It's important to recognise what's new in the Trump/far right convergence around the Portland/Kenosha events. 1/ We've moved from isolated far right shooters to routine weapons carrying by the far right and now to open kinetic vigilantism... newstatesman.com/world/north-am…
2/ Both in Kenosha and Portland, social media call outs resulted in far right counter protests to peaceful and legitimate anti-racism. This is Trump's strategy - and you don't need a conspiracy theory to see the overlap between the aims newstatesman.com/world/north-am…
3/ The strategic goal is to defeat Trump at the polls; it's not about calling off protests, it's about the left in the Democratic Party showing leadership and connecting with them to do the maximum to stop Trump dictating the tempo/framing of the crisis...
newstatesman.com/world/north-am…
4/ Trump has strategists who don't care about democracy; the Dems have pollsters and spin doctors as if this is about some reasoned argument. The swing states could be hit with provocations before polling day, and voter suppression will wear a bandana, Kevlar and a QAnon t-shirt
5/ The #TrumpViolence hashtag is a good first response to the new situation, but he won't be beaten with lawyers and some decent videos... it's going to need a massive GOTV campaign and civil resistance to any attempt at a presidential coup...
6/ The core of a resistance movement - to force Trump to accept any Biden victory - has to be strike action. The cops and Fox News can't pick the apples, clean the hotel rooms, unload the ships - and the transition is long enough for strikes to mean something...
7/ Meanwhile what's happening with the deification of Kyle Rittenhouse is akin to the creation of a living Horst Wessel. Not even in Weimar Germany did the right and far right collaborate like this newstatesman.com/world/north-am…
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