Other threats get the privilege of being defused

The Republican Nationalist Convention is thankfully over. The nasty guy gave an acceptance speech in which he droned on for more than an hour – the only acceptance speech longer than this one is the one he gave four years ago.

Kos of Daily Kos summarized it this way:

So we’ve had a convention where half the time they pretend Covid-19 never happened, touting job numbers that are long obsolete, woefully out of date. The other half, they’re claiming that only Trump can save us from the problems that were created in Trump’s America.
…
Republicans just spent four days proving that they are incapable of crafting a message that frees their president of culpability for the state of the nation.

Kos included a tweet from Joe Biden:

President Trump doesn’t want a second term. He wants a do-over.

And one by Zach Schonfeld:

Every RNC speech is like "This dangerous national unrest that is occurring now, three years into the Trump presidency, will NOT happen when Donald Trump is president."

Even with a snooze of a speech from the nasty guy, and the one from the vice nasty guy wasn’t much better, there were alarming things in this convention. I’ve covered many of the illegal things. Here’s an alarming thing, tweeted by Leah McElrath:

Trump’s daughter is speaking from behind the Presidential seal.

This isn’t an accident.

They’re trying to normalize nepotism and lay foundation for a fascist dynasty.

Michael McFaul listed several other alarming things – methods, messages, and symbols that autocracies use. Some of them:

* Cult of personality.

* Government resources for personal electoral gain (yeah, he used the White House as a backdrop).

* Blatant disregard for law and for facts.

* Us v. Them populism, though populist leaders have little in common with “the people.”

* The opposition is the “enemy of the people.”

* Good tsar v. bad boyars. The leader’s problems are because of bad regional managers.

There is one important difference. We still don’t know the outcome of the election.

Jen Hayden of Kos reported that some people who attended the RNC convention in person have already tested positive for the virus.

In another tweet McElrath quoted Aaron Rupar:

"The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who's best on public safety and law and order" -- Kellyanne Conway makes a case that the killings of peaceful protesters will benefit Trump politically.

McElrath responded:

Authoritarians create the conditions for chaos and violence to enable them to justify oppression the name of law and order.

This is textbook authoritarian rhetoric.

(Remember when I used to do “Authoritarianism Alert” at the bottom of tweets and was ridiculed as an alarmist?)

Greg Sargent tweeted a thread with a link to an article from the Washington Post:

The extraordinary juxtaposition on Tuesday night -- open lawbreaking combined with an invented narrative in which Biden and Dems are the corrupt party -- showed a GOP that has unshakable confidence in its ability to act with utter impunity.
...
Trump is using levers of government to illicitly hold power:

* Lawbreaking at convention

* Senate Rs manufacturing fake Hunter/Ukraine probe

* Bill Barr downplaying 2016 Russian sabotage

* Intel officials muting truth about Russian meddling right now

In a sense Trump campaigned in 2016 on his own corruption: All politicians are crooked, so elect me; I'll break rules for *you.*

Media treats this as populist grandstanding.

But now we need to be clearer. Trump is trying to hold power via illicit means.

McElrath tweeted, discussing either the nasty guy campaign or the RNC (it makes no difference):

They aren’t worried about swaying American voters because they aren’t intending to win the election in a legitimate way.

All of this is for him.

And his cultists.

That’s why they’re creating a false reality. They’re speaking only to him and those who live within his delusion.

Andrea Chalupa tweeted a bit from what Hillary Clinton told Joe Biden:

Don't concede if the election is close.

She added this is going to drag out.

Imani Gandy tweeted:

if trump is reelected, he’s likely getting four more SCOTUS appointments.

Breyer and RBG won’t make it 4 more years. Thomas and Alito might bounce to make room for younger more right wing conservatives.

By 2025, 6 of the 9 justices could be trump appointees.

Marinate on that.

We literally cannot let this happen.

We just can’t.

Those 6 justices will make sure that NOOOOOOOTHING progressive gets done. No healthcare. No Green New Deal. But religious people will sure as hell be able to discriminate against pretty much whomever because religious freedom.
...
With Biden we have a way forward. We don’t have a way forward with trump.

Progressive policy will be dead on arrival until 2065.

Trevor Noah of The Daily Show commented on the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. Blake was hit in the back by seven bullets and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Noah commented that wild animals on the loose get less lethal treatment, and added.

I never thought I would wish for Black people to be treated at least like a wild bear, but here we are.

After Blake was shot there were, of course, demonstrations. A 17 year old proto supremacist came to Kenosha with his guns and shot three people, killing two. Noah said:

It made me wonder, it really made me wonder why some people get shot seven times in the back while other people are treated like human beings and reasoned with and taken into custody with no bullets in their bodies.

How come Jacob Blake was seen as a deadly threat for a theoretical gun that he might have and might try to commit a crime with, but this gunman who was armed and had already shot people, who had shown that he is a threat, was arrested the next day, given full due process of the law, and generally treated like a human being whose life matters?

How did Dylann Roof shoot up a church, James Holmes shoot up a movie theater and both live to tell about it? Why is it that the police decide that some threats must be extinguished immediately while other threats get the privilege of being defused?

I'm asking these as questions, but I feel like we know the answer. The answer is that the gun doesn't matter as much as who is holding the gun. Because for some people, Black skin is the most threatening weapon of all.

Jen Hayden of Kos reported the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team decided that the situation in nearby Kenosha was no time for sports. They sat out their Wednesday game. The other NBA teams followed suit, as did Women’s NBA, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer. The Bucks called on the Wisconsin state legislature to reconvene to deal with police accountability and brutality. The football season hasn’t started (and, depending on the virus, may not). The Detroit Lions canceled Wednesday’s practice, as did the Indianapolis Colts.

A game was about to start between the Mets and the Marlins baseball teams. The Mets were already on the field. As the first Marlin approached the batting box both teams came out of their dugouts, formed lines, took their hats off, and held a long moment of silence. Then both teams walked off the field, leaving a Black Lives Matter t-shirt covering home plate.

Well done.