Yesterday, Michael Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services who has tried to dictate how the scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report on coronavirus, went on an unhinged rant in a video on Facebook, accusing the CDC of having a “resistance unit” of “seditious” scientists who were permitting Americans to die so they could harm Trump’s reelection campaign.The legal fight
Caputo urged his listeners “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.” He said that Trump is on track to win in November, but that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will stoke violence rather than conceding. “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he said. Caputo claimed that the Trump supporter killed in Portland, Oregon was “a drill” for what was to come. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing…. [T]here are hit squads being trained all over this country” to stop a second Trump term, and they were, he said, “going to have to kill me, and unfortunately, I think that’s where this is going.” Caputo noted that the pressure of his job had harmed his physical health, and his “mental health has definitely failed.” After his video had been viewed more than 850 times, Caputo shut down his account.
The escalating language of violence indicates that the Trump team thinks it is going to lose the election. [my emphasis]
We won't know much about how the court fight will look until the results come in. Trump's crony Roger Stone, also quoted by Richardson, calls for seizing ballots and blocking voters through intimidation at the polls. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian give a rundown on Stone's suggestions in this segment, Roger Stone: Trump Should Seize Total Power If He Loses Election The Young Turks 09/15/2020:
The angles for legal challenges are things that Democratic attorneys can prepare for right now. And I hope the Party and the Biden campaign are making sure that adequate prepartions for that are in place.
The Messaging Fight
This Lincoln Project ad illustrates one reason I find to be optimistic about the post-election fight over the outcome of the voting, Parasite 09/09/2020:
It's an ad targeting Lindsey Graham. This is another sign that the Lincoln Project is willing to target at least some of Trump's worst enablers. It's also a disgusting ad. It uses visuals to compare Graham to gross parasites. This is honestly real Nazi-level propaganda stuff. This is over the top even for me.
But the Lincoln Project people are actual Republicans, so they don't care. I have no doubt that if they thought a blatantly homophobic ad against Graham would be useful, they would do that, too. Although they might run that through some separate front group. Establishment Democrats are willing to use dishonest homophobic trash smears - but only against progressive Democrats. (Ryan Cooper, This Massachusetts primary is everything wrong with the Democratic Party The Week 08/31/2020) The Democratic establishment gave up years ago on trying to match the Republicans' messaging even on basic effectiveness, much less aggressiveness.
But I assume the Lincoln Project types will still be on the anti-Trump/pro-democracy side when Bunker Boy's election-theft operation goes into its post-election phase at exactly 12:00:01am November 4. So the "united front" against Trump has an actual chance at matching the Trump camp's post-election-fight media messaging. Because unlike the Democrats, the Lincoln Project types won't be under any illusion that there is any honor or goodwill on the Trump side of the post-election fight - and they would ignore it if they thought there was.
As soon as Biden is inaugurated and Trump no longer has the nuclear football, they will go back to using their brand of propaganda against anything and everything decent the Democrats try to do. But, as Joe Stalin said when he was publicly hinting at making a pact with Hitler in 1939, "politics is politics". So maybe the Democrats will get half of Poland out of this deal. Or at least a small chunk of Latvia.
The protest element
Serious question, not meant to be snarky or provocative. How should the official Democratic Party prepare for street violence by Trump supporters in the immediate aftermath of the election?
Trump and his close supporters are now openly encouraging their followers to shoot people. He himself basically confessed to ordering what amounts to a death squad hit on the "antifa" activist, Michael Reinoehl, who had confessed publicly to having shot a follower of the violent far-right group Patriot Prayer, in self-defense, he said. And we've seen examples all across the country of police departments encouraging and actively cooperting with violent far-right "militia" groups. (Death squads? Aspiring death squads?)
Although the actual politcal violence/terrorism during the Trump years has overwhelmingly come from domestic white supremacist groups, I know that some of "black box" anarchist groups like to break windows and start fires during times where there are large demonstrations. They do counter-protests against far-right groups, and some of them would have happy for any excuse to "kick some nazi ass". But to the extent the "antifa" groups actually practice defense in public situations, I certainly wouldn't be one to object if, for instance, they saw some Boogalou Bois thugs kicking the crap out of somebody lying on the street and they interfened to stop it. It is legal for someone to physically intervene to stop a murder in progress, after all. And it takes some guts for them to do it, since they know the chances that the police and the feds will side with the far-right perpetrators even in that case are close extremely high.
So, what will the Democrats as an official political party do after the election? If Ron Brownstein's Atlantic piece the other day is accurate at all (Democrats Won't Cede the Streets This Time 09/10/2020), at least some establishment Democrats are very aware that the Republicans' post-election strategy will involve not only lawsuits and public propaganda, but organized demonstrations (the 2000 "Brooks Brothers" riot on a massive scale). And Trump and his goons are already inciting post-election violence on their side. The anti-Trump/pro-demoracy side may be able to hold its own on the media messaging front, mainly because there are actual Republicans on that side who are willing to use aggressive messaging against their political opponents.
So the Democrats have to promote some kind of public resistance, too, but the real thing this time that would look more like what's happening now in Belarus, and not just senior Democrats tweeting platitudes and writing sternly worded letters. But there is also a real risk that the police and pro-Trump militias will continue and escalate the kind of violence they are already using against Black Lives Matter demonstrators. A couple of measures seem obvious to me.
But first, I want to mention that the discussion about any kind of political violence in the US is still stuck in stale media clichés about The Sixties, i.e., Ghandi-style active nonviolent protest vs. active self-defense protest and preparations. But that framework isn't especially helpful in 2020. For one thing, the idea that the Democrats could put together some kind of effective partisan militia by November is delusional, and nobody is advocating that anyway. (Good Lord, the Biden campaign is jittery about advocating their own programs like a $15 minimum wage!)
But the Democrats certainly should actively encourage and organize peaceful protests nationwide. And one obvious preparation measure is not at all new: fund lots and lots legal obvservers to monitor the protests, whether or not they are official Party events. That's even more urgent because of the systematic police attacks on journalists. And they could have legal teams ready to go when protesters are arrested or illegally prohibited from demonstrating. There are already indepedent group that do some of that work. But the Democratic Party needs to make sure there's a surge supply of such legal services available on November 3 and even before.
And why shouldn't the Democrats hire legal bodyguards and private security to protect demonstrators, as well? They could actually save lives of protesters being attacked. There's certainly no shortage of such entirely legal security services available, although I can imagine they would be leery about entering situations where they could find themselves confronting police, as well as street-thug rightwing goons. On the other hand, there are lots of ex-cops in security services, so their ability to "speak cop" might also help in some cases. But shouldn't the Democratic Party make a serious effort to do that? The fact that the Democratic Party was funding or endorsing such an effort would be a substantial signal to the general public that criminal violence being used against peaceful protesters is a very real risk. It should also give people who don't go out to a demonstration once a month more confidence to participate. And the idea of attacking trained security personal trained and experienced in using legal firearms would itself make the brave patriots of the Bougaloo Bois and the like think a bit more carefully before they decide to assault protesting grandmas.
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