Solidarity: Faced with Growing Fascism and a Failing, Violent State, Organization is Our Only Option

In Portland, the extralegal measures by unidentified federal troops continues. Unmarked cars are still being used by agents refusing to identify themselves as they kidnap protesters and citizens off the streets, hold them indefinitely, and refuse them their constitutional rights. Each night is now a violent scene as agents beat Americans with batons, fire rubber bullets at them, and lob canisters of teargas indiscriminately.

The Trump Administration has been particularly gleeful about this operation, promising to take the operation nationwide. Faced with lawsuits from the states and organizations like the ACLU, they have been unrepentant about their actions. Meanwhile, Right Wing figures are embracing the tactics and seem absolutely joyful about the gestapo-like tactics, some asking where they can sign up to infringe upon rights.

It is revealing. For years they have been telling us just what they’d like to do. In my time covering Donald Trump’s rallies in 2016, his supporters told me in no uncertain terms they wanted to see Democratic politicians jailed or executed, journalists imprisoned and “lobotomized,” and liberals wiped off the face of the earth. They have been calling for full-throated fascism for years. This is what they want. Full. Stop. To crush any opposition by any means necessary. For constitutional rights to apply for them and the hell with everyone else.

But there is reason for hope. At last night’s rallies and protests, hundreds of Portland’s mothers joined the cause, seeking to protect their sons, daughters, and neighbors, standing in solidarity against obvious injustice.

It must be mentioned that these mothers were gassed and brutalized right alongside the protesters. The scene was ugly Sunday night. There was more gas. More rubber bullets. More violence. But the mothers continued to march, many of them weeping from the gas, many of them exhausted and beaten, many of them sickened by the tactics. They continued marching, even as the agents grew more and more violent.

There is a lesson here. One we must learn. With the pandemic, with the burgeoning financial crisis, with this epidemic of state-sponsored violence in our streets, we are watching a failing state at war with its own people. As documented on this website, Trump and his anti-government cronies have nothing to offer Americans. They have no interest in using government for the public good. They are in power to dismantle government and expedite profit and corruption. To wield the power of government for anything approaching public good would be antithetical to their goals and counterproductive. With nothing to give, they give violence.

But we are not powerless. The spectacle of politics tells us we are, that this is a television show we must watch and occasionally vote to continue. It tells us that we could never understand the complicated nature of the modern world, of economics, of international relations, of even understanding the most base-level facts necessary to operate the gears of government. They expect us to sit at home and continue accepting these abuses. And if we will not comply, they will greet us with violence until we do.

Power in America is a pendulum. It has swung back and forth from the people feeling powerless to the people understanding that sovereignty springs from the ground up. We must come together, like the protesters and the mothers in Portland. We must protect one another and one another’s rights as if we are protecting ourselves. Because we are. This is only the beginning of a much larger, much more sinister project. As Trump loses support and recognizes the possibility of losing power, he will grow more and more desperate. This is what authoritarians do. And the white supremacist movement he has crafted is primed and ready for this moment.

It is overwhelming and terrifying. But there is hope. We have one another. History shows us that’s all we need. The people. Together. This fear, this terror, this nightly letting of blood, is a desperate attempt by a failing state to crush solidarity and to send us all back home to wallow in our powerlessness. The pendulum swings, but there is no guarantee that it will continue to swing.

You are not powerless.

And you are not alone.

The Muckrake EIC Jared Yates Sexton addresses the disturbing violence in Portland, along with the possibility Donald Trump might not accept defeat in the November Presidential Election, in his weekly Bourbon Talk Q&A livestream (8pm Eastern every week)

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.