Secret Police: As the State Fails, Extralegal Measures Become the Norm
In Portland, Oregon, unidentified men wearing camouflage and driving unmarked vehicles have begun kidnapping protesters and citizens, holding them illegally, refusing them their rights, and operating with virtual impunity. It appears that they are part of a federal force directed by the Trump Administration to crack down on continued protests, though answers and explanations are few and lacking. Victims of these abuses describe dizzying moments of terror marked by aggressive pseudo-arrests wherein no rights have been read or given. In an earlier incident, a protester was even shot in the head with a “less lethal” munition and injured seriously.
America is failing. Not just in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, but failing as a state. As a nation, the United States cannot protect its own citizens, cannot alleviate their struggles, cannot address crises, cannot operate in any meaningful capacity. Our “strategy” against the pandemic is hobbled by the Right’s inability to take responsibility for any plan and continued insistence on delegating in fear of repercussions. Where delegation fails, they have chosen a strategy of paranoia and scapegoating. Their followers have simply chosen to look away from a historic tragedy unfurling by the day. What is left is a country with little in common and little in the way of authority or sovereignty.
Unfortunately, when a state fails its last refuge is violence.
We’re all familiar now with scenes of violence by American law enforcement. The Black Lives Matter Movement, with its round-the-clock protests have exposed the violent nature of cops around the country. The brutality and inhumane treatment is well-documented. In response to a modern civil rights movement, officers have beaten and brutalized protesters. Joining them, of course, have been radicalized white Americans brandishing assault rifles, knives, clubs, bows and arrows, their paranoid worldviews spurring them to violent fantasies. As is the case historically, these are precursors to fascistic, authoritarian societies, moments where the state fails its citizens and resorts to widespread, systematic oppression.
What’s happening in Portland should concern everyone, regardless of their politics. This is the Trump Administration abusing its power, dispatching secret police, operating outside the Constitution, and invalidating every right and freedom Americans purport to hold dear. It is a real and frightening crisis, an escalation in an already escalated assault on free and open society. The stories emerging from the Pacific Northwest are chilling, and even more so considering they are largely going unnoticed.
Again, when a state has nothing to offer its people it turns to violence. These troops are operating to suppress protected speech, to shock and frighten Americans into abandoning their rights. Time and time and time again we have seen oppressive states play this same card with their own secret police. Protesters are disappeared. Dissidents vanished. It happens quickly and then it just…happens. Repeatedly.
In response to these revelations, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf has now responded with his own propaganda. He’s pictured rallying his troops in their battle against “extremists” and “anarchists.” He has made it clear where he and the administration stands. As is the case in all authoritarian states, there is the state and there is the enemy. Rather than deescalate, call for calm or peace or basic human dignity, Wolf has promised the state will “prevail.”
No plan. No humanity. No common cause. No assistance.
Nothing left to give but violence.
Jared Yates Sexton is the author of American Rule: How A Nation Conquered The World But Failed its People, available for pre-order from Dutton/Penguin-Random House. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, Politico, and elsewhere. He currently serves as an associate professor of writing at Georgia Southern University and is the co-host of The Muckrake Podcast.
