Angry about the Portland street violence

     "The violence must stop, period. . . . And this must happen immediately."

       Oregon Governor Kate Brown

     "We are at the mercy of the American people, god help us."

       Observer of the situation in Portland

     

Meanwhile, this weekend continued the 101st and 102nd nights of conflict between citizens and police. 

Under the cover of peaceful protesters, some people provoked a police response by throwing things and interfering with police, and got themselves arrested. The participants had a mix of goals. For some, it is to bear witness to the need for justice, hoping that being there does some good. For some, it is to show that the police are brutal and unjust by provoking them to do something that will be seen as brutal and unjust on cell phone videos. For some, it is an opportunity to be part of the action. Some are counter protesters and provocateurs looking for a fight with the protesters.

My era in college in the late 1960's saw turmoil on campuses. I was less a participant than observer. I bought and wore the red fist "Strike!" tee shirt, but did not strike. I liked my classes.

Besides, meetings of groups planning action met at night and then went late. I got sleepy at 9 p.m., then as now. The craziest and most extreme people were the ones still there at the end of the meetings, when votes were taken on what to do. A classmate who has gone on to a distinguished career as an observer of technology and politics offered me and this blog this observation about why the situation in Portland is intractable.

     "Fringes always corrupt movements. Other than explicitly disavowing them, which the BLM leaders and Democrats do repeatedly, all you can do is hope the judges, the voters, see what is going on. They don't listen, except, some, to leaders like King and Gandhi.

     You can maintain discipline at large daytime demonstrations. My preference is for those who oppose violence to not show up at night or in confrontive situations, "to prevent violence." But those people won't listen either.

     Boys love war games, and so do some girls. For the anarchists, ANTIFA, and militias, this is just real rugby. They claim political positions, but that's bullshit. What they do works against the politics they espouse, so they're in it for the adrenaline rush.

     The last group, also unreachable, are the oppressed who use the opportunity to act out their rage. Their rage and indeed their destruction of property is completely understandable, but counterproductive. They won't listen either, but at least one can
sympathize.

     As to the police and "government agents" who provoke violence, they're obviously not listening to BLM and Democrats.

Trigoboff,  before

     We are at the mercy of the American people, god help us."

     

                   --- --- ---

Another voice offered me a perspective. Michael Trigoboff, who has written Guest Posts in the past, shares his thoughts below.

He used to look like a long haired hippy radical, according to the web page he shows the public to describe his career as a computer sciences expert. He teaches at Portland Community College, after a career in the software industry. He is dismayed by the discord and destruction taking place in Portland. He says protesters for racial justice let their cause be hijacked, perverted, and turned against themselves, he says. The people in charge in Portland let it happen.

Guest Post by Michael Trigoboff

I grew up in New York City. During the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, New York City was spiraling down into the depths of crime and social disorder. The subways and many streets were covered in graffiti. Petty and major crime was rampant.

 

New York City is famously liberal. Despite this spiral, New Yorkers elected the a very liberal mayor (the city's first black mayor), David Dinkins, in 1989. Dinkins failed to act against the social disorder in many significant ways.

Trigoboff, now

In 1991 in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, there was an accident in which a car driven by a Jew killed a black child. This led to black riots that turned into a pogrom against the Jews living in that neighborhood. A rabbinical student was killed by a black mob. Racial demagogue Al Sharpton consistently poured gasoline on that fire. Mayor Dinkins did nothing effective to stop the antisemitic violence.

 

Meanwhile, on the Upper West side of Manhattan, a famously liberal and significantly Jewish neighborhood, a large guy with mental health issues was sneaking up behind people standing at the curb and pushing them off in front of buses.

 

Things in New York felt totally out of control. They were so out of control that even liberal New York City voted Dinkins out and elected conservative Rudi Giuliani as mayor. Giuliani instituted tough reforms like "broken windows policing" and "stop and frisk," and got the city back under control.

 

Which brings us to Portland. Violent protests are out of control. The federal courthouse, police precincts, and random government buildings are being torched and covered with graffiti. Portland's mayor has been driven from his home because a mob attacked it, breaking windows and lighting a fire inside it. Mobs are shining green lasers into the eyes of the police, attempting to cause serious retinal damage. They lob mortar-sized commercial fireworks, capable of causing serious injury, at the police.

 

Mobs are marching through residential neighborhoods shouting threats at the residents and shining blindingly bright flashlights into the windows of their homes.

 

The mayor and city council are preventing the police from doing anything to stop the violence. They have also "defunded" the police and shut down the gun violence task force, which has led to a significant increase in shootings.

 

Meanwhile, downtown Portland has not recovered from the wave of vandalism and looting associated with the demonstrations. Many businesses are boarded up. There is graffiti all over. Garbage cans are not being emptied and the streets are full of dirt and broken glass. Homeless camps are everywhere. Commerce is dying and businesses are making plans to leave.

 

The downtown branch of the Multnomah County Library, a beautiful building, has been turned into a facility for the homeless and mentally ill. My wife grew up in Portland and used to walk to downtown to that library by herself to do schoolwork. I would not send unaccompanied child into that environment the way things are now.

 

Many of my friends and acquaintances who live in Portland tell me that they are getting totally fed up with what life is currently like in Portland. It seems to me that Portland is following the same path that New York City did.

 

There will be an election for mayor this fall in Portland. The two candidates are the current mayor, Ted Wheeler, and Sarah Iannarone – in other words, an ineffective liberal vs a far left Antifa supporter  – Spineless Ted vs Antifa Girl. So there's no chance that it will happen this time, but I suspect that sometime soon the liberal voters of Portland will have had enough and will elect candidates who support law enforcement and social order.

 

My wife and I got very lucky when we found a house we liked that inadvertently happened to be a couple of blocks beyond the Portland boundary. We are not conventionally religious, but we thank God every day that we live in the suburbs where police are supported by the city government and our tax dollars do not get spent on far left nonsense.

 

To put it mildly, people in Portland do not want Trump to be reelected. They seem not to realize that they are handing an issue to Trump that could potentially lead to his reelection.

 

 

Portland fires and backfires

 "If Portland wanted to re-elect Trump, they couldn't be doing a better job."

            Michael Trigoboff, who lives just outside of Portland

A hundred and one nights of unrest in Portland. Trump loves it. Fox News shows it. 

Donald Trump is using Portland as the poster child of Democratic misrule and urban violence and chaos. Democrats can't--or won't--control protests that go rogue and turn into riots. If you want your city to be in uproar like Portland, vote for Biden, he says.  

It has become a regular nightly event. Peaceful protests by day evolve into violence later into the night. Under cover of the protests some people took the opportunity to set fires, break into stores and loot them, to spray graffiti, to vandalize, to point lasers and throw heavy objects at law enforcement and others, to topple statues, and to get into fights. The violence created its own fuel, drawing people in who were looking to be where the action is, hoping to engage with one side or the other, the police, the protesters, the counter protesters, someone. 

I hear from a variety of sources in the Portland area four points. One is that the violence and looting is not by protesters earnestly concerned about racial justice. The protests created a volatile situation but the violence takes place around those protests, not by the protests. 

The second is that the GOP-aligned media makes the Portland situation far, far worse than it really is. It's a mess, but not as big a mess as Fox News portrays it.

The third is that, yes, there really are fires started, rocks and bottles thrown and confrontations with the police, and there really is graffiti, broken windows, fire damage, and looting, and that it makes a portion of Portland's central city look ugly. Portland already had a problem of homeless people living on sidewalks and diminishing the overall quality of life in the central city, and this comes on top of it, along with Covid, with unemployment, with businesses closing from the shutdown, and all the other problems of this difficult year.

The fourth is a comment parallel to my own thoughts: Ted Wheeler is an idiot and a disaster as mayor. He was handed a great opportunity and he handled it the worst way possible. He had the opportunity to endorse Black Lives Matter as an idea and a movement for racial justice, and then say that damned if he was going to let this important, good cause be hijacked and destroyed by looters and arsonists. He could have promptly supported police in restoring order at the front end, setting a clear policy of what was permissible and what was not, making the point that the civic order was protecting the protests, not stifling them. He might have called on protesters to assist the police in identifying wrong-doers, making the distinction between people fighting for racial justice and people destroying this great city. He had a shot at looking like a strong, clear headed liberal. 

He blew it. The disturbances were like a fire that grows from its own heat. Some  people on the left justified violence and destruction as the language of the oppressed, and that squelching violence meant opposition to the protests. The city's response was muddled, and the protests mixed people who opposed the violence with people who sheltered it. Disruption elicited a predictable response, the entry of more people attracted by the opportunity to act out. 

Wheeler had bad luck. This is late summer, a period of very pleasant, predictably dry weather, with evenings cooling after hot days. It is a perfect time to be outside, sitting on a patio, visiting with friends, or on the streets of Portland getting into fights.  

By mid November storms off the Pacific reliably bring hard, cold rain. It's much less fun to stand around in the streets at night getting soaked. By that time, though, Trump may have been re-elected, the public having decided that COVID is something beyond the ability of government to control, but Trump, at least. had a plan for dealing with an issue government could control, creating domestic tranquility and civic order.

Biden was on top of this, saying essentially what Senator Ron Wyden said when he visited Medford two weeks ago, that the protests were good and the violence is bad and it should be prosecuted. Those words are not as vivid in the eye of a TV viewer as images of protesters throwing bottles of burning gasoline. Trump says those rioter are liberals and that Biden lets them get away with it.

I had donated $250 to Ted Wheeler's election campaign in 2016. I thought he had real potential. Sorry.

Tomorrow I will share a report from Michael Trigoboff, the author of the quotation at the top of the page. Today I pass along the report from a 41 year old friend who lives just outside of Portland. I asked for a first person account. He dashed this off, so it retains the flavor of a first person spoken narrative, produced in the moment.  

"I have a sensitive job. Don't use my name," he said. "Show a photo of my truck, not my face. That will surprise people."

He went on. "I'm at home in Portland. I was born here and lived here all my life. Portland isn't just organic food, yoga, fancy beer, and liberals. I like cigars and I drive a big truck as my main vehicle. I like Bernie and AOC. I also like guns. I have two rescue dogs and I recycle. You can't typecast me."

Field Report, Portland:

Portland is being used as a proving ground for the political landscape of our country. 

Ask yourself this question: Did Ted Wheeler, the stupid hippie liberal leftist, ruin this once great city?

If your response to the question is “yes“, then you are instantly deemed a Trump supporter and probably want to take immediate action to make America great again. If your answer is “no," you must be an Antifa-loving, communist pinko.

There is no room being left in the middle. Well, I think it's more complicated than that.

If I were to draw a Venn diagram for myself, I would be at the center of supporting my local law-enforcement, being against police brutality, supporting Black Lives Matter, wanting our city to come back to normal, and someone who strongly condemns any and all looting, arson, and rioting.

These are not diametrically opposed opinions as we are being told they are.  

I am a Trump-hating, giant truck owning, cigar loving, welder, heavy equipment operating, straight male, who lives just outside the city limits. I vote for Democrats. I liked Bernie Sanders. I believe in the right to own firearms, but I also believe those firearms should more closely resemble those of my grandfather's ‘farm guns’ in southern Oregon. I think that anyone who brings a firearm to a protest is a danger to the community and is acting like a terrorist and should be arrested on the spot.

I also believe that we have a surprisingly large amount to learn about the systematic oppression of minorities. 

Portland is my home. I have watched Portland's livability spiral downward. The homeless epidemic was here long before Covid or the civil unrest that’s currently taking place in our city. If I were to point a finger at an entity that was responsible for that population, I would place the blame with Purdue Pharmaceuticals first and foremost. They created the opioid epidemic which in turn created the homeless drug addled population. 

I am not happy with how Ted Wheeler dealt with the protests. I voted for him last time. In hindsight, he should have come down hard on the bad actors in the protests, directing the police force to make sweeping arrests of anyone that caused violence or destruction of property. He could have done that while giving an abundance of support to his police department. Remember, I am a big supporter of Black Lives Matter. There is no contradiction here in liking BLM and wanting police to stop violence in my city. It is a trap to allow others to make you chose one or the other.

In closing:

Our city is not in ruin.  
Graffiti can be cleaned.
Covid is still the main reason people are not patronizing the businesses of our city.
Our city is still a wonderful place.
Trump is a lying cowardly piece of shit."

Trump's Civil War

Trump fights for his team. Just his team.

There is red America and blue America. Red America won in 2016. Trump fights to keep them winning against their real enemy: blue America. 

Donald Trump's favorite president is Andrew Jackson. The "Spoils System" is not new in America. Andrew Jackson, the proud "Indian Killer," the Democratic voice of "the people" against urban elites, expanded the system of rotation in office and directing federal offices and benefits to his supporters. They won, and "to the victor belongs the spoils."

Trump represents a style of governing that would have been foreign to politics of the past century. Presidents have generally attempted to consolidate political power by adding to their support, making gestures of good will to the other party and its voters, with lip service if not actual practice. Obama famously launched his political career with a speech that made the unity appeal:

Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too: We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

That was Obama, and that was then.

It was an unsatisfying approach that failed in practice. Obama's attempt to bring aboard Republican votes for a universal health care plan created a complicated plan whose delay in enactment took him far past his Honeymoon period, and in the end got zero Republican buy-in. The effort for bipartisanship further split the Democratic Party as Obama attempted to bridge a Sanders Medicare for All approach plus the interests of conservative Democrats with close ties to health insurers like Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, plus red state Democrats like Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Max Baucus of Montana.

The overall conclusion was that Obama was weak. Republicans developed a talking point: "feckless." Obama was "feckless." He couldn't get things done, and indeed he could not.

Mitt Romney famously got overheard at a fundraiser saying America divided into regular hard working citizens and "takers," the 47% of people who leached off America. They were lost to him, he said. When it was revealed his response to it was denial and minimization.  A president is supposed to unite. We are all in this together. 

The Trump revolution in the GOP and the presidency nationally is to reverse that presumption of unity. Trump presents himself as beset by enemies: the fake news, Democratic hoax promoters, Antifa anarchists, Black Lives Matter protesters and supporters, Socialists like Sanders, crazy young radicals like AOC, Obama holdovers, "woke" people, mask wearers and Covid shutdown supporters, Christian haters, abortion supporters, gun takers, Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, academics, so-called "experts," and the Deep State. Trump and Fox are in continual outrage about the assault against the Silent Majority of White, Christian, freedom-loving Americans. 

Trump openly governs on behalf of his base, against those opponents. 

 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with his recusal from the Russian investigation, made a nod to law, norms, and self restraint. Trump was furious. Bill Barr says you play to win, be as nakedly partisan as you want, no one can stop you, and winners write the history. Sportsmanship is for suckers. It is war. Use the power of government to investigate political enemies, pardon political allies, influence witnesses by dangling clemency, let foreign governments know you want them to play ball to help get you elected. You can be impeached, but you cannot be removed as long as you have 34 votes in the Senate, and he does.  

News stories on Jared Kushner report that Trump's early attitude on the virus was to recognize that it was primarily affecting Seattle, then New York, and Blacks and Latinix populations--not his base--indeed the Democratic base--and therefore not a big concern.

You won the election, use the power to support the people who helped you win. 

Will this work politically? It might. This is still a majority White country and the silent division within America is racial. I witnessed first hand Boston's racial and ethnic division. Humans are tribal, and working class people prefer to be among "their own kind," with Irish, Italian, Polish, and Jewish neighborhoods and voting for politicians of their own ethnicity, all against one another except unifying as one to unite against Blacks.  Liberal pundits scoff at Trump's warning that Biden will kill the suburbs and that a Housing Secretary like Cory Booker will arrange for the wrong kind of people to move into and destroy your suburb. How ridiculous, they say. Cory Booker is a Rhodes Scholar. Is he scary? 

NIMBY is real. Trump has a potent argument, articulated artfully. He said Cory Booker, of all people, who is Black, but he didn't say Black. He said "low income," not Black. How unfair that liberals would call that a racist dog whistle! What an outrage, liberals always crying "racism."

Trump has a gift for connecting with people feeling pressured by the growing liberal consensus and the changes taking place in America culturally and demographically. He wants to build a wall, both a physical one and a psychological one. America is becoming more diverse, more educated, more urban, more secular, more globalized. 

It is happening fast and Trump is slowing it down, or tying to.

"Cleveland elects Donald Trump."

This isn't new.  It elects Donald Trump.

A look back to March, 2016.

Today the Guest Post is my own prior post, the post of March 19, 2016. Events come so quickly and vividly that we lose sight of what we observed about politics four years prior, living in real time, without knowledge of what would come ahead.

History warns us. Trump was talking law and order. Hillary was talking about all of us getting along. Trump was urging his supporters to provoke violence while accusing leftist anarchists of doing that, and welcoming confrontation. Same playbook.

I observed that Trump had the ability to create images of unruly violence and that he was prepared to blame that unrest on weak, irresolute Democrats. This week he and his media allies defended the 17 year old who travelled to Wisconsin with an automatic rifle to confront protesters. Armed White citizens are the good guys. They are the defenders of good order.

I encountered the post because I was looking for my exact quote of Trump, where he finished his rally speech in Boca Raton, Florida, with the shouted assurance that they would  win and win and win until you all got tired of winning. At the time I understood him to be saying that they--Americans generally, the people understood broadly--would be winning. 

No. I misunderstood. He openly and intentionally governs on behalf of his base, only them, positioning them in opposition to political opponents. "Make the liberals cry" is a unifying idea for Republicans. We won, you lost. Trump plays to win for his team. 

Trump has a gift for finding and widening the divisions within Americans. It isn't directly and overtly racial, but it is White against Black, and it is in fact racial for the people who want it to be racial. Armed Blacks are a danger and can be shot. Armed Whites are protectors of cities and suburbs. A fight between White "law and order" protesters versus liberals allied with Blacks might motivate the White male non-college voters of the Upper Midwest, I warned..  

I was right. The Upper Midwest states flipped.  It is happening again.

This will be a long post. For people inclined to skip the rest, here is how I concluded back four years ago:

     "I attempt to see clearly what is right in front of me, which is why I try to get up close and to pay attention.  Today I am looking ahead, and have an image of the future that looks very good for Trump, if in fact his transition from provocateur to law and order candidate has been solidified, and the Utah rally certainly suggests it has. Trump is George Wallace and Richard Nixon, 1968, and they got 347 electoral votes between them, a landslide.

That's how Trump gets elected president.   He needs those protesters, and he will get them."

A look back to March, 2016

The Cleveland Convention could make Trump the President

I am not up close to it yet, but I can imagine it:  Cleveland this summer, with angry protesters at a Trump convention and police in riot gear.   

I remember Chicago, 1968.  The images on the TV screens drove votes to George Wallace and Richard Nixon.   The lesson I drew from this is that regardless of who is actually to blame for violence, the very fact of violence tends to increase support for the perceived strong man who can restore order.

By last Monday, as I observed it at the Boca Raton rally, the actual event demonstrated that Trump was changing focus from being a wink-wink provocateur into that law and order strong man.  On Sunday, March 13, it was the old Trump, in an early morning Tweet:   "Bernie Sanders is lying when he says his disruptors aren't told to go to my events. Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours!"

But by Monday in Boca Raton it was a different story, no longer “protesters" vs. Trump's tough-guy supporters.   Monday he repeatedly told the crowd to stand down, to let the police handle problems: it was police law and order vs. “professional disrupters”, amid very visible uniformed police officers inside, SWAT trucks outside, ambulances and paramedics walking inside the event perimeter.   

All quiet in Boca Raton

The Trump rally in Utah on Friday put protesters across the street from the rally, just like Boca Raton.  News stories report that protesters attempted to storm the event, but were held back by riot police.   ABC News reported:  "Hundreds of people chanted "Dump Trump" and "Mr. Hate Out of Our State" as police in riot gear blocked the entrance to the Salt Lake City building, after protesters tried to rush the door and got into dozens of screaming matches with Trump supporters who didn't make into the venue."

Order in the venue--chaos involving protesters and the police outside it:  perfect frame for Trump.

Utah police separate protesters from Trump venue

At the Utah, as in Boca Raton, Trump made frequent references to the protesters and kept the threat of them hovering ominously just outside the cone of safety.  "Did any protesters sneak in tonight?   Did anybody?," he asked the crowd, which began chanting "Trump, Trump, Trump."   He smiled at the chant and flashed two thumbs up.

The protesters, he said, "They're stifling us, folks, they're stifling us.  We want nobody to get hurt, we want everything to be perfect.  This seems like a perfect evening."   With all the big rallies we are having around the country, "people aren't getting hurt, folks."   We had to cancel the Chicago event, which was necessary for public safety, he said.  "We ended it, nobody was hurt, we did a smart thing."

"You talk about freedom of speech, you talk about the First Amendment.   Very unfair, very unfair when they can stifle us.  Very unfair."

The ideal frame for Trump in Cleveland is “order versus chaos”, and it would be especially delicious for Trump if the symbols of “chaos" were to exemplify race and ethnicity without Trump needing to say it explicitly.   I can easily imagine that people from Black Lives Matter and Hispanic immigrant groups will eagerly play their role, giving the media the conflict—or at least the potential threat of conflict—that would justify the intense Breaking News coverage, and justify the Huffington Post headline “Terror on the Trail” they used after the peaceful Boca Raton event.   Trump protesters will want to tell their story.  

Trump had positioned himself as the strong man on money, trade, and immigration but is now being reincarnated as a champion of free speech and assembly.  In Utah Trump said, "Do we have love for the protesters?  Honestly, I love the protesters.  I love the protesters.   They are doing their thing, they're doing their thing, OK?   I don't quite get their thing, but whatever it is, they're doing their thing."   

But they are not us.   We are the American multitude they are protesting against.   "We used to be called the 'Silent Majority', but we aren't silent anymore."

Trump and Anti-Trump in Utah

So, surely, out of a metropolitan population of two million people in Cleveland there will be at least a dozen people on one side or the other to jostle themselves into a fight somewhere near a camera.   Surely, there will be anti-Trump partisans confident they are doing their duty by displaying a sign protesting a border wall or calling Trump and his supporters racist.  Surely, someone carrying a provocative sign of one sort or the other will dislike being flipped off.   It is easy to imagine protesters of several sides, conveniently color coded in black and brown, so that the racial and ethnic “chaos” can be exploited in the way most convenient to the modern “Southern Strategy” GOP, understood and dog whistled, not voiced.

Also it is easy to imagine the Democratic nominee looking “weak and feckless”, as Christie described Obama, as Bernie or Hillary attempts to talk down the conflict that he or she is accused of having encouraged. Trump has already mocked Bernie for looking weak in relation to Black Lives Matter.

 “Can’t we all get along,” Rodney King asked the people of LA as the rioting went on and on.  

Hillary's version  of "Can't we all get along?"

Hillary is already playing the role of pleader for peace:  "The divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all.  We all have our differences, and we know how many people across the country feel angry.  We need to address that anger together."

The protests continue.   Clinton talks; Trump employs the police.

Bernie and Hillary would be tied to the grievances of the protesters and therefore to the protest and “chaos” itself, because black and Hispanics are part of their political "identity team," a disadvantaged group, the person advocated for.   And protesters have a right to protest, and they will say what is on their mind: Trump is a dangerous xenophobe.

This will give Trump the contrast he wants.    Trump would stand with the police, with law and order, with public safety against the "chaos" of protest.  Helpless talk vs. strength; chaos vs. order. 

With any luck for Trump, some dark skinned teenager will be filmed looting an appliance store somewhere in America that week, which Trump will condemn and Hillary might be forced to comment.  She will condemn it, of course, but not the way Trump would.   She would put it into a context of poverty, unemployment, hopelessness; Trump would put it into a context of crime and disorder.  She would show nuance.  Trump would say it is simply wrong and dangerous. 

And this being America, no doubt someone in the upper midwest will be shot to death with a gun that week, as happens multiple times every week, convention or not.  It will not be hard to find chaos in the form of gun violence to report and add to the mix.

I attempt to see clearly what is right in front of me, which is why I try to get up close and to pay attention.  Today I am looking ahead, and have an image of the future that looks very good for Trump, if in fact his transition from provocateur to law and order candidate has been solidified, and the Utah rally certainly suggests it has.  Trump is George Wallace and Richard Nixon, 1968, and they got 347 electoral votes between them, a landslide.

That's how Trump gets elected president.   He needs those protesters, and he will get them.

"Herd immunity" means seniors die.

COVID is a far greater risk to your life than is violent crime. 

Trump has an unsaid policy: Old people should take one for the team. Die and get out of the way.

American has 186,000 COVID deaths this year. That is ten times the number of homicides. Worry about the right things: COVID and herd immunity. 

Fox News and Trump are talking nonstop about violent crime. It's a distraction from the real risks to Americans. People are more afraid of snakes than they are of heart attacks or cancer, so we avoid snakes and eat cheeseburgers. Fires, looting, and murder get our attention. Two jumbo jet crashes a day would also get our attention, but a thousand people a day suffocating one by one in hospitals do not. It's the way humans think about risks.

We don't want to be murdered, and, statistically, we probably won't be, unless we are involved in some way in gangs, the illegal drug trade, or have a violent spouse. Murder is mostly an avoidable risk. There may be about 19,000 murders this year, about 5 people in 100,000.

COVID is annualizing to be 40 times as dangerous.

COVID has accelerated the deaths of 185,000 people beginning in March, and there are still four months to go this year. Were these really COVID deaths? Trump and conservative media have questioned the actual cause of death, since death certificates of people dying with COVID typically list multiple causes, for example, pneumonia. That isn't a surprise. COVID kills by giving people uncontrollable pneumonia. We have "excess deaths" of 200,000 over a base trend line this year of 2,900,000 annual expected deaths, all of which has been since March. This suggests that COVID deaths are slightly under-reported, not over-reported. Yes, COVID is killing people.

Even cautious people catch COVID. Your child or grandchild might have caught it from a playmate. You might have got it by attending a wedding, when you thought you were being careful, but not careful enough. There have been 6.1 million COVID cases in the US, and 3.3% of those getting it die. The more infections, the more deaths.

"Co-morbidities" is not a surprise. By the time people have lived 65 or 70 years most of us have something wrong we are living with. While we were worried about snakes, those cheeseburgers caught up with us. 

Heart Disease kills about 650,000 Americans every year. Cancer kills 600,000. Annualizing the COVID deaths from six months to a year would bring the annualized total to about 400,000, making COVID the third leading cause of death. If new federal policies increase virus spread on the assumption that herd immunity is the only practical strategy, then we will have more cases and more deaths. If 3% of cases continue to result in death, then the country may experience an additional two million deaths for a few years, as pretty much everyone gets it.  Even if we keep the current regimen of irregular and inconsistent mask and social distancing we could continue with a chronic 1,000 cases a day, and COVID would settle in at the third most common cause of death.

Click

For people age 60 and older, worry about COVID, not murder. 

Trump and his media allies have been settling in on a new policy and talking point: herd immunity. 

Dr. Scott Atlas is a new Trump advisor recommending it, and talk radio personalities and Fox opinion hosts are on board. They say virus avoidance is a Democratic hoax meant to destroy the economy and defeat Trump. Live free, get the virus, you will probably be ok,  and move on. Click

The country would survive; some people would not. There would be fewer old people. If people who get the disease get some years of immunity--not a certainty--or if an effective vaccine develops in a couple of years--again, not a certainty--then the economy might return to near pre-COVID status. It would be a younger country. A "herd immunity" strategy imbeds a reality that there would be a "thinning of the herd." The weak old and die. The young and healthy live.

This is a hard policy to confront directly and to verbalize and Trump is clever and strategic enough not to do it. He is dangling a distraction in front of us. Don't look at the COVID deaths. Look at looting! Look at the murders! Look at Chicago!   Illinois has had 8,300 COVID deaths so far since March, of which 5,073 are in Cook County. Cook County has a grave murder problem, no doubt: 440 people have been murdered. 

But murder is the snake that gets our attention.

Choice. The American public might actively and intentionally choose a policy of triage, deciding that old sick people have got to take one for the team and take their heightened risks and hope to shelter for years amid a widespread infected population. If a few million older, sicker folks die, then all the better for the solvency of Social Security and the public employee pension funds, inheritances will be passed along, and most important, we get America working again. Life must go on.

I suspect that, if we were faced directly with that choice, American voters would say "no." It is too cruel, people love their grandparents, and old people vote. Trump isn't giving us that choice. We are backing into that policy while looking at the murders.

New Trump conspiracy: People in the dark shadows.

Joe Biden: 

"Does anyone believe there'll be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?"

Bess Levin, NY Times: 

"What Biden didn't say, but which was perhaps implied, was that Americans have a very simple decision to make: Do they want a sane, relatively lucid individual running the country, or would they like second helpings from the batshit buffet."

Trump is stepping up the crazy.

Donald Trump is making news, and then stepping all over the news he was making. In a two hour and fifteen minute period early Sunday morning he posted or reposted one every 90 seconds. The tweets attacked the news media, including "the Failing and Crooked (but not as crooked as Hillary Clinton) @NYTimes"; the "20,000,000 Witch Hunt"; Hillary's emails; Hillary's server. Trump called to imprison NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, he defended the 17 year old Kenosha shooter, and blasted Portland Mayor Wheeler. And more.  There were 89 tweets. Manic.

Trump, on Laura Ingraham

Among them were tweets about a conspiracy idea that he is floating: "People you've never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows."

Donald Trump gave an extraordinary interview with Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host. Fox News is so friendly a venu Trump loses any self protective filter. Even Laura Ingraham tries to warn him off the crazy--watch it, Mr. President, you are sounding kookie--but Trump forges ahead. 

He appears to be remembering and re-purposing a Facebook rumor that circulated early this summer. The fear was that busloads of Antifa terrorists in black would descend on small towns to terrorize them. In Klamath Falls, Oregon, about 70 miles east of my home in Medford, armed civilians showed up one evening to protect the town from an invasion rumored and circulated on Facebook. I wrote about it here in June, under the title "Facebook Rumors, Alcohol, Men with Guns" Click  The feared invasion never came, interpreted in Facebook posts as a victory--the enemy having retreated without engaging. 

Trump did what Trump does. He made up a story and kept it vague. Here is a transcript:


Trump: And Biden—well Biden is—I don’t even like to mention Biden, because he’s not controlling anything. They control him…

Ingraham: Who do you think is pulling Biden’s strings? Is it former Obama officials…?

Trump: People that you’ve never heard of. People that are in the dark shadows. People that…

Ingraham: What does that mean? That sounds like conspiracy theory. Dark shadows, what is that?

Trump: No. People that you haven’t heard of. They’re people that are on the streets. They’re people that are controlling the streets. We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that. They’re on a plane…

Ingraham: Where—where was this?

Trump: I’ll tell you sometime, but it’s under investigation right now, but they came from a certain city, and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention, and there were like seven people on the plane like this person, and then a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage. They were coming for…

Ingraham: Planning for Washington?

Trump: Yes, this was all—this is all happening.

Click: Cooper lip syncs Trump

                                                   ---     ---     ---

We have seen Trump do this before, laying out a claim and keeping details secret. It was how he handled the Birther attack on Obama, saying that investigators were finding amazing stuff, stuff that would shock you, but no, he isn't ready to lay it out.  Polls showed a majority of Republicans bought it. Where there is so much smoke there must be fire.

We saw the retreat to vagueness and secrecy again when he was asked about his favorite Bible verse, where his rambling answers calls up memories of school children, standing to give a book report on a book they said they had read, but had not. Here is comedian Sarah Cooper's version of Trump's actual words. "The Bible means a lot to me, but I don't want to get into specifics."

The new conspiracy of mysterious men in black plotting a coup against him has just enough anecdotal evidence to get currency with people who want to believe. The summer has brought out young men--and some women--eager to act out, both on the political right and political left. There are left anarchists who defend violence as a form of political speech to break through the inertia. There are Proud Boys and informal militia members like the ones showing up to defend Klamath Falls and Kenosha, people like Kyle Rittenhouse. Each side has a costume, black or militia. They are part of something bigger than themselves. They meet like minded people.

Antifa terrorists are not descending on planes to overthrow America, but some people somewhere will say or do violent things, and the media will cover it, and it if fits the narrative, Fox will put it on a loop.

Donald Trump is spinning out a scare story as part of his larger theme that  he is under relentless attack by dark, mysterious forces who actually pull the strings on Biden, on Democrats, and on Americans. He cannot be proven wrong, and men in shadows is a better story for him than that 1,000 Americans are dying every day from complications relating to COVID, two filled jumbo jets crashing every day. Conspiracies of dark forces, men in black, are dangerous ideas to spread. Presidents have status and credibility. People believe. Brave, impressionable people like Kyle Rittenhouse act on it.

Most dangerous, though, is that a war against invisible, dark forces can take place invisibly and extra-judicially. Secret enemies require secret police. If institutions imbed enemies then institutions cannot be trusted. A country like that needs a strong, bold leader. It is the moral justification for the end of democratic self government.

Trump makes chaos. It's a strategy.

     "The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order."

           Kellyanne Conway, on Fox and Friends

Joe Biden says that Trump creates violence and unrest. Exactly. That is the point. He wants to win.

Not a radical socialist

Biden spoke yesterday and made a point that is central to the choice facing voters: more Trump drama vs. a low drama time out. Trump is exhausting. Haven't we had enough? Biden thinks so.

He said, "We have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames. . . . Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected? We need justice in America. We need safety in America. We're facing multiple crises--crises that, under Donald Trump, have kept multiplying."

And then the lines that got widely covered in the media: 

     "Ask yourself. Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?"

And for better or worse, that is narrative choice, and it will be played out largely by body language and well established branding. Trump defined Biden as "Sleepy Joe" and runs ads showing him to be a doddering old clueless fool.The most true and persuasive statement Biden has made in this campaign is that question about what he looks like, and, no, he does not look like anybody's radical anything. Sleepy, yes. Radical, no.

Trump has an advantage here. A fight-picker can create a fight, while a calm-seeker cannot create calm if the fight-picker demands a fight. Trump has the cover of the protests, the images of violence, even if from years ago or far away. Breaking news. Fires on sidewalks. Trump is arguing that his violence is the violence necessary to keep the peace. He sides with the police and they with him. He is a defender, he says. The other guys started it.

Trump has a disadvantage here. Trump is utterly plausible as a bully, the guy who pushes other people around, the guy who fights dirty to win. Trump does not have credibility as the guy who was slow to a fight. For better or worse, Trump, too, has a brand.

Trump's disadvantage, too, comes from the people random news events served up. The Country Club looking St. Louis couple were a mixed message, but enough of a net positive that Trump's convention thought to showcase them. Trump thought them thoroughly sympathetic, White people defending their home waving guns against mob violence. My sense is that the local DA who is prosecuting them for brandishing weapons inappropriately risks making them double victims (first the mob, then the fault-finding government!) but that the couple is not fully sympathetic, and they look like they were escalating a problem, not stopping one. They were too rich, a little too quick to bring out guns, and too easy to perceive as White folks defending their gated community neighborhood from the riff-raff who don't belong in their cocoon of privilege. It's a social class issue.

The 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse is a complicated situation, with his attorney--and Trump and Fox hosts--saying this was a self defense matter, him shooting three people, killing two, because he feared for his life. Rittenhouse was a volunteer, a young man with a big gun, there in a protest zone after dark, after curfew, looking for situations where he could be a hero. He found them. He got into a skirmish, fired his gun multiple times, then began being chased by people. People chasing a shooter raises the question whether others, some of them armed themselves, when confronting a shooter, creates, in the shooter, a justifiable fear for his life. Who is the bad guy here, and who the hero?  It will be a complicated case legally. In school shooting situations the heroes of the incidents are people who rush to stop a shooter. Trump himself said had he been at the Parkland, Florida incident, he would have run in unarmed to stop the shooter bare handed. In this case, a man with a skateboard hit Rittenhouse. Someone threw something. Other people were armed. It is complicated.

But something is not complicated. Seventeen year olds wandering around on the street, carrying an AR-15, looking for people to confront, getting into gunfights, comes across as dangerously chaotic. Tucker Carlson called him a hero and Laura Ingraham said she wanted him to be president, and Trump praised Rittenhouse. This may sit right with the Trump core base, but if there are any swing voters with an open mind, I think it comes across as dangerous disorder. Young men at night, unsupervised, with big guns are frightening per se. It comes across as disorder. Trump's support comes across as Trump fanning the flames, just as Biden said.

Biden has a problem, though, too. Being right isn't enough. Biden comes across as slow to act and weak in the face of a problem. The narrative that is circulating out beyond the Fox/talk radio bubble is that Biden failed to step forward, that he waited in his basement and didn't really lend his leadership and authority to urge protesters to go home, that he seemed reluctant to disagree with leftists who say only violence moves the needle. The narrative slides from a positive frame--calm and reasoned--into a negative one--weak and ineffective.

Could Biden have done more, earlier, and louder? Yes. The pro-Biden punditry has been uniform for weeks in urging him to speak up, speak out, do a Sister Souljah, to intervene. He seemed dragged to this.

So, the narratives will play out over the next two months. Trump is a bully, a provoker, and willing to use strong, decisive force, even if it makes things worse. Still, once everyone is arrested and enough police and troops are deployed, America can be assured peace. Meanwhile, Biden attempts to calm the waters, because people want peace, not provocation from a president, and we would have it with Biden calming the waters.

The grave danger for Biden is that Trump has the power to keep provoking, and he has the willingness to do it. Kellyanne Conway said it correctly: violence and chaos help Trump win, and Trump's goal here is victory.