Blow by blow

How democracy is destroyed Guest writer

Recently we saw federal Border Patrol agents, without identifying badges or markings, in unmarked vehicles, assaulting and manhandling terrified American citizens in Portland, Ore., who were exercising their constitutional right to public protest. This was done by order of the president of the United States, against the specific protests of the mayor of Portland and the governor of Oregon. The government’s alleged rationale was the protection of property over people.

The last time we saw law enforcement abused and perverted like this against American citizens — other than the systemic police brutality against the poor and minorities; whites are experiencing what Blacks experienced for 300 years, and they don’t like it — was in Chicago in 1968, at the Democratic National Convention. There we saw what was later described by the Kerner Commission as “a police riot.” Police brutally assaulted not only war protesters but also members of the media.

This is what our president is doing now. It began with his brutal and bullying show of force to march down Pennsylvania Avenue in his farcical Bible-waving media photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. Using federal troops to injure and forcibly quell peaceful protest is fascism — one needs to call this by its true name. Fascism is the use of the power of the state to forcefully quell dissent, by bloody force and the threat of death if necessary.

And what is perhaps equally troubling for Arkansans is the rabid eagerness with which our Sen. Tom Cotton leaped to embrace and encourage such wanton behavior. Here I quote The New York Review of Books: “Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas tweeted that the protesters should face not just combat troops on those streets but death from the skies: ‘Let’s see how tough these Antifa terrorists are when they’re facing off with the 101st Airborne Division,’ a unit whose official mission is to provide ‘… unmatched expeditionary Air Assault capability.’ … Cotton then drew up his own battle order: ‘… 82nd Airborne, 1st Cav, 3rd Infantry — whatever it takes to restore order. No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.’”

These are the words of one who has been corrupted by power and is slavishly devoted to the brutal use of presidential authority to control and subdue the American people. By naming protesters “terrorists,” he then excuses every kind of excessive violent force and overkill. As the president boasted in a 2019 rally, “I have an Article 2 [of the Constitution], where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” The president and our Senator Cotton label American citizens “terrorists” and they believe this gives them the right to obviate legal, constitutional, and democratic rights, exactly as the fascists did in Germany in 1939. This is a clear example of Lord Acton’s famous axiom: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

People of good conscience everywhere in this country, regardless of political affiliations, must use the vote in November to protect American Democracy “from enemies, both foreign and domestic.” In America we have the power of the vote, which gives us the courage to step outside the tyrant’s ring of bullying and threats of bodily harm. As it has been said: “Evil triumphs when good people do nothing.” The future of democracy may be at stake here.