Of course they beat their wives – Trump’s advisor(s) that is. There is already a link between terrorism and domestic violence, so why not the Alt Right media heads, like Bannon? Ailes uses sexual harassment as a negotiating tool. (Think about this for a moment if Trump appointed Bannon or Ailes as Secretary of State? Chris Christie gets to be the new AG, or is he also angling for it?)
Are these floating heads of state(s)? Or are they intimidating, free-floating heads on bodies that are simply fear-mongering? To be sure, they are a few of Trump’s advisors and campaign staff who already knocked off the GOP. (Remember Trump’s finger incident, when he couldn’t stop poking congressional Republicans on the Hill?) So now the question is: Is Trump’s gang trying to intimidate all of us non-SCAMs and SLAMs?
It’s striking how the New York Times this summer started adopting the American academy’s language (“othering” or “us versus them”) more and more. After, what, more than half a century, it’s fascinating to see this in the paper. And it’s odd that it took so long to figure out the neotribalism aspects of being what Frantz Fanon called Wretched of the Earth. (The idea that fear is not part of the American electoral discourse? Fear is, and was, always a factor for getting folks out to those polls. FDR got electoral mobilization based on that emotion.)
Nonetheless, if you’re interested in reading about theories of violence, vitriol that uses petrol, or the politics of violence and intimidation, you don’t have to grab a copy of Wretched of the Earth. Fanon happens to be one of the far-right wing’s (right righteous revolutionaries) favorite books to bash and then burn.
Burning books, however, is better than burning at the stake actual women, children, immigrants, the ill, or persons with disabilities, and different genders and sexualities, who were the “wretched” or the inspiration undergirding this postcolonial book, among others. The fact that it took so long for “the print authorities,” or the Paper of Record, to notice is hardly new news.
What is new news is that the caring equation increased. Others need protection in an “us and them” equation long before “them” can become “us,” if that makes sense. And the authorities are not just those taking office, executing offices (police), but especially those in the Fourth Estate practicing or selling our freedom of speech.
Why did it take so long for the United States to realize it’s not #BlackLivesMatter or #AllLivesMatter, or that the police triage their violence all the time (raping prostitutes into silence so as not to report anything)? False hope is always dangerous. It’s not just retaliation, it’s blowback.
We know why it took so long for Trump to get his gang in place as he is developing another property called the White House. Trump being a landed businessman (developer) is supposed to intimidate us, and he needs a gang.
The false hope stems from the news claiming to be new, when it’s actually age-old. Intimidation tactics don’t work so well without the element of surprise. The mainstream (not just right-wing) media is so good at reporting bride burnings and honor killings in the East, but not at our ideological home patrolled by dead white men.
Meanwhile, more than 10,000 women and children have to go to the ER each day because of domestic violence. (Four million per year, and that’s a low guesstimate, since it’s only the ones willing to admit they didn’t run into doorknobs that get reported).
The only thing new about police brutality is that some folks are starting to document it, and therefore care, though only if they’re one of us (immigrants already on our shores, not abroad).#
Ruth Frick O'Brien 