Most Americans are appalled at the violent actions of a few at Donald Trump events. We can all speak our opinion and those that disagree can carry signs, pass out flyers and do the usual and unusual somersaults for the media. From across the political spectrum, we can agree to disagree and respect democratic process. This violence reminds me of Germany in the 1920’s and the consequential willingness of the German people to accept order as their first priority. Upon taking power, Hitler first arrested the Communists. But then the new order became his thugs.
A program of acting violently to provoke more violence is far different than advocating a change in policy. It is an attempt at a usurpation of power rather than a democratic change in power relationships. I have seen this usurpation or abuse used as strategy for a specific agenda unfold frequently in ways that miss the headlines. In the early 1990’s when the Internet took off, ITT Tech in Lathrop was besieged with phone calls. “My granddaughter is disappointed that she can’t email me photos of her birthday party” and other similar statements from older people needing to catch up with technology. So ITT Tech planned for summer courses when many faculty would have often been forced into part time work. For perhaps as much as $500 these seniors would have gotten professional software writers as instructors in small classes, tutoring and an 8 am to 10 pm state of the art computer lab. They would have spent an intensive summer and willingly pay that tuition. But it then became illegal for a for-profit school to offer any classes that didn’t lead to a degree.
Maxine Waters, before she joined Congress and threatened to nationalize the oil companies, pushed that bill through the state legislature on behalf of the teachers union and the government near monopoly on higher education. The obvious fact that siphoning off more affluent students from the junior college system would create more opportunities for people of modest means there either didn’t occur to her, or she willingly sacrificed them. Many would claim that these are the people she was elected to represent, but she sold them out for the greater good of her fantasy society. I consider this Leninism; any means justify the ends.
I see the Trump disrupters in the same vein. Who can benefit from violence and social disorder? It’s not you, nor I. In limited, verbal ways, several on Facebook have resorted to slur and smear in this vein also, attempting to discredit the writer or their ideas to remove them from discussion. I have also called this approach Saul Alinsky-style and Maoism. One can be a liberal, a left liberal or a democratic socialist without resorting to these tactics.
Copyright 2016, Mark L. Bennett
That's true, and one can run for President without maligning nationalities, races, religions or people's appearance. But if you base a campaign on those obnoxious types of statements, thereby attracting the kind of rabble that they rouse, you should expect some disruption. And if you advocate violence from your followers to deal with it, you can expect that too.
ReplyDelete