I read that President Trump is planning a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake was shot in the back 7 times at close range by the police.\u00a0 Subsequent to that, it has been the site of protests and some violence.\u00a0 Most recently Kyle Rittenhouse, a white youth from Illinois, showed up armed with an AR-15 type rifle and ended up killing two people.\u00a0 After the shootings, there is video of him walking towards the police with his hands up and they basically ignored him.\u00a0 Do you really think that if that were a black man walking towards police armed with the same hardware Rittenhouse had that he would have been ignored? \u00a0Or, if he were black and doing the exact same thing, do you think Tucker Carlson on CNN would have made the same ridiculous statement that he was just \u201cmaintain[ing] order when no one else would.\u201d If you want examples of systematic racism \u2013 these are prime examples.\u00a0 But let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saturday night, there was a clash between Trump supporters and protestors for Black Lives Matter which resulted in the death of one person.\u00a0 According to a NYT reporter, the man who was killed was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Portland.\u00a0 No doubt, Tucker Carlson, Fox News and possibly even Trump will make this individual out to be some kind of martyr who was doing nothing wrong but trying to maintain \u2018law and order.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everyone needs to understand, it is in Trump\u2019s best electoral interests to fan the flames of division and directly or indirectly instigate more violence.\u00a0 The more violent it gets and the more riots there are, the better his \u2018Law and Order\u2019 message will resonate.\u00a0 He knows, regardless of what he says, he can\u2019t run on his abyssal response to the COVID crisis.\u00a0 Likewise, he knows the economy is in trouble which used to be his \u2018ace in the hole\u2019, as it were.\u00a0 He needs a new issue and that issue is \u2018Law and Order.\u2019\u00a0 The only way that \u2018Law and Order\u2019 makes any sense as a winning strategy is by ensuring there is a lot of violence.\u00a0\u00a0 And that is exactly what you can expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 2016 election, Russia deployed a massive campaign to promulgate divisive messaging with the intent of pitting one group against another with the end goal of getting Donald Trump elected.\u00a0 \u00a0The Mueller report and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee report agree on this point \u2013 there is no doubt that Russia meddled in the 2016 election and you can bet that they are doing the exact same thing this time around.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Russia in full swing to disseminate divisive and well-targeted information to certain groups, non-governmental paramilitary \u2018militias\u2019 feeling more emboldened to engage protesters to keep \u2018law and order\u2019 and Trump willing to deploy Federal personnel against US citizens (even when not requested by local governments), you have all of the makings of a violent two months leading up to the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A \u2018normal\u2019 President who was truly interested in the well-being of the UNITED States of America would be doing everything in his power to calm things down.\u00a0 Most would agree that Trump is not a \u2018normal\u2019 President and many who have worked closely with him tell a consistent tale \u2013 he is only interested in whatever it takes to get reelected.\u00a0 In this case, he knows his best bet is \u2018Law and Order\u2019.\u00a0 As far as Trump is concerned, more rioting and more violence is his ticket to reelection.\u00a0 And just like his response to the pandemic, he doesn\u2019t really care about how many American lives it will cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s actions and threats \u201cbear striking resemblance to the actions taken by politicians in several Central American countries following the implementation of\u00a0Mano Dura\u00a0(\u201cIron Fist\u201d) policies. \u2026 Eventually evolving into a set of stricter legislation launched by President Antonio Saca [El Salvador] (of the ARENA party) under the appropriate title of\u00a0Sup\u00e9r Mano Dura\u00a0in 2004, these policies are most markedly\u00a0defined by\u00a0\u201cdiscretionary crimes, constriction of due process rights, [and] involving the military in policing\u201d and have led to increased arrests and prosecutions of suspected gang members \u2014 often on the basis of\u00a0appearance alone. These policies have\u00a0<\/em>proven\u00a0ineffective and, in several locations, have\u00a0resulted\u00a0in higher homicide rates.1<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBoth\u00a0Mano Dura\u00a0and American law and order policies began as electoral strategies. In the same way that Trump\u2019s show of\u00a0protest repression\u00a0has represented a manifestation of law and order ideals,\u00a0Mano Dura\u00a0policies exhibit how conservative party leaders manipulate the cross-cutting nature of\u00a0human security\u00a0as a priority of all classes and ideologies to further political goals of controlling the lower class.\u00a0\u201c1<\/sup><\/em><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe way politicians like Trump and Saca insist on the prioritization of tough-on-crime policies despite their proven ineffectiveness should serve as a warning\u2014law and order\u00a0as we know it does not protect people, it protects power.\u00a0\u201c<\/em><\/strong>1<\/sup><\/strong><\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I read that President Trump is planning a visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake was shot in the back 7 times at close range by the police.\u00a0 Subsequent to that, it has been the site of protests and some violence.\u00a0 Most recently Kyle Rittenhouse, a white youth from Illinois, showed up armed with an … Continue reading August 31, 2020<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7FBZO-hP","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bikingwithmike.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}