Where Is The Real Threat?

Posted on by under Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

This week there has been enough news to boggle the mind, to make one want to hide in a closet until sometime after November 3rd … maybe even until around 2025.  The coronavirus is out of control in the U.S., but we no longer get accurate numbers of new cases because testing has slowed to a crawl.  The shitshow last week put on at our expense by the Republicans was depressing … was naught but an expensive circus with the nastiest clowns ever seen, half of them with the last name “Trump”.  Multiple times during that circus, we were told that only Trump will bring “law and order” to the streets of the nation, but … it is he and his enablers who have created the most disharmony and disunity this nation has seen in more than 100 years.  Robert Reich, a man with much more experience and understanding than most, sums it all up nicely for us, thankfully, for I am too tired to do so today …

The real threats to American law and order are Trump’s craven enablers

The president railed against ‘violent anarchists, agitators and criminals’ but he surrounds himself with lawless lackeys

Robert Reich-4By Robert Reich

One week ago, Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, police department, fired at least seven shots at the back of a Black man named Jacob Blake as he opened his car door, leaving the 29-year-old father of five probably paralyzed from the waist down.

After protests erupted, self-appointed armed militia or vigilante-type individuals rushed to Kenosha, including Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old who traveled there and then, appearing on the streets with an AR-15 assault rifle, allegedly killed two people and wounded a third.

This is pure gold for a president without a plan, a party without a platform, and a cult without a purpose other than the abject worship of Donald J Trump.

To be re-elected Trump knows he has to distract the nation from the coronavirus pandemic that he has flagrantly failed to control – leaving more than 180,000 Americans dead, tens of millions jobless and at least 30 million reportedly hungry.

So he’s counting on the reliable Republican dog-whistle. “Your vote,” Trump said in his speech closing the Republican convention Thursday night, “will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.”

“We will have law and order on the streets of this country,” Vice-President Mike Pence declared the previous evening, warning “you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America.”

Neither Trump nor Pence mentioned the real threats to law and order in America today, such as gun-toting agitators like Rittenhouse, who, perhaps not coincidentally, occupied a front-row seat at a Trump rally in Des Moines in January.

Pence lamented the death of federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood, “shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California”, earlier this year, implying he was killed by protesters. In fact, Underwood was shot and killed by an adherent of the boogaloo boys, an online extremist movement that’s trying to ignite a race war.

Such groups have found encouragement in a president who sees “very fine people” supporting white supremacy.

The threat also comes from conspiracy theorists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the recently nominated Republican candidate for Georgia’s 14th congressional district and promoter of QAnon, whose adherents believe Trump is battling a cabal of “deep state” saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex. Trump has praised Greene as a “future Republican star” and claimed that QAnon followers “love our country”.

And from people like Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of Trump’s campaign advisory board, who was scheduled to speak at the Republican convention until she retweeted an antisemitic rant about a supposed Jewish plan to enslave the world’s peoples and steal their land.

Clearly the threat also comes from hotheaded, often racist police officers who fire bullets into the backs of Black men and women or kneel on their necks so they can’t breathe. Needless to say, there was little mention at the Republican convention of Jacob Blake, and none of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor.

And the threat comes from Trump’s own lackeys who have brazenly broken laws to help him attain and keep power. Since Trump promised he would only hire “the best people”, 14 Trump aides, donors and advisers have been indicted or imprisoned.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W Giuliani – who ranted at the Republican convention about rioting and looting in cities with Democratic mayors – has repeatedly met with the pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach, whom American intelligence has determined is “spreading claims about corruption … to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party”.

In addition, federal prosecutors are investigating Giuliani’s business dealings in Ukraine with two men arrested in an alleged campaign finance scheme.

Trump’s new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, who had been a major Trump campaign donor before taking over the post office, is being sued by six states and the District of Columbia for allegedly seeking to “undermine” the postal service as millions of Americans plan to vote by mail during the pandemic.

Not to forget the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who spoke to the Republican convention while on an official trip to the Middle East, in apparent violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits officials of the executive branch other than the president and vice-president from engaging in partisan politics.

You want the real threat to American law and order? It’s found in these Trump enablers and bottom-dwellers. They are the inevitable excrescence of Trump’s above-the-law, race-baiting, me-first presidency. It is from the likes of them that the rest of America is in serious need of protection.

20 thoughts on “Where Is The Real Threat?”

  1. Jill, Robert Reich speaks wisely. Donald Trump fans the flames of division and has the audacity to say he is the solution. We need a reasonable police force to keep the peace, but they must police their own ridding themselves of bad apples and improving on bad practices. A former FBI domestic terrorism expert said she warned the justice department that there are some police who are sympathetic to white nationalists. Saying all police are good people is not accurate, just as saying all are bad is not accurate.

    Civil protest is well in the majority, but we cannot tolerate violent protest as that both dilutes the message and feeds into Trump’s mudfighting bent. What we also don’t need is armed vigilantes who are ready for a fight. Violence is an obvious result.

    What we need is a president who is a leader and not one who “does not even try to unite us,” as General Mattis called Trump. Trump cares only about winning and is not to big on helping people. This is a key reason he parrots conspiracy inanity as he feels it helps him win. Keith

    Liked by 3 people

    • That is the main difference between what is happening now and other periods, such as the LA riots over the Rodney King beating, as rawgod mentioned. The difference is that now we have a ‘president’ who is a blatant racist and rather than try to calm and unite us, he pours fuel on the fires, then sits back and watches, saying that he must be re-elected to ‘fix’ the problems … problems which he had a hand in creating!

      Liked by 1 person

  2. “it is he and his enablers who have created the most disharmony and disunity this nation has seen in more than 100 years.”
    Thinking back to the Watts Riots (1965), Motor City Riots (1967), LA
    Riots (1992), I don’t know we are in the worst of times. They are bad, no doubt, but in the moment I think those times were worse. I do not want things to get that way now, or ever again. Civil war, of course, would be disastrous!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I truly believe we are at a point that we need to start talking about and planning on either getting out of the US or figuring out how to live our lives quietly and safely from the hordes of trumpers..
    The damage trump will do, might very well be irreversible for many many generations, if ever. This will all fall to our grandchildren and their lineage. Someday there may be a true uprising, but we all will be gone by then.
    Covid will be around for a long while, I think, vaccine or not.
    Climate change has no sides, it’s just coming.
    Social violence and discord will be constant for awhile.
    There will be much more poverty and starvation worldwide.

    And I read just yesterday that this QAnon is spreading to Europe, as is nationalism and conservatism..

    I know I sound like a doomsayer , but I think we have to face the facts.
    We are far past the point of changing any trump supporter’s mind. And the religious right has taken a big bite out of a decent caring society.

    We are heading towards a cliff…hang on.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Trouble is … no other country will even allow us in, for we’ve done such a lousy job at controlling the pandemic. I foresee a time, if Trump remains in office, that ‘Americans’ will be persona non grata all over the world. We’ve been heading toward that cliff in a runaway train ever since January 20th 2017, but so many said, “Oh, it won’t be that bad”. Yes, it may well. There is a difference between being a doomsayer and a realist … at this point, I think you are being a realist. Sigh.

      Liked by 2 people

  4. It seems amidst all this reading there are plenty of Repubs creating new tales to turn into conspiracy theorists and it takes less time for the masses to start beieving them. Mabe it’s time to start to take stock and hunting some own.
    Cwtch.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Oh yeah, the conspiracy theorists on the far right have been hard at work, but … we knew they would be, and I find the best response to them is no response. More or less a “Yeah, so what? What else you got?” Heck, we don’t need to make up conspiracy theories about them … they are the nastiest bunch of people ever to inhabit the White House, so all we have to do is print the truth! Not that any of the idiots in that 40% will listen. Sigh.
      Cwtch

      Liked by 2 people

  5. He’s absolutely correct! No argument there.

    What we’re up against, however, are the thousands and thousands of voters who could care less about what’s going on in the “real world.” All they know (literally) is Donald Trump is a Republican and by-god, that’s good enough for them!

    Liked by 3 people

    • Yep … and I read something by a man who really seemed to have good sense, and he admitted that Trump’s persona is horrible and that Joe Biden is a much kinder, more decent person, but said he’s still undecided because he likes Trump’s focus on immigration and on the economy. Sigh.

      Liked by 3 people

  6. Note to Jill : Do not bother to read the recent forward from me! I should have known that Robert Reich’s latest column would soon be found here! It is well worth reading more than once, and I shall immediately do so. Thank-you!

    Liked by 2 people

    • If any Republican gets ahold of this, the blame for all of it will be on the dangerous Democrats because, as you’ve probably heard, they’re into child-kidnapping, sexual slavery, and other similar crimes.

      Liked by 2 people

      • Yes, but is this real? Is it on American news? Or is it just some hoax concocted by someone for some nefarious reason I cannot imagine. As of an hour or so ago, I still cannot find this story on Canadian news, and I think it should be everywhere.

        Liked by 2 people

      • My pleasure. As far as I am concerned, this should the top story over anything Trumpass did or said that day. I want to know more, but I almost expect this to be a hoax.
        Now, for you to please please me. I published a new short story on my wordartbyrawgod blogsite. You probably set it aside and meant to read it later, then forgot. I got one comment today, but I need more. This one
        i think I actually might try to publish, if I could figure out the right market.

        Liked by 2 people

        • I didn’t get a notification about this post, else I definitely would have checked it out long before now! I did, however, on reading this comment check it out, liked and commented, although my comment may be less than brilliant after some 40 hours without sleep. I will ponder on the right venue/market for your story. LuL

          Liked by 1 person

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