Prepare for violence after Nov. 3rd.
The NYT reports today on a 2016 transition plan that was designed to prevent Trump from disputing the election (when he lost). Obama admin officials prepared a plan to have “congressional Republicans, former presidents, and former Cabinet-level officials including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice…try and forestall a political crisis by validating the election result.” In other words, prominent conservative figures would stand up and confirm reality.
It didn’t work out that way. Trump disputed the election results even though he won. 2020 holds an even higher risk, with the power of the presidency in the hands of a man with a 100% track record of making false claims about election results.
The Authoritarianism Project is my attempt to warn that political violence is coming to this country on an unprecedented scale. I’ve seen it and reported it from Michigan to Idaho and here in the streets of Portland, just as I previously reported on political violence in Peru or the Philippines. Once a cycle of even small violent political acts begins, it can take half a century to end.
Last night, in the luxury of my backyard with a bottle of wine and some friends, we discussed the potential for radically disruptive events after the November 3 election, including violence. My own prediction is that the heavily-armed, ultrarightist and paranoid element of Trumpism will declare the next four years completely illegitimate, and move from violent rhetoric to actual violence, probably in a discordinated , personal way.
I’m glad to discover that the four of us were not the only ones thinking about this. The Boston Globe describes a group called “Transition Integrity Project,” where a professor Rosa Brooks and others gameplay possibilities for Trumps resistance to leaving office. Unfortunately, “all of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse…The law is essentially … it’s almost helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.”
I think street-level violence is a distinct and real possibility, even if there is no political impasse. A Biden victory and administration could continue a peace; one of the saddest lessons of my international reporting is that democracies can continue to function even as violent elements feed on the open wounds they are creating. Violence is its own ecosystem, and can run in parallel. We are not used to that in America. We believe that democracy and violence are two separate things. In fact, our own history (principally in our south, from 1876 to 1970) shows how violence can be used to control access to politics and resources.
Liberal democracy protects the rights of all by protecting the weak. By contrast, majoritarian democracy may in fact depend on promoting the “real” or “authentic” people with a degree of suppression of minorities of all kinds, whether racial, cultural, religious, or political. As with so many other questions, Trump has activated our worst instincts and possibilities. Start preparing now for the real chaos ahead.
I will dedicate a future issue of the Authoritarianism Project to the steps we can take before November 3, and after.