Day: July 29, 2020

The Week, Ryan Cooper: Why Trump’s invasion of Portland is textbook fascism
 

President Trump has settled on a tactic for his re-election campaign, it seems: stoking violence in American cities. Portland was the first victim, but there will be others. Already forces from Customs and Border Protection — who have become a de facto Trumpist paramilitary squad — are being sent to cities like Albuquerque and Chicago.
 

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Chicago Sun-Times, Jesse Jackson: We don’t need Trump’s thugs in Chicago
 

The excuse for sending federal police here is to protect federal property. The reality is that this is a cynical re-election ploy aimed at earning support for a law-and-disorder president.
 

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Creators.com, Froma Harrop: Ugly Protests Are Trump’s Only Hope
 

President Donald Trump’s poll numbers continue to sink as cases and death tolls rise. The only thing that could possibly save him is political violence in America’s cities. And that’s what he’s cooking up.

It’s entirely in Trump’s playbook to provoke civic discord. He’s been drawing his detractors into his game for four years. And what better way now than to send armed federal officers in unmarked cars into cities that don’t want them? Unfortunately, protesters in Portland easily rose to the bait. And that chaos set off violent clashes, this time with local police, in Seattle, Omaha and Oakland, California.

“Hitler had his Brown shirts and Mussolini had his Black shirts, now Donald Trump has his camouflage shirts.” Thus began a statement signed by 15 distinguished interdenominational religious leaders in Chicago that I joined, including ministers, priests, and rabbis.
 

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USA Today, Michael J. Stern: When Black Lives Matter protests turn violent, Donald Trump gets just what he wants
 

The uncharacteristic display of empathy from some Republicans, for people who do not look like them, was a sobering blow to a reelection campaign that relies on the racist undercurrent permeating many of Trump’s most die-hard supporters. So Trump did what he does best: He co-opted the public narrative and changed it to one he thinks he can win.

The president has no control over local police. But Attorney General William Barr’s surrender of Justice Department independence, and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf’s zeal to please his boss, have allowed Trump to send droves of federal law enforcement agents to cities under the guise of protecting federal buildings.

By design rather than circumstance, federal officers were offered as bait. Protesters were drawn to feds in combat gear like moths to a flame. When federal agents responded with force, the protesters responded with force — which made the agents respond with even more force.
 

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