This Will Likely Get Worse

The scenes from Minneapolis are increasingly devolving into the usual tragic pattern.

• An African American is killed by the police for no reason beyond the fact that he was black.
• There are protests when the officer(s) involved is not arrested for committing a clear crime on camera.
• The protests start peacefully.
• The police meet these protestors with force.
• The protesters respond to force with force. 
• Eventually, there is some looting.

At this point, the coverage usually turns against the protesters and decries the looting of private property and whatever momentum the protesters had is lost amongst the pearl clutching. Riots, as such, are usually self-defeating as a tactic. It allows those who would subvert necessary change to switch the subject. It returns police to their role as protectors of the common good. I remember watching this play out in LA during the King Unrest. Daryl Gates pulled his cops off the streets until people demanded that they return. "Oh, you think cops are bad? How do you like your city burning down?"

But the police in Minneapolis/St.Paul continue to refocus attention on their own misdeeds. Watching them arrest a CNN reporter on camera brings to mind literal authoritarianism, not the rhetorical tool of online commentary. We made a default decision to militarize our police over the past few decades and when you see the film of the riot police arresting Omar Jimenez...that's not "protect and serve." That is as naked an abuse of power - if not as tragic - as what happened to George Floyd.

Social media reported on some white guy smashing windows. He could be a cop trying to discredit the protests. He could be a Black Bloc anarchist trying to push the protests to violence. Whatever it is, he doesn't seem to be part of the protests aimed at the racial injustices in the Minneapolis police department that go back - at the very least - to Philando Castile. St. Paul police say he's not one of theirs, but honestly, do you believe them?  Haven't police proved time and time again that they protect their own first?

What is clear is that once "law and order" breaks down, the rules that hold society together unravel. Once violence becomes the most important force, inevitably people will die. What needs to be made clearer is that "law and order" broke down when Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd and wasn't arrested for it. Smashed windows and burning police stations are what authoritarians want. They want the suburbanites who think the Floyd murder was wrong to start worrying about "the mob." They need that. If we go back to the riots of 1968, there is no doubt that they helped elect Nixon (who won by a fairly close margin).

The question is: Have we changed enough? Have we seen enough African Americans dying for no reason to allow us to break with the police?  I'm honestly skeptical. 

It is undeniably true that heavily armed white protestors are awarded immensely more deference from police than peaceful black protesters, especially if those protests are about police brutality. The reasons why heavily armed white guys can storm a public building and scream at cops is because we tried holding them accountable at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Then Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in Oklahoma City and the plan became not to confront white men with guns.

White political violence has a long history going back to Britain. There was a certain performative nature in the small rebellions that lords and commons exercised against the power of the king. American protests from 1764-1775 had the same feel as many of the small uprisings that occurred throughout British history.

When African Americans exercise political violence, it is treated fundamentally differently. Again, the historical roots of this are deep. Violent protests against taxes? Legit. Violent protests against being literally enslaved? Not legit. Fear of white violence leads to restraint; fear of black violence leads to escalations of violence. The problem is that minorities are...well...minorities. Whites ARE a majority, and you need to win enough of their votes to try and stop the lynching of African Americans by police. It's unclear what effect political violence exercised by blacks will have on their political calculus, but in the past it hasn't necessarily been helpful. 

There is a theory of latent authoritarianism, which states that fear can trigger a desire for authoritarianism in those who otherwise might not desire it. That was at the heart of Nixon's '68 strategy, though it didn't have a nice theory attached to it at the time.  Hitler used the Reichstag fire to seize power. The more political violence is used by African Americans, in some ways the further from their goals they become. The fact that this is NOT true for white militias is incredibly sad, but no less true for being unjust.

We also know that Trump will do (and has been doing) everything in his power to fan the flames of this and every other conflagration.  Trump needs America to be on the verge of tearing itself apart in order to win re-election. He could be looking at 20% unemployment and 250,000 dead Americans in November and eeking out a win on the backs of dead African American protesters and smoldering cities is really his only feasible plan at this point.

What's more, it seems to me that the only feasible solution to the problems of police and communities of color is an independent investigative arm within the Department of Justice. Local attorneys general have shown no ability to separate themselves from the police departments with whom they work so closely. It would be like asking the NSA to oversee the CIA. However, Trump has also exposed the great weakness within our entire system of laws that requires the DOJ to be a disinterested party. He has turned the upper reaches of the DOJ into his own personal law firm. Does anyone really think a Trump DOJ would prosecute Derek Chauvin, much less the other three cops?

The only way we see progress on this issue is with laws designed to limit police violence, make police accountable to the law and an impartial check that sits outside the clique of normal law enforcement. The only way that happens is if we have a Democratic president and control of both houses of Congress. That only happens (especially the Senate) in a blue wave. 

It's unclear whether the legitimate grievances of the protesters will get drowned out by concern over a looted Target. It is also unclear whether anyone will remember this in five months time when they go to the polls.  "Re-opening America" apparently means a return to lynchings and workplace shootings; that is a return to normal. Trump needs America to burn, however. 

"This will likely get worse," is the official motto of Trumpistan.

UPDATE: John Judis - who I rarely agree with - makes a similar point.