I SAW TWO talking heads on CNN this morning, a former Democratic Party strategist and a former Republican Party publicist, agreeing that Donald Trump should use this week's Republican Party convention to preach a message of unity. The host, Kaitlan Collins, did not look convinced but refrained from comment. Her silence spoke volumes; if ever there was a politician least able to unify a divided nation like the United States, it's Donald Trump.
However, Trump and his acolytes have already laid down their agenda. We are being told by Trump Republicans that the assassination attempt was, variously, the work of the 'deep state', the Democratic Party, the 'radical left' or Joe Biden. Naturally enough, all these claims have come without any evidence to back them up. In the social media, where the looniest of the Trump loonies spend their time, even socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got named the shadowy figure behind the attempt on Trump's life. When anything like facts are ignored, it matters not to Trump supporters that the shooter was a registered member of the Republican Party. It's worth noting that well over 60% of domestic extremist-related killings in the US over the last several years have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists.
In January 1933 Adolf Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of Germany. A month later, someone burned down the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament. Hitler blamed the fire on the left, and claimed socialists were launching an uprising to take over the country. Hitler convinced Germany’s president to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, which took away some civil liberties from people who opposed the Nazis and also provided legal cover to imprison Hitler's political opponents.
The way things are shaping, Trump and his supporters appear to have taken a leaf out of the Reichstag fire playbook and are intent on using the assassination as the basis for whipping up fervour against Trump's enemies.
The election of Donald Trump would be a disaster for the American working class and the working classes of the world. His political opponents cannot allow themselves to be cowed into silence. As a former organiser with Bernie Sanders has observed: 'One response to Trump's attempted shooting we must NOT take is to stop framing the existential nature of this election. The problem isn't Democrats saying Trump is attacking our democracy—the problem is that he's attacking our democracy.'
AMERICAN POLITICIANS, both Democrats and Republicans, have been united in their insistence ithat violence is never acceptable and must be rejected.
But words are cheap. These are the very same politicians who have enabled and defended Israel's genocidal war in Gaza. This is a barbaric war that has killed over 16,000 children (official figure) in the past nine months.
It seems that violence is acceptable to American politicians so long as its in the interests of the crumbling American Empire.
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