form of racial and ethnic cleansing, who actually believe we should "build a wall" and arm ourselves to protect it, but in doing so, he has chased the economic conservatives, the principled conservatives, who have a broad interest in global relations and do not share in his expressed xenophobia, who have a broad interest in their class issues and do not share in his expressed racism, up a tree.  It is an embarrassing and uncomfortable position, particularly when it is, ostensibly, a member of your own party that has chased you up a tree. What to do?  

Free Speech and the Trumpeter for Violence

Lora and I had dinner the other night with the family of a patient.  The patient had had alzheimer's disease and her husband had provided her care for well over a decade.  Lora helped him through the final stages of her disease.  As a consequence, he saw a side of her that other's rarely get to see, her compassion, her care, her tolerance.  He called her his angel.  Unfortunately, though, the dinner did not go well.  There was another couple there, who have lived in the rural bubble their entire lives and represented well the sort of stereotypical thinking one associates with the poorly educated, rural westerner.  Someone mentioned the current controversy over gay and transgender rights that has descended into the toilet, literally, and the conversation took a turn for the worse.  Frankly, none of it surprised me.  I had heard it all before.  I was willing to do what I always do when confronted with unassailable intolerance and ignorance at this level, simply listen with "furrowed brow" as if concerned all the while thinking "what idiots."

Obama, of course, was to blame.  He was "trying to wreck" this country, and the executive order that prohibited intolerance of gay and transgender students in public schools was just one more example of his active disdain for America.  Lora later asked why he had done that, and I tried to explain that it was in response to the so-called "religious freedom" laws that allowed one to discriminate legally on the basis of "sincerely held religious convictions."  One can debate whether private citizens in the private sphere can or should discriminate against gays and transgender people, but in the public sphere, including public schools, Obama attempted to foreclose discussion through an executive order.  One can also debate whether Obama "over-reached" in his use of executive authority, but that is a matter for the courts to decide.  In the meantime, if public schools wish to receive federal funds, they cannot discriminate against gay and transgender people.

The other  replied "well, that's simple, the states should just quit sending them their tax dollars."  He clearly thought that states "funded" the federal government, but that was just a matter of emphasis.  I suppose the people and the businesses in the states do fund the federal government, and Lora thought he was saying that we should just "stop paying our taxes."  At that point, I couldn't help myself.   I had to bring something that resembled a fact into the discussion.  I pointed out that most of the states (with the possible exception of Texas) who were suing the federal government to reverse Obama's executive order were "tax negative."  In other words, they receive MORE in federal funds than they COLLECT in federal funds, so they would cut state revenues about in half.  Most of the suing states can't afford that.  Idaho, the same.  (The next morning I looked it up to make sure, and yes, Idaho receives about twice as much in federal funds than it pays into system in the form of taxes, and the majority of that money goes to people like me in the retirement system.)  They NEED federal funds to continue operating.   The conversation ended with "well, if one of those queer's comes into the bathroom with me, I'll beat the piss out of him."

The facts did take the air out of the conversation, and the threat of violence seemed "last resort," but there it was.  The facts didn't win any converts.  They just looked at me with that blank stare, which, here, probably meant "I wish I had my pistol."   The level of vituperation, the quick resort to a threat of violence, however, took Lora by surprise, in part because she had watched the same man sit for hours, holding the hand of his dying wife who could barely acknowledge him, and on the final day, she had cleaned her body so he could lie beside her and hold her "one last time."  He wasn't a bad man.  On the contrary, by every other estimation, he was a "good" man," but there's no doubt that he would have followed through with his threat to "beat the piss out of" the "queers."   Lora succeeded in changing the subject, but it was clear enough that we didn't share their world view, most of which I find just plain incomprehensible.

There really was no possibility what so ever of a real conversation, a respectful conversation, on the subject.  One can only hate Obama, along with everything he has done and everything he stands for, or one is what?  I disagreed with almost everything "Bush," and there were occasions when I thought "the consequences of such and such will be disastrous," but I never once really thought that he was deliberately, with malice aforethought, trying to "wreck" the country.  On what basis does anyone come to believe that Obama is trying to do so?  I want to blame it on something simplistic like the steady stream of vituperation that fox news spews forth, but of course it goes deeper than that.  I am not the first to recognize this phenomenon, and many have commented that we have more forms of communication available to us today than ever before. and we use them abysmally.  Within seconds, I can bring forth Sascha Lobo's column in Der Spiegel, and read "anlass, reaktion, eskalation: Der politische Discurs ist unertraglich vorsherbar geworden.  Das ist ein  Geschenk fur recite Hetzer." Roughly translated, it reads, "initiation, reaction, escalation: the political discourse is becoming unbearably predictable. That is a gift for the right stalker."   In the article, he references Trump, who he suggests we should watch, but already the watching is becoming a burden in its predictability.

Here's how he sees it working.  First, we have the "anlass" or initiation.  Someone, often an extremist, lets loose with an intentionally provocative statement.  Often this occurs within the hinterland of social media, but now we have a well-known figure, running for the presidency of the United States making such statements -- build the wall, (temporarily) ban muslims, kill the queers, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.  In the hinter lands of social media, or in the local biker bar, it is easily dismissed as "thoughtless" or "ignorant" speech, but how should we take it?  At some level, it doesn't matter how you take it.  If you dismiss it, and assume it will not get traction, then one has lost "a teachable moment," the ability to elevate the level of discourse and correct the ignorance.  If you do take it seriously, however, and adumbrate the costs and consequences of such an act, one looks as foolish as the high school nerd who fails to "get" a dubious sexual double entendre and goes on to explain why gravitational forces make it impossible to "enter the black hole."  There is text and sub-text, and it's sub-text that resonates, the attitudinal world view that sent out the dubious double entendre in the first place.  At the textual level, the trumpeter makes no sense at all, but he plucks the base string and lets it buzz.

Second, comes the initial report.  In the hinterlands of social media, or in the local red-neck bar, the provocateur is likely speaking within the bubble to their friends, others who respond to the same base frequency.  You don't friend those who might "think otherwise," and you certainly don't share a beer with them, but social media does have the effect of putting air into the balloon -- the friends of friends of friends, none of whom you've ever met face-to-face, but who share your "feed."  With the trumpeter, however, it is impossible to ignore.  He is a presidential candidate, after all, and the comments are so vituperative, so provocative, so unlike-any-candidate before, that one could feel their glee in bringing it forward.   For the most part, the liberal media initially positioned themselves as the local nerd, offering the American public a teachable moment. The conservative press, dominated by conservative economic interests, tried to divert attention to more acceptable candidates, those who would not go out of their way to build walls both physical and fiscal and impede the global flow of capital.  Both missed the point.  There is text and sub-text, and it's sub-text that resonates.  Not unlike the nerd explaining "black holes," or the retired academic explaining tax policy to someone who might as well have been a high school drop out, the joke really was on the media.  They failed to hear the base buzz of the sub-text.

Third, comes the escalation.  As Lobo put it,  again roughly translated, "the interested public sets the prevailing interpretation, as well as the outrage level in social media." If you doubt this, just pull up the latest story or commentary on the trumpeter in the Post or the Times and read the commentary.  It is likely mild compared to what circulates "privately" on more personal social media "feeds," but the divides are clear and predictable enough.  Within the conservative party, I had always thought there were basically three (somewhat incompatible) strains: the global economic strain that supports lower taxes on corporations and the so-called one percent, the evangelical strain that supports an incipient theocracy for the legislation of biblically based social law, and finally the miscellaneous republicans.  The miscellaneous, I thought, were single issue folks who yada-yada-yada the core republican talking points, but who passionately support, for example, their gun rights.  I was wrong, and the trumpeter has revealed my error.  The third strain in the republican party is not so much neo-nazism, per se, but a hyperbolic neo-nationalism fueled in part by failing economic circumstances of the under-educated white, in part by the displacements of a changing minority to majority/majority to minority demography, in part by a pace of (mostly incomprehensible) social change that allows little time for assimilation.  They're being left out and behind, and they'll be damned.

I won't follow through on all of Lobos steps, but from here there is a sort of escalation that comes when groups begin reacting to one another, each trying to outdo the other.  The first and second strains within the conservative party have been more or less normalized within our political discourse.  At the moment, I am mostly concerned with understanding the third strain, in part because such thinking almost always escalates beyond words, even violent words, to actual violence.  It now seems like ancient history, but it seems clear enough to me that the trumpeter "started it."  The protesters entered his rallies peacefully enough, and violence was tacitly encouraged against them as protestors, as haters.  This included a female reporter, who was man-handled, literally, by the trumpeter's campaign manager when she attempted an escape from the media containment area.

The liberal media, predictably, was outraged and equally quick to point out not only his encouragement of violence, but it's racist and xenophobic sub-texts.  When the protests outside the rallies became incipiently violent, when the protesters began meeting the incitement to violence on the trumpeter's part with a reciprocal violence, the liberal media -- I'm thinking of Bill Maher -- did warn against the escalation of violence in "free speech" terms.  He suggested, as I have suggested, and as others have suggested, predictably, that "free speech" is contingent upon a "duty to tolerate."  If I want to freely express myself, I must tolerate those others who express sentiments and ideas that I find repugnant, just as those on the other side must tolerate my sentiments and ideas.  If either party "fails" in their "duty to tolerate," then free speech collapses.  

The protests outside the rallies have now become actually violent and you have Post stories like "ugly bloody scenes in San Jose as protestors attack trump supporters outside rally."   As the Post goes on to report, "the incidents were the latest in a series of increasingly violent altercations between protesters, Trump supporters and police at the presumptive Republican nominee's campaign events.  A week ago, it was Albuquerque descend into chaos as the city was shaken by raucous riots and arrests outside a Trump rally.  A month earlier is was Cost Mesa California.  Thursday was San Jose's turn to take center stage in what is quickly becoming a traveling fiasco."  As one might imagine, there is plenty of video.  In one case, a trump supporter is surrounded by protestors.  A few of the protesters, mostly female, are attempting to "protect" him, getting between him and those attempting to get at him.  There is much incomprehensible shouting.

I don't want to over-state the case, but there is little cause for optimism in our current malaise.  It was, perhaps, astonishing how easily the trumpeter, as a candidate for our highest office, was able to demonize and dehumanize other human beings.  There was no remorse.  Indeed, he seems to be doubling down on his characterizations, demonizing and demeaning a governor and a judge for their hispanic heritage, in the first case because she was reluctant to support his candidacy and in the second case because he is hearing a class action suit against the candidate.  The videos are there for all to see.  It was, however, utterly predictable that his characterizations would elicit protest, particularly within an open society, and so there were protests, initially peaceful, but then it was astonishing how casually and cynically the trumpeter issued an unveiled call for violence against those who protested -- how casually and cynically he gave his tacit approval to those who rose to the call.  The infamous video of the protester being sucker punched circulated to millions of viewers, and the trumpeter's smug shoulder shrug of a response.

Beyond the few who might have known either the protester or the puncher, it was simply emblematic of  the man and his followers.  For those sympathetic, as one commenter put it, "the establishment is just jealous of the enthusiastic mods that Trump attracts.  It takes leadership to incite a mob.  That is what this country needs -- a leader" followed by eight exclamation points.  For those antipathetic, it was a call for indignation and outrage, and for some, it was a call, as the trumpeter himself would put it, to "counter punch.:  It is utterly predictable that some would rise to the call, and from there it escalates, all to be captured, once again, on video.  It probably doesn't help much that the supporter is white, the protesters hispanic.  Of course, as the Post goes on to point out, "many of the protesters were peaceful.  Some waved Mexican flags in a apparent response to Trump calling Mexican immigrants 'rapists.'"  Violent protest will always over-shadow peaceful protest, and in terms of symbolic verities, waving the Mexican flag  and shouting obscenities simply adds credence to the trumpeter's narrative that American is being over-run by alien others intent on violence and rape.

It is utterly predictable that the great leader, the one who has incited a mob, suddenly becomes the victim.  He can claim, as another of his sympathizers put it, "Trump is the victim here.  Trump is the one whose 1st amendment rights have been denied by violent protesters.  Therefore Trump and each of his supporters who were denied an open exchange of views are the victims."  It probably doesn't help much either that "the ugly scenes of violence toward trump supporters Thursday appeared to be the inverse of similar incidents earlier in the campaign in which trump protesters, not supporters, were targeted." The defense of "he started it" is a playground defense, not the defense of an adult, and the trumpeter's supporters DO have a point when, as the Post put it, "blame for the attacks circulated almost as rapidly as images of the violence, with Trump supporters accusing democrats and members of the media of having a double standard."

Calmer heads could prevail, but predictably they don't.  As another commenter put it, "I can't wait for Hitlery [sic] to come to my town.  This use of violence cuts both ways you f'n progNazis.  We conservatives own more guns.  Better think of that next time you try to riot in a state that doesn't ban all guns as KKKalifornia does."  The level of confusion here is, perhaps, astonishing.  The centrist left paradoxically becomes the far right and a whole state is identified with the KKK?  It has been said too many times that the trumpeter actually DOES invoke white nationalist symbolism and support, but then this too is an argumentative tactic from the playground of the "me?  yeah? you too [explitive deleted]" variety.  The level of vituperation, however, is far from astonishing, and the threat of violence explicit.  It would not be surprising to see the trumpeter's supporters more prepared to meet violence with violence at future rallies.   Rational discourse is no longer possible.  Political discourse has degenerated into bellicose posturing, the irrational equivalent of gang signs, all of it amplified on what has become "anti-societal" media.  There is no longer a sense of "we the people," only me and those who like me on my side, you and those who like you on your side, and the empty battlefield between.

Calmer heads could prevail, but that would mean re-invoking the duty to tolerate.  At the risk of redundancy, free speech is contingent upon a duty to tolerate.  If I want to freely express myself, then I must tolerate those others who express sentiments and ideas that I find repugnant.  Those on the other side must tolerate my sentiments and ideas.  As one commenter put it, "the fact that people ... don't agree with you ... doesn't mean that they're taking your rights away.  Protesters have a right [to] express their opposition to Trump.  The only times free speech is being denied is when the police or the Secret Service get involved in attempts to deny people the right to protest."   If either party "fails" in their "duty to tolerate," then free speech inevitably collapses.

Violence is always the ultimate "fail," not simply because the perpetrators are no longer engaged in discourse of any sort, but because, within any civil society armed with coercive power, will react to protect itself, to "pacify" the crowd.  It probably doesn't help that the police are called in, not against the "leader" who "incites" the mob, but against the agitated mob itself and the agitated mob responds in kind against the police.  As the Post characterized it, "the situation escalated when a protester smashed the back window of a police cruiser.  Soon after, someone jumped onto the vehicle and aggressively stomped on the top.  Others began to jostle the car back and forth as people in the crowd egged on the action."  Violence justifies further violence to quell the violence.  As another commentator put it, "typical Mexican trash behavior.  They have been given the wrong impression by Barack that they can come here to our country, illegally of course, fresh out of ignorant school and show that Mexicans are stupid, at least these Mexicans are stupid.  The tide will turn and when it does, it will turn hard, fast, brutal and quick. "

If the trumpeter has accomplished anything, he has accomplished this: he has revealed how deep, how intractable, and how intolerant we have become of one another.  I could point out, of course, that there probably is no more "typical Mexican trash behavior" than there is "white trash behavior."   I could point out that Mexicans probably share with whites the same spectrum of mental capacity, running from the imbecilic to the brilliant with most somewhere in the middle.  I could point out that "deportations of illegal immigrants" is fraught with record keeping challenges, but that the left is rather chagrined at Obama's record as well, not because he deported too few, but because he deported too many, over 2 million, more than in Bush's entire tenure.  I could point out ... but why bother?  It wouldn't help.  The "Mexican" is now in scare quotes, and the violent protests now justify further violence against the "Mexicans" to quell the violence.  As the same commenter put it, "peace once again will be restored or we will be in a civil war with the government and their cockroaches."  The implication, in context, is that the trumpeter will restore the peace.  It is an irony that the great leader, the one who incites the mob to violence, is now seen as the potential savior, the one who will restore peace he disrupted with "hard, fast, brutal and quick" action against the alien other in our midst, the Mexicans, the Muslims, the queers, the transgender, and lest we forget, the blacks, none of whose lives will matter.  It is an irony upon ironies that anything less is a call for further violence, for outright civil war against the government.  One might ask, if Clinton is elected, can someone of this sort shrug and say, "well, I guess the American people have spoken.  Hooray for free speech!?"  Or will he continue his war against the democratic government -- democratic in both the small sense of party affiliation and in the larger sense that demands of us a "duty of toleration?"