Don the Fascist and Police Violence

I have no doubt that most police officers take on the responsibility they do for the right reasons and most are disturbed by the murders committed by their fellow officers. However, the fact is that all the protests across the nation and the mood of even white suburbanites swinging toward demands for accountability hasn’t stopped some officers from continuing to murder unarmed black men. The former reality show star in the White House had little to say about stopping violence against citizens perpetrated by police during his record length 70 minute acceptance speech Thursday night. Instead he talked about stopping rioting, looting, and arson; none of which would be happening if police stopped shooting black people who weren’t shooting at them.

There’s a reason for police violence hasn't stopped and it’s important that we realize that those officers aren’t just a few bad apples. In order for Derek Chauvin to have been able to kneel on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes while two other officers stood by, there has to be a culture within that department that says it’s acceptable to do. If such a culture didn’t exist at least one of those officers would have demanded that Chauvin back off long before Floyd suffocated. The fact that those two officers witnessed the murder and took no action at all says to me that either of them might very well have done the same thing. It also begs the question: What other less extreme abuse have these three officers perpetrated on people they’ve come in contact with? Since all three were fine with Floyd’s death and that attitude can’t have been limited to just them that entire department needs a thorough house cleaning.

As I write this, Jacob Blake is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The fact that officers continue to use extreme violence against black men three months after the start of protests against such violence says there is a culture in many departments that says extreme violence perpetrated against black men is okay.

The president’s fascist “law and order” rhetoric is being repeated by Republicans up and down the ticket, most recently by Alabama Republican congressional nominee Barry Moore who praised the white 17 year old vigilante who is charged with the murder of two and shooting of another as they were organizing a protest against police violence in Kenosha. The police chief there had the gall to blame the protesters for their own deaths and injuries because they violated curfew. The vigilante is not surprisingly a big fan of the president.

Since the election of this president there has been a significant rise in hate crimes. This year alone there have been arrests in 90 cases of domestic terrorism and the majority of those cases “are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence” according to FBI Director Christopher Wray in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The reality TV star is behaving much like his fascist predecessors in the 1930’s who exhorted their followers to commit violence against those they blamed for their countries’ problems. Here, in this era he blames anyone not white and anyone who disagrees with him. This is the man who hinted at “Second Amendment” remedies to the possible election of Hillary Clinton in 2016. The same man who says that there are some very fine people amongst white supremacists. The same man who says he isn’t sure he’ll leave the White House if he loses the election.