Be Prepared

Significant escalation in the election process: the people shutting down Donald Trump’s rally in downtown Chicago. We honor the courageous demonstrators. Yes, we understand that this was a setup, that Trump thinks it’s in his interest to foment chaos and argue we need a strong man to whip the country in shape. But the history of the world consists of unintended consequences. I think that might be a corollary of the uncertainty principle. The capacity of human beings to imagine a vision and successfully fulfill it is not high. Something bad usually happens on the road to utopia. But presumably, we’re getting smarter. Maybe we can figure this shit out.

This is a dangerous thing to say, but I’m an old man with nothing to lose so I don’t care. Those Trump supporters? We outnumber them big time. But the number of firearms in their possession outnumber us. This is why I’m not a proponent of gun control. Sometimes you have to fight. Mandela’s revolution was not nonviolent. The defeat of Hitler was not nonviolent.

Whatever made us think that the concept of Hitler wouldn’t return? After all, Hitler was wildly successful. Sure, he lost in the end, but didn’t he have a ride! And, look at Germany today. Hitler seems to have established a pretty good negotiating position.

Hitler didn’t come that far from achieving world domination. He lit the way. We just have to do what he did but avoid the mistakes, like don’t depend on astrologers. To save capitalism, which totters on the brink of collapse, a little discipline might be called for. Don’t be surprised if Trump uses Chicago to develop his own armed security force (Brown Shirts) to protect his rallies going forward. His own little army. Convince me I’m just being paranoid, please!

Unfortunately, our overuse of the Hitler comparison (Nixon, Reagan, Kissinger, etc.) has blunted the epithet, we cried wolf too much so that when the real thing comes along, the word rings hollow. (The right did the same thing with socialism, calling Obama a socialist so many times that the word has no more sting and Bernie can claim it proudly).

A better specter to conjure might be the race war that the white supremacists have been advocating for some time. Trump is fomenting race war.

I’m not a fan of the Boy Scouts, my recollection of my short time with them was a lot of fart jokes, but: “Be Prepared” is not a bad motto.

What does that mean? We might need to conjure worst case scenarios. The Chicago thing shows he is playing us. We need to accelerate our organizing. An extremely hopeful aspect of the anti-Trump demonstration is that it seemed to be a seriously multiracial crowd. This is absolutely critical going forward. A coalition against Trump’s racism, led by Black Lives Matter activists, supported by MoveOn and Bernie supporters (not the campaign for obvious reasons), is the way forward. Including Hillary supporters (not her campaign either). A united front against Trump can lead to a Bernie Sanders victory, and, more importantly, to a resounding defeat of racism and white supremacy.