https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/john-bolton-s-book-has-no-shockers-but-is-the-writing-on-the-wall-for-donald-trump-1.1036933

The tell-all comes out amid a series of setbacks for the US President as well as his re-election bid.

US president Donald Trump has had some bad weeks before, but the past seven days delivered a series of especially damaging and often inter-connected blows to his re-election prospects.

A Supreme Court decision written by his own appointee, Neil Gorsuch, effectively bans discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation. This directly counters Mr Trump’s persistent targeting of transgender Americans regarding military service and health care.

It has shocked and horrified some of his conservative supporters. Prominent evangelical Christians rationalised their support for the notoriously libertine Mr Trump on grounds that his judicial appointments would advance their conservative social agenda. Mr Gorsuch was viewed as the prime example. That argument is now in tatters.

The court quickly delivered another stinging blow, blocking the President’s unpopular efforts to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants who, although now upstanding members of society, were as children brought to the country illegally.

Mr Trump can keep trying to deport them on some other basis. But given the timeline he will have to get re-elected first.

Those prospects are not exactly bolstered by a memoir by his former national security adviser John Bolton, which the administration tried but failed to suppress. Last week, it was shipped around the country, widely reviewed and even posted online.

Mr Bolton writes that Mr Trump pursues “obstruction of justice as a way of life”, and cares only about his re-election prospects. I have consistently argued in these pages that Mr Trump is always focused on politics and never policy. Mr Bolton confirms that is exactly right.

In addition to corroborating the worst allegations from the Ukraine scandal that led to Mr Trump’s impeachment, Mr Bolton adds numerous other outrageous accusations.

The worst, perhaps, is Mr Bolton claiming that Mr Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him secure re-election, including by buying more American agricultural exports. Mr Bolton says another senior official, Matthew Pottinger, informed him that the President had said similar things to the Chinese leader in the past.

If true, Mr Bolton’s allegations confirm Mr Trump’s striking ignorance of international affairs, wondering if Finland is part of Russia and surprised that Britain has nuclear weapons.

Mr Bolton is widely viewed as an extremist, and now almost universally as an unpatriotic, self-serving cynic as well. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other administration officials and supporters brand him a traitor. Democrats are disgusted that he withheld this information, which could have greatly pressured the Senate to remove the President, to sell a book.

But, unlike some others, he has no history of compulsively telling extravagant lies. The Trump administration’s accusations that his book is full of falsehoods are contradicted by their simultaneous claims that it reveals plenty of classified information, since there is no such thing as a classified lie.

Mr Bolton’s book probably would not make much of a difference on its own. Anyone surprised by these disclosures must have been asleep for the past three years. But the book is not floating in a vacuum.

For example, it describes another incident of apparent past misconduct linked directly to an additional major new controversy. Mr Bolton says that in 2018, Mr Trump promised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he would dismiss a federal prosecutor in New York who had indicted a bank owned by the Ankara government and quash that bothersome investigation. On Friday at 9pm, the Justice Department announced that very prosecutor had indeed been suddenly fired under extraordinary and highly suspicious circumstances.

The prosecutor, Geoffrey Berman, was responsible for convicting the President’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, of corrupt acts on behalf of Mr Trump (identified in that case as “Individual 1”), including paying hush money to two former paramours. His office has also been investigating, among others, the President’s current lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Precisely what necessitated this unexplained, abrupt and dead-of-night dismissal remains unknown. But it was obviously urgent and drastic, and that paints a powerful picture of panic and potential corruption.

To overcome his persistent and mounting woes, particularly stemming from the coronavirus public health and economic crises, Mr Trump was counting on a dramatic political turnaround starting with a huge rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday night. But his campaign bungled the job. They claimed a million people requested tickets and planned a full house of 19,000 and an overflow area of 40,000 more. Yet it was sparsely attended and seemed anything but the promised triumphant display of “American comeback”. If the event was meant to serve as a visual representation of economic and social rejuvenation and dynamism, it flopped spectacularly.

One highlight involved the President at length and with considerable fanfare demonstrating his ability to drink a glass of water without using two hands. He may regret saying that he ordered a slow-down in coronavirus testing to depress infection-rate statistics. As often after such damaging statements, Mr Trump’s aides implausibly insisted he was just “joking”.

But even among those who accept that, with more than 120,000 Americans dying of Covid-19 in recent weeks, it is unlikely to prompt many chuckles. It will be even less amusing if the rally gives rise to a correlated set of new infections, as many public health officials fear.

Meanwhile, former vice president Joe Biden, who is barely campaigning or visible, is registering double digit leads in many polls. Five months is a long time in politics and underestimating Mr Trump is demonstrably ill-advised. But in many ways, the presidential race is now essentially Mr Trump versus Mr Trump. And he seems totally unable to re-create the magic, such as it was, of four years ago.

It is going so badly that some of his aides are quietly wondering if a self-sabotaging part of him would welcome leaving the White House.

Whoever wins in November must primarily shepherd the US through a slow, painful recovery. There is little glory likely in that for a President exclusively fixated on personal adulation and aggrandisement. For Mr Trump, winning could prove even more painful than losing.

UAE Messaging to Israel is Bold and Complex, But Potentially Misunderstood

UAE officials are doing their best to warn Israelis against annexation, but the medium may trump the message.

In an extraordinary direct message to the Israeli public, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, warned against possible large-scale annexations in the occupied West Bank contemplated for later this year. Otaiba made the appeal in an article in Hebrew for the leading Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth and also issued a separate video message in English. This outreach is noteworthy in multiple ways. It is plainly intended to impact the internal Israeli debate about annexation and serve as a stark and direct warning to the Israeli public, but Israelis may be misled by focusing on the form and even the existence of the message, rather than its content.

In effect, Otaiba is saying to Israelis: Many of your leaders appear to be suggesting that there won’t be any meaningful negative consequences regionally to annexation. I am telling you frankly that this is not true, and that there will, in fact, be a disruption in whatever thawing process might be taken further with my country.

Yet the tone of the message, and even its existence, communicates a more complicated underlying reality. Neither side in the Gulf-Israeli relationship is being fully candid with their publics about what has (and has not) happened since the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. All of the Gulf countries, without exception, made considerable strides toward dialogue with Israel. Each has its reason for doing so. The details of these interactions are less relevant than the fact that all six Gulf Arab states have opened up to Israel at various times in the past 30 years, some of them significantly.

The closest any of the Gulf countries have come to an open relationship with Israel was the establishment of an Israeli trade mission in Qatar in 1996. But it was closed in November 2000, just as the second intifada was picking up steam. What is noteworthy about this relationship is that it reached its height in 1996, arguably among the strongest periods for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and a time when hopes for a two-state solution based on the Oslo agreements were widespread. But these moves toward more formalized diplomatic ties came to an end as those hopes collapsed amid the flames of the second Palestinian uprising.

It is certainly true that, like most of its Gulf partners, Qatar remains open to stronger relations with Israel, although it is held back by its current level of dependence on Turkey and Iran, which have significant tensions with Israel. At present, it is Oman that has the strongest ties to Israel, with the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 2018 welcoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior officials on a rare visit to an Arab country. Yet even here, there was some caution. The visit was not announced until Netanyahu had returned to Israel, and the Omanis clarified that they were not willing to normalize diplomatic and other relations with Israel until a Palestinian state was established, ending the occupation that began in 1967.

Despite Qatar’s history of groundbreaking ties with Israel and Oman’s willingness to publicly engage with Israeli political leaders, attention in recent years has focused on relations between Israel and the three Gulf states most united on regional affairs: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. While Oman and Qatar maintain their own foreign policies, particularly toward Iran, and Kuwait works assiduously to avoid being drawn into regional, ideological, or sectarian disputes, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain have taken a strong stance against Iranian hegemony and strongly oppose its proxies in the Arab world. Since Israel shares the view that Iran is the principal menace in the region and has been willing to take action in recent years, particularly in Syria and Iraq against Iranian-backed militia groups, the sense in the Gulf that Israel is a potentially valuable strategic asset – and even possibly a potential national security partner – has grown.

The same perception has developed in Israel. Israeli threat perceptions grew much closer to those of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain when the main part of the Syrian war ended with the fall of Aleppo to government forces in 2016. At that point, the bulk of the fighting in the most important parts the country was essentially over, leaving the powerful Iranian-supported Lebanese militia group Hezbollah free to consider other possible activities. Yet, the Syrian war transformed Hezbollah’s role into a broad regional vanguard for Iran’s militia network and rendered the group far more powerful, experienced, and capable militarily. They were also now connected with like-minded organizations in Iraq among the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Houthis in Yemen, and other, smaller pro-Iranian groups scattered around the Arab world. These were precisely the aspects of Iranian meddling that alarmed the three Gulf states. This increasing convergence of threat perception has strongly encouraged Israel and these Gulf states to consider the potential benefits of closer ties.

In addition, the UAE is deeply concerned about the rise of Turkey as a potential regional hegemon leading a fledgling Sunni Islamist regional bloc in association with Qatar, the Government of National Accord in Libya, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood parties, and other like-minded forces. Israel takes a similarly dim view of the Turkish foreign policy agenda. This powerful antagonism toward the Muslim Brotherhood has produced a convergence of Israeli and Emirati attitudes toward Hamas, in broad sympathy with Egypt’s perspectives as well. Israel is also seen as a potential trade partner and source of critical technology, particularly involving military and security matters, and above all, cybersecurity.

For all these reasons, both sides have been encouraged in recent years to speculate about the virtues of closer relations. However, Israeli leaders exaggerate when they speak of “our Sunni Arab allies.” There is no alliance between Israel and any of the Gulf countries. There are not even diplomatic relations. However, Saudi Arabia’s position that there has been no change since the adoption of its Arab Peace Initiative presented to the Arab League in 2002, and subsequently adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, is also misleading. There is ample evidence of significant intelligence and low-level military communication, and quiet trade, particularly in strategic and security-related goods and services.

There has also been a change of attitude. This was most recently reflected in this year’s crop of Ramadan TV dramas from the Gulf, as well as in increased sporting, trade, and cultural ties. In addition, there is a marked change of tone regarding attitudes toward Israeli Jewish nationalism emerging in this new century, quite distinct from Arab attitudes of past eras. This is partly generational and partly a consequence of the Israeli peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and agreements with the PLO, as well as the fact that Israel is a significant player in the Middle East.

The bottom line is that the Gulf countries do not and never have believed that Israel poses an existential threat to their core national interests. The Islamic Republic of Iran, by contrast, is seen, certainly by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, as such a threat, a view that is shared by Israel. So, in the current era, Israel appears to be an established regional actor whose foreign policy may be very damaging when it comes to Palestinians but potentially useful regarding Iran and even Turkey. Even more distant seems to be the old idea that Israel is an artificial creation of the West or a temporary imposition doomed to go the way of the Crusader states of the Middle Ages.

All of this creates the extraordinary tone of the Otaiba message to the Israeli public. The fact of the message’s existence itself communicates seriousness and a willingness to speak directly, the complete antithesis of the deafening silence of earlier decades. It is, by definition, an act of recognition, and while not formally diplomatic, it communicates a degree of respect. It says you’re worth talking to, and we think (and hope) that you’ll listen to reason. The tone is not plaintive or begging. Nor is it threatening or coercive. It is, instead, an appeal to reason. This message was amplified by the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, when he spoke to the American Jewish Committee. He reiterated his country was still committed to a two-state solution and opposed annexation but is willing to continue communicating with Israel and encourages negotiations. He added that nonpolitical ties can still be pursued even as political disputes continue.

The UAE is walking a tight rope. There is little doubt it is sincerely trying to communicate two messages to Israel simultaneously. First, we very much would like to improve relations with you. Second, your annexation plans will make that impossible, and progress on ending the occupation is essential to moving forward. There is nothing contradictory in these messages. But there is a pitfall. Many Jewish Israeli leaders, mostly conservatives, appear to have wrongly concluded from the experience of the past 30 – and especially 15 – years that the price they will have to pay for better relations with Gulf Arab countries simply lessens over time. If they stonewall, they can keep getting what amounts to a better deal, and time is simply in their favor. This is not true since the impetus for closer relations with Israel is also dependent on factors that are largely independent of Israeli conduct, notably the rise of Iranian and Turkish power that threatens both Israel and the Gulf Arab states.

The danger for the UAE and other Gulf states with this kind of engagement with Israel is that the fact and tone of the message might be all that registers, rather than its content. Some Israeli media, like the Times of Israel, are misinterpreting Gargash’s comments as “a significant turnaround” from Otaiba’s remarks. Unsourced reports from conservative papers such as Israel Hayom claimed that “behind the scenes the [annexation] move is not being challenged as forcibly as the Palestinians might hope” and that Arab states “will not jeopardize their relationship with the Trump administration for” the Palestinians. The idea that Arab governments do not care much about annexation is so widespread in Israel that a leading columnist from Haaretz felt compelled to warn that “reports of Arab backing of Israel’s West Bank annexation plans are completely baseless.”

Palestinian leaders also have serious doubts about Emirati intentions. Most notably, they refused to accept two recent shipments of medical supplies because flying them directly from the UAE to Israel was simply an excuse for “normalization” of relations between the countries.

But the seriousness of the UAE opposition to annexation was underscored by Gargash’s recent comment at the Middle East Institute that, “ultimately, I personally believe that if we are going where we are going today, and we lose the possibility of really implementing a two-state solution, we will really be talking about equal rights and one state.”

Israeli leaders and citizens may well wrongly conclude that the fact the UAE has communicated directly to them in a respectful and sincere way is the real message. It is not wrong to identify the impulse for closer relations with Israel in these gestures. That message is there. But the actual message Otaiba and Gargash are delivering to the Israelis – that your annexation plans are incompatible with any idea of continuing to cautiously develop our dialogue and potential cooperation – may be getting lost. For the message to be properly understood, Israelis, and especially their leaders, need to receive it without hubris and with a prudent humility they sometimes struggle to maintain in dealing with the Arab world.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/us-generals-are-sending-trump-a-clear-message-law-before-order-1.1033340

America’s military brass are reminding the “law and order President” that the army cannot be leveraged for political purposes.

Behind the scenes of the spectacular demonstrations against police brutality that swept the US following the killing of George Floyd, an extremely consequential drama has been unfolding between American civil and military authorities. The Armed Forces have been compelled, for the first time in decades, to draw stark red lines limiting how much they will allow themselves to be leveraged by a president for political purposes.

US military culture is one of the world’s strongest in emphasising the subordination of the Armed Forces to civilian leadership. Most presidents, too, have been careful about not overstepping boundaries and unduly exploiting the military’s obedience.

The US presidency, sometimes uncomfortably, combines the roles of head of government, which confers political and administrative authority, and head of state, which involves representing the country symbolically and presiding over major national civic functions. So, every US president automatically derives tremendous political benefit from public performances as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.

Although he has enthusiastically staged the military for political iconography and branding, until the recent protests Donald Trump never fully stepped over the line of egregiously abusing this authority. And the military appreciated the attention he lavished on them and the budget increases he ensured.

However, the attack on law-abiding civilians at Lafayette Park outside the White House on June 1 changed all that. Without meaningful warnings and before a curfew came into effect, National Guard troops, among others, charged peaceful protesters with gas and rubber bullets to clear a path for the president and his entourage to pose for a grim photo opportunity outside a historic church.

This abuse of the Armed Forces, personally ordered by Attorney General William Barr, to suppress the constitutionally-protected free-speech rights of American citizens was bad enough. Perhaps worse, the nation’s highest-ranking officer, Gen Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dressed in combat fatigues no less, allowed himself to be drawn into the tableau being staged by the President, Mr Barr and others.

This disturbing scene brought to a head a set of interlocking conundrums that have been developing for the military during the Trump era. This President and his inner circle are clearly willing to exploit the military for undue political purposes. The disaster for the US Armed Forces at what is now ironically known as “the Battle of Lafayette Park” therefore could not be allowed to stand as a precedent.

Ten days later, Gen Milley finally offered an extraordinary public apology to the nation, admitting error and promising to never again allow himself to be manipulated for partisan political purposes. The statement was not just highly unusual but the length of time that passed indicates the enormous amount of internal institutional pressure it represented.

This fiasco also strongly contributed to a stark repudiation by Defence Secretary Mark Esper of Mr Trump’s suggestions that the Insurrection Act of 1807 should be invoked to permit the military to suppress protests around the country. Mr Trump reportedly wanted to oust Mr Esper when he insisted that would be unacceptable, but was dissuaded by close allies who argued it would be a disastrous mistake.

So, both the uniformed generals and the Department of Defence have openly rebuffed significant aspects of the President’s policy and political agendas. And the military is now being effectively protected institutionally by Mr Esper (formerly derided as “Yesper” for his unfailing deference to Mr Trump).

But his days may be numbered. If a far-right ideologue and Trump loyalist such as Arkansas Sen Tom Cotton, who urged the widespread deployment of the military against protesters in a notorious opinion column in The New York Times, were appointed defence secretary in his place, it could be much more difficult for the military to maintain its institutional integrity and independence from politics.

The template established by Mr Barr at the Justice Department, which has been thoroughly politicised, and arguably corrupted, under his leadership, is chilling.

Clearly military leaders will be examining every major new instruction from Mr Trump with much greater wariness. These concerns will only be intensified by the forthcoming publication of a memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton, which will reportedly detail how Mr Trump only ever considers his re-election prospects in making foreign policy decisions, even at the expense of the national interest and stated policies – precisely as I have been arguing for years in these pages.

The military is exhausted at being constantly whipsawed by precisely such capricious political and personal decision-making, producing, for instance, endless confusion regarding deployments to Iraq and Syria. A huge reduction was just announced to the US military presence in Germany, despite recent costly upgrades. This is apparently retaliation for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refusal to participate in a G7 meeting Mr Trump sought to organise, again for obvious political ends.

It has fallen to former senior officers – including former defence secretary James Mattis, former White House chief of staff John Kelly, Gen John Allen, Gen Martin Dempsey, Adm Mike Mullen, Gen Richard Myers, Adm James Stavridis, Adm William McRaven, Gen Raymond Thomas and Gen Mike Hayden – to forcefully express outrage on behalf of military institutions and serving officers that are duty-bound to maintain silence and loyalty.

Taken together, the central and unmistakable subtext of their statements was that under no circumstances would the Armed Forces co-operate if the President attempts to postpone or cancel the November election or ignore its outcome if he loses, as now seems likely.

It is surely no coincidence that this Friday Mr Trump suddenly conceded he could lose the election and promised to accept that. It is a major change from four years ago when he vowed to only accept the result if he won. As President, he has frequently discussed remaining in office beyond the eight-year constitutional limitation and seldom publicly entertained the prospect of accepting defeat.

The message that, if he loses, the military will not help him reject the result, was apparently loud and clear enough to have been received and duly acknowledged even by Mr Trump.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-george-floyd-tragedy-is-a-turning-point-for-america-1.1030047

Protests may reflect changing attitudes towards racism and policing in the US and around the world.

Over the past week, the US has been rocked by a wave of protests unlike any since the late 1960s. Outraged by the videotaped killing of an unarmed African-American man, George Floyd, by police officers in Minneapolis, huge sections of society are loudly demanding an end to endemic police brutality, particularly against young black men.

While there is ample cause for concern with such volatility, some underappreciated aspects of this unrest suggest it could prove a dramatic and positive turning point.

First is the intense international engagement with these developments. A huge amount of global attention has focused on the protests, such that George Floyd is improbably now a name known around the world. The protests outside the US have echoed and amplified these concerns.

In some cases, parallels have been drawn to endemic abuses against other minority groups such as the Australian aboriginals. But in many cases, the international protests have been straightforwardly about injustice in the US. That not only indicates the persistence of international solidarity in an era supposedly defined by self-serving parochialism, it is also a massive testament to the ongoing power of American culture.

It is hard to imagine unrest motivated entirely by domestic social concerns in any other country provoking a large wave of sympathetic street protests around the world. Only American culture has the global reach to inspire that.

That is a good thing because, despite all the flaws of the US – particularly in recent years – American ideals can and should play a major role in promoting international respect for equality, justice and rule of law. That same worldwide attention in turn can and should help Americans try to live up to their own supposed principles.

Cold War competition with the Soviet Union was a significant factor in driving the US to dismantle the architecture of racial segregation in the 1960s. It is entirely positive for both Americans and their international friends that US culture continues to have the unique gravitational pull that the recent protests have demonstrated.

Second, the protests have illustrated and accelerated exceedingly important and long-overdue cultural and attitudinal changes in the US. Polling data reveals an enormous shift among white Americans regarding the prevalence of racism.

Until recently, most white Americans demonstrably did not believe that racial discrimination continues to be a huge problem in general, even regarding policing.

However, new polls show that now large majorities of white Americans finally do recognise that racism and discrimination are “a big problem” in US society and that police are more likely to treat African-Americans “unfairly”.

That is a dramatic, even revolutionary, transformation in attitudes. Majorities of white Americans are therefore telling pollsters that the anger of demonstrators is “fully justified”, and huge majorities see it as “somewhat justified”.

And, of course, the crowds of protesters are hardly all, or in many cases even mostly, African-American. US citizens of all descriptions, particularly among the young, have taken to the streets.

There they face serious dangers, particularly from the police themselves. In some noteworthy cases, police officials have shown themselves to be, as everyone would hope, respectful and responsible civic leaders. And in most cases, police have behaved professionally.

However, 2020 could mark a turning point in the administration, and eventually the culture of US policing, because too much of the police reaction has confirmed the essential accusations of the demonstrators: that indiscriminate, and even casual, police violence is all-too common.

The ubiquity of smartphone videos may be forcing the end of an era in police brutality and impunity.

During recent protests, numerous instances of police behaving in a brutal and even criminal manner towards peaceful protesters have been documented on cell phones. As with the Floyd killing, these videos have often made what would have traditionally happened – police uniting in a dishonest whitewash of brutality within their ranks – virtually impossible.

There is still a huge divide on normative expectations between most Americans and many police officers, as demonstrated by a shocking incident in Buffalo, New York where a large group of police were videoed shoving an elderly protester to the ground and leaving him lying there unaided, unconscious and bleeding. When two officers were suspended without pay for this outrage, 57 of their supportive colleagues resigned from that emergency response unit in protest, apparently seeing nothing wrong with such conduct.

But, given the increased public sensitivity and opposition to police abuses based on accumulating video evidence, the policing of the police seems likely to change in much of the country. The militarisation of police is likely to be significantly curbed and new levels of accountability enforced.

Police will have to start policing themselves or others will do it for them. This wave of unrest demonstrates an overwhelming public demand for it, especially in cities.

Finally, the political impact seems largely positive.

One of the most shocking cases of abuse was an attack on peaceful protesters gathered at Lafayette Park outside the White House. They were suddenly charged by police wielding tear gas and batons to make way for President Donald Trump.

Angered by reports he had been cowering in a White House bunker, Mr Trump sought to project strength by being photographed standing outside a historic church grimacing and holding a Bible upside down. The senior military leaders who accompanied him were improperly politicised for Mr Trump’s re-election campaign.

Meanwhile, heavily armed but distinctly unmilitary-looking personnel with no identifying insignia or other markings are proliferating in Washington, raising the spectre of an American version of Iran’s Basij or Russia’s “little green men” – mysterious, unaccountable and possibly quasi-official paramilitary forces.

These abuses prompted an unprecedented wave of impassioned criticism, including from his former defence secretary James Mattis, and Republican defections are gaining momentum.

Mr Trump has never looked weaker. Although the election is in November, polls show him losing to Joe Biden by double digits.

The principled demand for justice by countless ordinary citizens may prove a historic turning point. US society and its international role both require urgent repair. It would be sublimely fitting if the solution begins with the American people themselves.

https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/americans-are-feeling-breathless-today-and-the-worst-may-be-yet-to-come-1.1026993

The Covid-19 pandemic, economic meltdown, protests against the killing of George Floyd and Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are all taking a toll on the country and its people.

Americans can’t breathe these days. The sense of suffocation is compounded by pervasive dread that the worst may be yet to come. Culturally and emotionally, many have not fully registered the scale of national calamity in a dreadful year that is not yet half over.

Attention is now focused on city streets around the country as angry protesters condemn yet another apparent police murder of an unarmed black man, George Floyd. He was suspected of the minor offense of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A white officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned him face down on the ground and kept his knee pressed into the back of his neck.

For almost nine minutes, three other police officers did not intervene as bystanders, filming the killing, begged them to stop the brutal assault. Floyd pleaded for mercy, cried for his mother and repeatedly uttered the haunting phrase “I can’t breathe”. When paramedics arrived, he was dead.

“I can’t breathe” is a phrase that already resonates powerfully in American culture, defining regular police killings of unarmed black Americans under mundane law enforcement circumstances. In July 2014, Eric Garner, a young black man suspected of selling untaxed cigarettes, famously repeated “I can’t breathe” 11 times as police slowly choked the life out of him, again in full view of the public and a video camera.

None of the officers involved in Garner’s death were ever charged with a crime, but following this weekend’s protests Mr Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder.

The outrage is driven by how casually some police and self-appointed vigilantes, as in several other notorious recent cases, appear to feel entitled to snuff out the life of young black Americans with no justification, and how often they get away with it.

Justice, and the public’s belief in justice, has been put under stress.

President Donald Trump, however, appears to be reveling in the chaos. It has changed the subject from the mismanaged pandemic to disorder he can cast in racial terms, posing as the champion of the white, non-urban Americans against what some of his supporters perceive as a black and brown “urban menace”.

His first reaction to the protests was to vow that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, a phrase made notorious by a racist Florida police chief in the late 1960s. Invoking this grim legacy, the President was threatening to punish property crimes with summary executions.

This appalling tweet finally caused Twitter, which has tried desperately to avoid applying its normal terms of service to its most prominent user, to label it as violating the company’s rules against “glorifying violence”.

Twitter, however, has yet to do anything about Mr Trump’s numerous recent tweets bizarrely accusing one of his critics, TV commentator Joe Scarborough, of having an affair with, and then murdering, one of his staffers when he was a Republican congressman 20 years ago.

Both claims appear to be completely baseless. They met just three times and she died in a tragic accident when he was more than 800 miles away. Her widower has begged Twitter to take down this cruel defamation.

Mr Trump’s reaction to protests outside the White House also seemed to welcome the prospect of violence and implied disappointment that none of the protesters were “really badly hurt, at least”.

This comes in a week when the US passed the grim milestone of at least 100,000 Americans dying from Covid-19 over the past 100 days. This lung infection, which literally asphyxiates its victims, has also choked the life out of the American economy, which now resembles the years of the Great Depression.

This figure of 100,000 dead in 100 days is so colossal that it has not been fully comprehended by many Americans, particularly since most of the deaths have been concentrated in urban settings and among ethnic minority victims. Nonetheless, whether, as seems entirely plausible, a major second wave of illness is preparing to hit in the coming months, the scale of the human devastation will finally sink in sooner or later.

Much of the public has also yet to fully register the economic damage and coming pain. Massive government spending, which is rapidly running out and not being replenished, has kept many Americans from truly feeling the impact. But that is likely to change soon enough as the level of coronavirus devastation, both economic and human, is set to become far more evident in the daily lives and consciousness of Americans.

Prominent observers – including the country’s leading expert on international democratization, Prof Larry Diamond of Stanford University – are increasingly warning that American democracy is in mortal peril. Continuing to chip away at its structures, Mr Trump has systematically purged five inspectors general, watchdogs whose role is internal oversight within the executive branch, to replace them with subordinates who do not ask awkward questions.

With the November election just five months away, and Mr Trump in serious trouble, scores of serious articles and several working groups in Washington have been trying to anticipate various tactics the President could use to circumvent defeat and how US democracy can survive such an assault.

Scenarios ranging from states of emergency to claims of widespread voter fraud to the unleashing of massive violence are all being seriously contemplated because so many of Mr Trump’s critics strongly doubt that he would be willing to just walk away. Opinion is divided about how much support he could get, especially from other Republican leaders, but is strikingly unified that he might well refuse to quietly go.

Struggling to come to grips with a historic and ongoing public health calamity, the total meltdown of the economy, cities in flames and the very structures of their venerable democracy shaking under their feet, is it any wonder so many Americans increasingly feel – like Garner and Floyd, and the 100,000 coronavirus victims – that they just cannot breathe?