A few days before my birth six decades ago, the leader of the United States delivered an impassioned speech to both houses of Congress about their faith in liberty. “No nation has ever been so ready to seize the burden and glory of freedom,” declared John F Kennedy.
And for all its faults, for all its many blunders and bloodstained misadventures, the sense of America as a superpower that at least claimed to be a force for good has been my life’s backdrop.
This self-declared ideal of the nation as a shining beacon for hope and prosperity, shored up by its cultural hegemony on our planet, withstood even the sleaze of Watergate and the stupidity of invading Iraq.
But no longer. For with each day of Donald Trump’s sordid presidency, the United States slides further into darkness and division as it flirts with despotism under this destructive, grasping and power-crazed old man. We witness the betrayal of allies, blatant corruption, destruction of institutions and weaponising of the law, as he rips up the old world order and tears apart his own democracy like an infant smashing up toys in a tantrum.
In the last week alone he was threatening to grab land from a friendly country and break up Nato. Then, this former draft-dodger dared insult every foreign soldier that fought alongside his nation’s troops in Afghanistan. And finally, at the weekend, another American citizen was shot dead for daring to protest against his grotesque regime that preaches so frequently about freedom to other democracies.
Alex Pretti was a nurse who cared for veterans. Now he has become another sad name on the roll of shame staining his nation, a man slaughtered on the bitterly cold streets of a city famed for its decency. He died believing in the idea that his right to protest was enshrined by his country’s extraordinary constitution. And he was killed less than three weeks after a prize-winning poet and mother of three children called Renee Good was also shot dead.
The two victims were the same age – just 37. Their lives were terminated in similar style by a federal paramilitary force that has invaded Minneapolis, dying at the hands of a gang of masked goons who act with fearsome brutality and impunity in a style that looks horribly familiar to those of us who have reported on protests and uprisings in autocratic states.
As the conservative pundit Michael Ledeen once wrote, when police feel obliged to hide their faces, it exposes the true relationship between the people and their state. He was discussing Iran, one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships, yet could have been writing about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), this sinister force being used by the White House to project its power, intimidate its foes and terrify migrants.
These are the masked men with guns patrolling liberal cities such as Minneapolis like an invading army, those gangs who drag children off the streets into detention, smash car windows and demand papers. And this is the force empowered and strengthened by Trump, supposedly to defend America, whose budget is now bigger than any military in the world after the US and China.
Truth, of course, has become another victim of this ghastly White House. So with sickening inevitably, almost as soon as Pretti’s blood began seeping into the snow, a tussle of words began over the incident with claim and counter-claim – just as with Good.
So Trump’s team and defenders instantly began vilifying the victim, the facts were deliberately blurred, the federal authorities rushed to impose judgement rather than trying to establish precise events that took place. Eyewitnesses, local officials and the victim’s family challenged these efforts to frame a dead nurse as an enemy of the state, pointing out he had a phone and not a weapon in his hand. Such is the sorry state of this conflicted nation.
Certainly any hope of official impartiality has been shredded in the besieged city.
After the latest shooting, the 47th President – a man who tried to overthrow an election result – accused Jacob Frey, the Minneapolis mayor, and Tim Walz, Minnesota Governor, of “inciting insurrection with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric”. Yet, when senior White House figures suggest law enforcement agencies enjoy near absolute immunity performing their duties and investigations into fatalities are blocked from the top, is it any wonder that some men in uniform might think they can use lethal force with no fear of consequence when confronting citizens angered by their presence?
M Gessen, a writer forced to flee Russia after its descent back into repression under Vladimir Putin, warns in the New York Times that we are witnessing the deliberate use of state terror in America. And such is the depth of division tormenting the US that while sympathetic donors have given $1.5m to support Good’s bereaved family, another $800,000 has been raised in aid of the agent who shot her dead, now being hailed as a hero among some US conservatives.
This gives another glimpse of what happens when fear and loathing of migrants curdles into toxic tribalism, another grim warning for all those European voters flirting with the far-right and dark forces of nationalism.
Your next read
square COLIN DRURY How I ParentI tried ’empty weekend’ parenting. I got lie-ins and happy children
square TESSA DUNLOPWilliam must make up with Harry – or watch his reign crumble
square PATRICK COCKBURN Newsletter (£)The pathetic underachievers fuelling Trump’s cruelty
square TAYLA BLAIRE My Relationship FixAt 33 I was almost friendless – until I started to go away without my husband
Ultimately, the shock troops of ICE spreading mayhem and misery are actors in a grim populist political drama that is designed to thrill Trump supporters, provoke his enemies and stoke division still further.
Only a fool would predict what happens next given the unleashing of this militarised force – swollen with thousands of hastily hired new recruits and equipped with weapons of war – that serves as Trump’s Praetorian Guard, especially in a nation that is awash with guns and riven with intensifying fissures.
But as JFK reminded us in another key speech, and we have seen so starkly in the past, evil can only triumph when decent people do nothing.
Hence then, the article about trump s ice spreads mayhem and misery and sounds a dark warning for europe was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Trump’s ICE spreads mayhem and misery – and sounds a dark warning for Europe )
Also on site :