Legitimate Protest

Where do we start with what's going on in the US at the moment?  How about starting with what is isn't about, despite what the right would have you believe.  It isn't about shadowy leftist domestic terror organisations fermenting revolution and using anti-racist protests as a cover for their activities.  This narrative effectively recasts legitimate protestors as convenient dupes for these supposed radical agitators, thereby relegating the reasons for their protests to secondary status.  Which, of course, is the whole point of the current exercise in which Trump, aided by the right-wing media, plays up the spectre of 'Antifa' as some kind of existential threat to the US.  Nothing takes the focus off of right-wing violence and racism than building up the threat of left-wing violence by those who oppose it.  The fact that 'Antifa' doesn't actually exist, that it is a myth, is neither here nor there.  It is a convenient bogeyman with which to frighten the middle class voters in an election year.  The fact is that there is no such organisation, there is no centralised 'Antifa' leadership issuing edicts, planning to hijack demonstrations or co-ordinating violence.  At best, it is a creed, an idea, a belief that fascism should be opposed, that, if necessary, facist force should be countered with force. 

The choice of 'Antifa' as a scapegoat is telling. After all, it is a contraction of 'anti-fascist'.  Now, I would assume that we are all anti-fascist.  Unless, of course, you are a fascist.  So, when Trump declares that 'Antifa' are terrorists, he is effectively saying that anyone who is in opposition to fascism is a terrorist and, in doing so, is clearly aligning himself with the fascists.  Which is problematic, as, by extension, it casts America's 'Greatest Generation' who fought the Nazis as terrorists.  But none of that matters to Trump and the shadowy extreme right forces behind him.  They are interested, primarily, in de-legitimising any kind of protest against the establishment.  Which is why they want the media coverage of the current unrest to keep on focusing on the burning buildings and the battles between police and protestors, even though this isn't representative of what is going on across the entire country, with most protests peaceful and local police officers not intervening to prevent or disrupt them.  Because the more they can focus on these negative images, the further way from the original cause of these disturbances we get: the death in custody of a black mn at the hands of a white officer employing unreasonable force.  The latest in a string of such incidents, in most of which the authorities seem to collude in order to ensure that the perpetrators go unpunished.  That's the real problem.  A problem which isn't unique to the US.