The Audacity of Hope

by

The immediate comparison is with 1968. In that awful year, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and then Robert Kennedy produced protests that mutated into riots. The Democratic Party was fatally divided over Vietnam. Police riots infected not just peaceful protests over racism and Vietnam, but the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Nixon exploited white fears, ran as a “law-and-order president,” and the Roosevelt Democratic Party never recovered. And in that era, we had a severely damaged and discredited presidency, but not a psychotic leader like Trump.

One of our legitimate fears is that these protests give Trump the pretext for some version of what he’s always wanted—martial law. He has already moved close to full-on fascism, exhorting his private militias to behave like storm troopers.

So where’s the hope?

First, Trump’s efforts to pour oil on the flames of racial outcries for justice are not just disgusting; they are discrediting. He is already a failed president for his handling of the corona crisis.

His failure to offer any kind of compassion or moral leadership in the latest crisis deepens his shame. His approval ratings have already been plummeting, and white fears of burning cities will not be enough to rescue them.

Public opinion is overwhelmingly on the side of believing that police need to be held accountable for lynching black citizens. Despite occasional violence directed against police and property, most protesters have acquitted themselves with dignity.

Finally, governors and mayors are mostly holding out against Trump’s pressure to use the protests as a pretext for a militarization of cities. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has been a model.

So at the end of the day, I have to believe that the virus, the police violence, and the protests against entrenched racism deepen the disaffection against Trump and what he represents—and bring us closer to the kind of landslide win needed to keep Trump from trying to steal the election.

(I told you this piece was audacious.)

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