America, now what?

Do you remember what America was like the day before George Floyd had the life ground out of him, slowly, over a period of 8 minutes and 46 seconds?  

I clearly remember what America was like the day before. I have been in regular contact with colleagues who cover Washington, and who teach in elite universities. They were deeply anxious about the US in the run-up to Election Day, November 3rd. “It’s going to get really, really ugly,” said the US editor of a major British newspaper.

People with the education to know about the Weimar Republic were openly speculating about a Reichstag fire event. Maybe the coronavirus pandemic was it.

A political scientist friend at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government worried on twitter whether there would be an election at all, citing a statement Jared Kushner made to Time magazine about the possibility of postponing the election because of Covid, “It’s not my decision to make, so I’m not sure I can commit one way or the other.”

The fact that it isn’t Kushner’s decision to make, or even in the President’s portfolio of powers to unilaterally re-schedule an election, didn’t stop this very senior academic from giving in to the panic that has been growing in the US as the Trump presidency continues to shatter every norm and historical standard.

Myself, I had been saying that it was neck and neck that America would make it to November 3rd and hold full, free and fair elections.  

Then George Floyd was murdered, the video of his death hit the internet, and people took to the streets all over the country. Ten thousand people have been arrested so far.

The demos seem like a continuation of the “before” picture. America has been traveling towards this moment for more than half a century. Police violence has been the spark in most of the incidents of civil unrest during this period.

Dozens were killed in the 1965 riots in the LA neighbourhood of Watts. Two years later dozens more were killed in Newark and Detroit. In 1992, 63 people were killed in the LA riots after the cops who assaulted Rodney King were found not guilty.

In more recent times, the murder by cop of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and Eric Garner have brought people onto the street.

On all these occasions the streets where protests against police violence took place have tended to be in African American neighbourhoods. What I think has kept things in control in this go-round is that the marches have been taking place in the main public spaces of cities. They are not “ghetto-ised.” They are not confined to campuses.

The majority in America could look away in 1965/67/68/92 when riots were put down with lethal force and the neighborhoods where they took place were left to rot. That won’t happen in this round of protest. The majority watching on TV cannot look away because this isn’t happening in the “there be monsters” quadrant of the map.  The demos are taking place in Lafayette Square in front of the White House in DC, the corner of Atlantic & Flatbush in downtown Brooklyn. These are America’s crossroads, the forums of all the people, not just the oppressed minority.

Even the use of troops is part of the before picture. The 82nd Airborne and 101st Airborne were deployed in Detroit in 1967. In May 1970, following the Kent State Massacre, I went to a huge demonstration in Washington. The 82nd Airborne had been summoned to the city. I don’t know if it was airborne troops sighting down their rifles at us from the rooftop of the Treasury Building as we marched around the White House, but it was a military detachment for sure.

The point is: as extraordinary as the sustained demonstrations have been — in geographical scope, in their blessed lack of deaths, comparatively small amount of looting — they do not herald a new era.

America remains hopelessly, perhaps irredeemably divided. It was divided long before Trump was freely and fairly elected President and embarked on a program of authoritarian governance and personal self-enrichment that required him to exploit those divisions.  

Luckily, he is extraordinarily bad at authoritarianism. His wall with Mexico is far from finished. The generals he touted as his top team have in the last 48 hours made unprecedented public statements saying the military should not be used to suppress Americans exercising their Constitutional rights to freely assemble and speak out against their government.

Another part of the before picture: Trump won the Presidency through the oddity of the Electoral College. He actually lost to Hillary Clinton by three and half million votes. He is less popular now than he was in 2016. He knows he will lose in November… if there is an election.

Between now and November, as it was before George Floyd was murdered by a policeman, America will be in the balance.