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I have to admit I am seeing the protest movement across America from a rather strange viewpoint. I live in one of the most liberal areas of one of the most liberal states in the country, and here the citizens are deeply grieving... a police officer who lost his life. You can see why this is a rather unique lens through which to view what is currently going on.
Conservative Republicans just chalked up another big defeat in their continuing losing streak in the culture wars. The Supreme Court ruled today that L.G.B.T. rights are indeed included in Title VII, which mandates equal treatment for all "on the basis of sex." Discriminating against someone because they are gay or transgendered (by firing them, for example) is just as unconstitutional as it is to discriminate against all women (or all men, for that matter). To put it another way, what could be called the final battle of the Sexual Revolution just ended, and the counterculture has now absolutely routed the field of conservatives.
President Donald Trump seems to have settled on a theme for his campaign, as he doubles down on blatant racism. Think that's too strongly put? We don't. Consider the following, from just the past week:
While the overall news on the coronavirus pandemic has gotten better on a national scale, we could be seeing the very beginnings of a second wave developing in individual states. This is worrisome, but what is even more concerning is that we may be about to repeat the mistakes of the first wave all over again. The process of closing down the economy and sheltering in place was painful, and the reopening and lifting of restrictions got very political, which adds up to an enormous reluctance by governors to go through it all over again. Which, if true, would mean that the second wave may prove to be worse than the first.
Is anyone else out there ready for some cheerful and perhaps even downright rosy-tinted optimism? I for one certainly think it's time to write a column filled with positive vibes, and I've got just the subject. While triple crises rage throughout America (medical, economic, and injustice-based) and while Donald Trump's poll numbers continue to sink like a stone, there have been some interesting developments in another important political arena. The Senate is now not only "in play" for Democrats in November, the possibility now exists that they won't just win back the chamber, but win it back in a big blue wave that puts them firmly in control.
To be blunt, the one consistent truth in all of the horrific scenes of police brutality we've all witnessed recently (and in the past) is that it was caught on video. If it hadn't been, then it effectively would not have happened. We would only have a police report about a protester "tripping and falling" rather than an image of the cops shoving a peaceful 75-year-old man to the ground. There would be nothing to run on the evening news, outside of the small slice of the protests that the professional camera crews caught on film.
I know we all have plenty to worry about these days, so I apologize in advance for adding another possible item to the list. But we could be heading for a very worrisome situation indeed, because contrary to how Americans have experienced past presidential elections (well... other than in the year 2000...), we may not actually know who won on the night of the election. There are a combination of factors which have set up this rather unique situation, and it may not even come to pass if a few of these variables change by November. But the possibility now exists that we won't know for days -- or even weeks -- who won the Electoral College and thus the presidency. Which, obviously, could lead to chaos, especially considering what Donald Trump will be saying and tweeting in the meantime.
This week, an American president ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters -- who were doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble, speak, and petition the government for redress -- from a public park so that he could then walk across the park and hold up a borrowed Bible for a photo opportunity with both the Secretary of Defense and (clad in battle fatigues) the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Afterward, the Trump White House immediately issued a propaganda video of the event. Later that evening, a military helicopter clearly marked with a red cross took offensive action against the protesters (which is banned by the Geneva Conventions, and is now under investigation). Later still, the president and all his enablers in the White House lied through their teeth about the entire incident, repeatedly. At week's end, we learned of another affront to the Constitution by the Trump administration, when it was revealed that federal law enforcement had unconstitutionally seized a shipment of cloth face masks created by a Black Lives Matter affiliate, and the only possible reason they did so was that the Department of Justice apparently didn't like the messages displayed on the masks (which read: "Stop killing black people," and: "Defund police").
General James Mattis has broken his silence on the presidency of Donald Trump -- in a big way. Current Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has also noticeably broken with President Trump on the need for active-duty military personnel to be deployed to American cities in response to the mostly-peaceful protests which continue around the country. Other military leaders, both retired and still serving, are speaking out about what their oath actually means. To be blunt, protecting the United States Constitution does not mean violently attacking Americans who are merely exercising their First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, and petition the government for redress. Quite the opposite, in fact -- the military is supposed to support and defend such activities, not subvert or quash them. And there's one very important step the Pentagon could take right now to show solidarity with the people protesting the treatment of African-Americans in this country, and that is to remove the names of Confederate military officers from Army installations.
After apparently sleepwalking through the first part of the week, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper woke up today and realized his responsibilities as the head of the Pentagon. Perhaps he got some pushback from the generals who are aghast at the thought that the vaunted U.S. military could become to be seen as a political force at the beck and call of a partisan president. Esper had apparently forgotten this bedrock tenet of American government earlier, when participating in Donald Trump's now-infamous "brandishing a Bible in front of a church" photo op. Esper not only walked back this participation (by stating he somehow had no idea it was about to happen), but he also openly contradicted the president's call to mobilize the military to crack down on protests in the streets.