Donald J. Trump has always been a failure … propped up for decades by Daddy’s money and the lawyers it could buy. He is self-centered, needy, insecure, petty, bigoted, cruel, dishonest, remorseless, and vengeful. Oh, and a coward.
And he’s just what 30% of Americans wanted in a president.
Insecurity is especially terrible when backed with the power to show who’s boss. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did not bring the U.S. to its knees, nor were they intended to. But the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. that year shook American confidence so thoroughly that they brought out a thirst for vengeance that overtook our ethics. We acceded to our leaders working “the dark side,” as Vice President Dick Cheney put it days later.
What followed were a string of atrocities that, I maintain, mean former “history’s actors” among the George W. Bush inner circle can no longer travel abroad. Extraordinary rendition, “enhanced interrogation,” CIA black sites, prisoners beaten to death at the “Salt Pit,” and prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib mean international travel could, in theory, end in The Hague.
Insecurity alloyed with vengeance can lead to very dark places. And here we are, on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre with military troops and equipment deployed to the streets of our own capitol city. They were ordered there by a president so insecure (How insecure is he?) that he felt the need to brag about his penis size during a presidential debate.
Trump is so insecure that he was mortified by reports he’d been hustled to an underground bunker when civil rights protesters gathered too close to the White House last Friday. So, days later Trump threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to quell peaceful protests (punctuated here and there by vandalism and looting). Attorney General William Barr ordered protesters across from the White House dispersed with tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets so Trump could walk outside for a glamour shot in front of a historic church posing with a Bible.
Trump is so insecure that he swears he was only in the bunker to inspect it. He’s so insecure that he’s deployed an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies to Washington, D.C. to show citizens exercising their free speech rights that Donald J. Trump is not to be trifled with.
Trump (or someone in his orbit) ordered military helicopters to fly low over the city to scatter protesters with rotor downwash the way commanders might disperse insurgents in Falluja. The Daily Beast reports Trump in one conversation inquired about bringing in tanks to “dominate” the streets. Perhaps he recalls how the Chinese government reacted to protesters in 1989.
Nicholas Kristof reminds New York Times readers:
“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Trump told Playboy Magazine months later. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”
All of the militarized bluster from the White House has authentic military commanders speaking out against President “Strongly.”
“I cannot remain silent,” wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, respected former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking out in The Atlantic on Tuesday. Referring to Trump’s actions as political stunts, Mullen wrote, “Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.”
James Mattis, former Trump secretary of defense and retired Marine general, spoke out in The Atlantic on Wednesday. Since his resignation in December 2018, Mattis has remained politicly silent about his experiences in the Trump administration. Until now:
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
Protesters from coast to coast are calling for police reform and an end to centuries of systemic discrimination against people of color. Former high-ranking military officers are calling out the acting commander-in-chief.
Wednesday afternoon, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced charges against the remaining three officers complicit in the killing of George Floyd that prompted worldwide protests. Ellison also upgraded the charge against former officer Derek Chauvin to second-degree murder. Celebrations broke out but may not quell the calls for reforms long overdue.
In Washington, D.C., Trump’s troopers are arrayed against these people:
Trump’s presidential authorities and insecurity combined with both his and Barr’s authoritarian reflexes pose a clear and present danger to this democratic republic. Let’s hope it is still here to defend at the polls on November 3. They’ve already telegraphed how they might respond to losing.
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Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.