I don't watch or listen to news much these days. (Even I have limits on how much garbage I can swallow in a day!) So it was surprising to me to hear that the entire city of Portland, Oregon is "entirely ablaze all the time." Thus says our orange-haired President of the United States, a man who I am sure has never told a lie in his life... Question to self: if Portland is entirely ablaze, why did I not see dozens of fire engines trying to put out the blaze as I went to the grocery store today? Why was the store not on fire? Why did I sleep so well last night?
Yet there have been fires - deliberately set by rioters - oops, I mean, "violent protesters" recently. These "protesters" have also made appearances in several cities throughout the United States, as I am sure you are all aware. Their modus operandi seems to be to cause as much provocative, polarizing property destruction (including tearing down statues and setting fires) and cause as much provocative, polarizing unrest as possible. Some of them are no longer even pretending to be associated with Black Lives Matter or with the struggle against racism. According to one source, the Antifa has made its reappearance among these "protestors". Note that according to some sources, these who are causing property damage are White. (Additional note: I have deleted the source I originally cited. He has since turned out to be unreliable.)
Let me suggest that it's useless telling these people that they are actually helping the cause of Donald Trump as he seeks to demonize those who are opposed to him. They already know that - which is why they are doing what they are doing. Their tactics are reminiscent of the staged battles between the Antifa and various right-wing groups in Portland and elsewhere during the 2018 mid-term elections. They are also reminiscent of vandalism perpetrated by Russian agents in Ukraine.
Why does Trump think that injecting violence into American society (and especially into the protests against racist oppression) will help him? (For yes, there is overwhelming evidence that people aligned with Trump are behind the injection of violence into American politics in 2020!) Let me suggest that even though Trump probably doesn't read anything much more complicated than coloring books, he has advisors who do know how to read. And I'm sure that they have heard by now of a man named Omar Wasow. Mr. Wasow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at Princeton. He also did a study which is by now quite famous among students of strategic nonviolent resistance. That study showed that the 1960's civil rights struggle achieved its most impressive gains when it was most strongly non-violent. That study also showed that when protests began to become violent, the violence actually hurt the cause of the protestors and helped Richard Nixon to win the 1968 presidential election.
And that is Mr. Trump's only hope of a road to a legitimate election victory this November. You see, even dictators can learn new tricks (or at least try to recycle old ones), as Will Dobson documented in his book titled, The Dictator's Learning Curve. And for the last ten years or so, dictators around the world have been staying up all night studying how to thwart strategic nonviolent resistance. By the way, I highly respect Dr. Wasow and his work. It's a shame to see his work put to evil uses.
But will Trump's gambit work? Let me suggest that in 1968, there was not a coronavirus pandemic or its resulting economic fallout to deal with. Let me also suggest that Slobodan Milosevic lost the election which deposed him even though he also resorted to dirty tricks. And lastly, let me note that the Democrats flipped the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. Also, Dr. Wasow has two pieces of very good news. First, the current data show that 93 percent of anti-racism protests this year have been peaceful and nondestructive, according to a recent Washington Post article. Second, Trump's gambit does not appear to be working, according to additional recent articles in the Washington Post and on NPR.
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