Chaos is good politics.
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. . . . "
Hillary Clinton was not forced to take and maintain the "continuity, incremental, not real change" position, but she has done so. Trump and Sanders were naturals for the outsider position, the position that Barrack "Hope and Change" Obama held 8 years ago when he won big.
Hillary represents continuity; Trump represents change. Or reform. Or something better than this.
Another warning to progressives: Trump could win this and if the frame stays "continuity" versus "something better maybe" Trump will win in a landslide.
Another warning to progressives: Trump could win this and if the frame stays "continuity" versus "something better maybe" Trump will win in a landslide.
The videotape images of the police encounters with of black men in Baton Rouge and Minnesota fit a pattern we have seen before: police quick to size up a situation involving a black person and to use lethal force. The result has been that the two tribes I described yesterday each raced to define these incidents as emblematic of what is happening in America.
Representatives of Hillary's team, street protesters, the most visible being black, described this as yet another iteration of the discrimination faced by people of color, a widespread condition at long last made visible by cell phone videotape.
The media voice of Trump's team, Fox News, largely ignored the two incidents themselves--until the sniper assassination in Dallas of the 5 killed police officers, at which point they began non-stop coverage of a unruly blacks vs. orderly whites race war, a war that was simultaneously lawless thug blacks and their liberal politician apologists vs. courageous policemen.
The frame seems accurate to each side and it serves the purposes of each side. Black protesters experience policing as unfair profiling. What is undeniable is that a great many dark skinned people--Afro-American and Hispanic--perceive it and believe it to be true and obvious. Their goal is the legitimization of their grievance. They perceive discrimination and prejudicial profiling, and the videotape gives them evidence to confront skeptical whites. And many whites are in fact skeptical, since they have a very different experience with policemen.
I am a white male who drives newish vehicles and my encounters with police have been few but very pleasant and respectful. Quick-draw police? Others must be imagining it. Lawyer friends tell me that the white juries in my community in Medford, Oregon overwhelmingly trust policemen to be reliable truthful witnesses when they testify.
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| Click here: "Tensions are high!" |
Meanwhile, the Fox News meme of angry and murderous blacks at war with America serves Fox's ratings as well as their political purpose. Sean Hannity reveals his frustration with peaceful black protesters in Baton Rouge when they are interviewed and express peaceful intent. Hannity kept seeking someone to voice anti-police comments "There are people out there protesting with black lives matter 'pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon' and I want you to ask if they support comments like that." [ 6:21] Alas, for Hannity the protesters explained that their tee shirts came from their churches. Hannity persisted, "what about black lives matter 'pigs in a blanket?'" [7:30). Again, the protester frustrated him, responding that people didn't want to cause problems, that they were protesting profiling, that blue lives mattered, etc.
Racial strife fits the Fox News frame of the world, which is simultaneously the Donald Trump frame: disorderly blacks are at war with white America, i.e. normal America, regular America, the America that used to be great.
Meanwhile, events give them evidence to demonstrate that frame, even if the protesters in Baton Rouge failed them. Yesterday there were incidents in Missouri of an ambush shooting of a policemen, apparently by a solitary black man, and an incident in Tennessee of an Army veteran, also angry about the incidents in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, who began random shooting of motorists on a Tennessee highway. Horrible events, very subject to nonstop breaking news and commentary, which Fox is giving them.All this helps Donald Trump enormously.
Donald Trump is the face of change. The soft spoken, deliberate comments by Obama from Poland (where he is on NATO business) attempted to acknowledge past and present wrongs and to urge peaceful progress toward order and justice. The immediate aftermath is black men shooting cops and motorists. The implication: Obama is ineffective. Racial divides continue and Obama cannot do anything useful.
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| Race war is good for readership, good for ratings and good for Trump |
Trump and conservatives have another approach: Strength. Defend the police. Call the war for what it is: war. Joe Walsh, now a talk show host and formerly the congressman of "You Lie!" fame tweeted: "This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you."). The New York Post (the conservative, pro-Trump NY tabloid) called it Civil War.
The agents of the status quo (Obama and Hillary-the-continuity-candidate) are demonstrated to be unable to create order so the stage is set for someone new and different. Trump is new and different.
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| Inside, progressive politics. Outside, not progressive enough. |
Meanwhile, the Sanders supporters seem eager to show that they, too, are angry with the status quo. On Thursday I attended a fundraising event for the Oregon governor, a leftist environmentalist bisexual woman who supported Hillary Clinton in the primary and now faces a conservative Republican opponent. She has well funded opposition from the right but the protesters were from the environmental left. The protesters were led by people holding Sanders signs, and they marched in front of the gate to the event chanting: "Hillary cheated, Sanders won. Hillary cheated, Sanders won."
Inside the event Oregon's Governor Brown talked about Oregon's progress on a higher minimum wage, on achieving the greatest voter access in America, on cleaner energy, on the most progressive rules in the country on reproductive freedom and the challenges she faces from Republicans. Outside, Sanders voters condemned her.
It could hardly be worse for Hillary. The most loyal part of her base, black Americans, are shooting policemen out of political ideology, and the most fragile part of her base are rejecting electable left-center politicians saying they are sell-outs.
If the falcon does not listen to the falconer voters will find a different falconer with a different whistle.
1 comment:
White cops have been killing minorities for years and getting away with it. Excuses, like "I thought he had a gun" or "I was just defending myself" or any excuse they could think of to justify it. Their partners would always back them up. "The Code" The difference now? Cameras. They're everywhere. More likely than not, it will be filmed. Everyone carries a cell phone that can also act as a camera. Nearby stores are filming, too. So, lately cops have been challenged for their actions. Making up an excuse is harder these days. When caught lying, people get angry. They tend to fight back. Actions and reactions. Causes and effects. One thing leads to another. There's no race war going on. It's just about fairness. Of course, the reaction might lead to the extreme, ie. Dallas. The Right focuses on that. The Left asks what do you expect? It's a pattern that will repeat itself within the minority community until the cops act without malice to anyone and just do their job. Not as judges. Not as juries. Not deciding their sentence.
Policemen are given incredible power. But, we trust them to act responsibly, too. That's the way it has to be. When they lose that trust, it creates fear. Sometimes fear strikes back.
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