Just three quick things about this autocratic, in-your-fucking-face, unconstitutional, symbolic power play by Trump and ever-creative extreme right-wing religious fanatic Bagpiper Bill Barr, designating my home town (and two other Democrat [1] cities) an “anarchist jurisdiction” not entitled to federal funds lawfully provided by Congress. Talk about “triggering the libtard cucks!” (in places that clearly dislike Mr. Trump and his lurch toward autocracy).
First: what a great picture of di Blasio and the Bagpiper! (from a youTube come-on)
Second: this vilification of cities (and the illegal attempt to impose the president’s policies– and fiscal pain– on a city in an independent, sovereign state, during a pandemic) is an old chestnut from the modern totalitarian playbook (see, for example, the chapter on Vienna from Mein Kampf, a book a few years from its hundredth birthday).
A stock part of fascist propaganda is based on the myth of a pure folk, who live primarily in the unspoiled rural areas, constantly in danger from lazy degenerate mongrels who live in decadent cities. From Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them.
(me, summarizing his chapter SODOM AND GOMORRAH):
Cities, which tend to be places where diverse populations live and work, and differences are tolerated, even embraced, are seen in fascist politics in stark contrast to the countryside, where the mythic national purity they extoll still prevails. Stanley cites a few counter-factual lines from one of Donald Trump’s campaign speeches:
“Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they’ve ever been in before, ever, ever, ever. You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street.” And yet during this time, cities in the United States were enjoying their lowest rates of crime in generations and record low unemployment. Trump’s rhetoric about cities makes sense in the context of a more general fascist politics, in which cities are seen as centers of disease and pestilence, containing squalid ghettos filled with despised minority groups living off the work of others.
Third: According to men like Bagpiper Bill Barr, and America’s Greatest Dealmaker and Winner — and the least racist, most stable genius ever to lead our great nation — these despised, parasitic minorities are enraged because they are inferior. Simple as that, their sorry genetic stock comes from shit hole countries, the poor bastards.
These people, in the reflexive racist mind, are born losers who are irrationally angry, people whose rage makes them self-destructively turn on the very people who risk their lives to protect them, authority-keepers who almost never kill them while they are not resisting — hardly ever even cripple them, though Christ knows they richly deserve it for being such vicious, stupid ingrates who constantly act against their own best interests and blame everyone else for their own problems.
Remind you of anyone?
Here is a more nuanced and detailed look at this desperate campaign stunt by the fervent Attorney General:
Today started off with Attorney General William Barr designating New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, as “Jurisdictions Permitting Violence and Destruction of Property.” His statement responded to Trump’s September 2 memorandum calling for a review of funding to “state and local governments that are permitting anarchy, violence, and destruction in American cities.”
The idea of defunding cities is vague and it is also odd, considering how many Americans actually live in cities. The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrote to Trump on September 7 to ask him to rescind his memorandum, noting that “attacks on America’s cities are attacks on America itself. America’s cities represent 86 percent of the Nation’s population and 91 percent of real gross domestic product (GDP)…. Cities are the Nation’s incubators of talent: people flock to cities to take advantage of their accessibility, diversity, inclusiveness, vibrancy, infrastructure and innovation,” they wrote. They warned that if he tried to enforce a restriction on funding, they would sue, and would almost certainly win. They reminded him: “This is a time our Nation needs unity, not division, among all levels of government.”
This new declaration is little more than a distraction, meant to try to resurrect the old “law and order” ploy and take our eyes off… what?
[1]
Let us make no mistake about this pejorative (and increasingly widely accepted) reference to the “Democrat Party” and “Democrat” cities— these are cities run by democratically elected Democratic mayors.
These mayors are Democrats, but their party is called the Democratic party and if you call their city by the name of their political party they, New York, Portland, Seattle, Washington D.C., are actually Democratic cities. HEY, WAIT!
“Well, you see, that’s another reason we call them ‘Democrat’ cities (pause to hit the spittoon square in the middle), run by the, heh ‘Democrat party’… whell, hell, you can’t really dog whistle any clearer than that, now can you? We all know what ‘Democrat mayor’ refers to, you can picture her, and it don’t take a damned oversensitive damn n-word to tell you what tune this dog whistle is whistling. We ain’t just whistling Dixie, son.”
