Sep 9

Sep 9 Head Fake

Chicago, Demonstrations, Donald J. Trump, Performance, Protest, Public Declarations

“Hands off the man, the flim flam man
He’s the one in the Trojan horse
Making out like he’s Santa Claus
Oh Lord, the man’s a fraud, he’s a flim flam man
He’s a fox, he’s a flim flam man”

— Laura Nyro, Flim Flam Man, from Laura Nyro (1967)

“Hell bent or heaven sent,
listen to the propaganda,
listen to the latest slander.
There’s nothing underhand
that she wouldn’t understand.

Pump it up until you can feel it.”

— Elvis Costello, Pump It Up, from This Year's Model (1978)

My expectations were low as I walked out the door today, headed to what the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda had characterized as an emergency demonstration. Just three days earlier, the same group held a demonstration at the same location—the Congress Gardens Plaza at the intersection of Ida B. Wells Boulevard and Michigan Avenue. During the preceding seven or eight days, Donald J. Trump had been threatening to deploy the military and National Guard to Chicago. He had become a crime fighter just like Batman. As president, Trump had a duty to protect the citizenry, or so he claimed. This past Friday, Trump posted a meme showing him in a military uniform presiding over a helicopter attack that left Chicago in flames. I am still unclear how declaring war on an American city, leaving it in ruins, protects the citizenry from crime, but that’s Trump’s demented logic.

As last week unfolded, Trump’s focus shifted from fighting crime to deporting undocumented migrants hiding out in Chicago restaurants, factories, and in retail stockrooms working for minimum wage, if even that. As he had done since he first rode down the gold-plated escalator in New York City’s Trump Tower a decade ago, Trump painted these migrants as violent criminals.

Like Saturday’s demonstration, today’s was intended to send Trump a simple message: “Stay Out of Chicago.” According to newspaper reports, 300 to 400 people attended Saturday’s demonstration. I had put the estimate at 700 to 800, but unlike one television station, I didn’t have a news helicopter flying overhead.

Scheduled for 5:00 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, how many people are up for a demonstration, particularly after having had the opportunity to attend one three days earlier? Perhaps the bigger buzzkill, the promised troops never materialized even though Trump had stated that the troops would be on the ground before week’s end. In all likelihood, Trump’s had issued another round of empty threats, designed to shift the media’s focus from the Epstein files. Just another head fake.

When I arrived at the plaza shortly before 5:00 PM, 100 to 150 people were milling about, many holding picket signs. Others held blue and white placards admonishing Trump to “Stay Out of Chicago.” Needless to say, I was surprised by the turnout, particularly because Trump had seemingly “tacoed” his threats. The National Guard had not surrounded the Federal courthouse or Federal Plaza. Nor were they parading up and down Michigan Avenue. They were nowhere to be found.

On Tuesday, one of the papers carried a report that an ICE helicopter had circled Evanston several times. Not surprisingly, ICE had recently detained four or five migrants, but that hardly constitutes an enhanced operation. None of that equates with the sort of anticipated invasion that sparked Saturday’s demonstration or that had Governor J.B. Pritzker and other leaders holding seemingly countless press conferences last week.

By 10:00 PM tonight, the newspapers and television stations had reported that 300 to 400 people took part in today’s demonstration, which is a very respectable number given the time and location. I was particularly surprised to see all the television cameras on the sidewalk overlooking the sunken plaza. I had assumed no press coverage.

Shortly after I arrived, I asked one of the marshals whether there would be a march. He told me that there would be one that followed Saturday’s route, but that rather heading west along Ida B. Wells Drive, it would reverse the route, first heading north up Michigan Avenue. Along both routes, the marchers would pass Trump Tower, the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, and ICE’s Midwest headquarters.

Once the rally began, I knew that not only would today’s march be a replay of Saturday’s, but so would the speeches, speakers, and signage. Repetition invariably dulls the senses, resulting in people robotically going through the motions.

What caught my attention today was the signage, as well as a man dressed in the sort of prison uniform associated with the Holocaust, although his striped pajamas had one feature that struck me as odd. Why was the star over his heart blue rather than yellow? The sign he carried left no doubt as to his intended message: “We Know What’s Next.” While his costume was by far the starkest reminder of what happened when fascism overtook Europe 90 years ago, he was not the only one who went there. More than a few people carried signs that drew parallels between Adolf Hitler and Trump.

During the last eight decades, orators, debaters, and writes have stayed away from referencing Hitler, who serves as such an extreme example of evil that references to him when discussing politicians and other leaders have been viewed as rhetorical malpractice, undercutting the speaker’s credibility. Apparently, not anymore. Speakers and demonstrators regularly place Trump in the same category as Hitler, and increasingly so.

At this point, I must break with conventions. When posting articles, I always use a publication date that coincides with the time that the event ended, but my narrative is written as if I am recalling the event later that evening. That is true even though sometimes I write the article the next day.

As for this article, I didn’t have time to write it last night, so I found myself collecting my thoughts during my workout at the gym this morning. Before I returned home, the conservative firebrand, Charlie Kirk, had been assassinated; gunned down while taking questions from skeptics at Utah Valley University.

The increase in references to Hitler at anti-Trump rallies and Kirk’s assassination today is not a coincidence. We don’t yet know the assassin’s identify, but my bet is that a Left-wing extremist squeezed the trigger, releasing the fatal bullet that would travel 200 yards before ripping through Kirk’s jugular vein, sealing his fate and Right-wing martyrdom.

Whoever the assassin turns out to be, he or she bears 100% responsibility. As Aristotle, Plato, and Aquinas postulated centuries ago, each human is born with free will. But Donald J. Trump is also 100% responsible for creating the low-pressure atmospherics that unleashed the Category 5 hurricane producing both the Hitler signage and the bullet that killed Kirk. Two seemingly diametrically opposed statements can be true, as incongruent as that may be.

For the last decade, Trump has recklessly sowed division and discord in pursuit of power and wealth. Since his second inauguration, he: (i) endlessly speaks about the “lunatic, radical left” when referring to anyone who disagrees with him, including Democratic members of Congress; (ii) relentlessly criticizes the judiciary when it rules against his ongoing effort to smash the constitutional architecture underlying our democracy; (iii) attacks the media, claiming that it is trying to destroy the country; (iv) flames conspiracy theories in an effort to undermine the scientific and academic communities as part of his ongoing effort to destroy what Brookings Institution fellow Jonathan Rauch refers to as the Constitution of Knowledge (a discourse rooted in facts); and (v) regularly posts images depicting himself as a warrior.

Trump fashions himself as the President of MAGA. Everyone one else be damned. The division he has inflamed inevitably leads to violence. Both Democrats and Republican leaders have been subjected to assassination attempts, including Trump himself. Regrettably, Trump did not learn the lesson that a would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania offered him. Despite the grace of God, Trump continues to pump up the volume, resulting in extremists on both sides using guns and violence to settle scores.

Those who are now making references to Hitler at anti-Trump rallies would be well advised to lower the temperature. “Hitler” is too easy. Because Trump elevates the heat doesn’t mean that those speaking out against Trump should push the rhetorical boundaries to the boiling point. Although if I am to be honest, I laughed when I saw the man dressed as a concentration camp internee.

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It. The Images Are Not Necessarily in Exact Chronological Order]