13 votes

Trump is putting on a show in Portland; The president is deploying the kind of performative authoritarianism that Vladimir Putin pioneered

Posted by Kuromantis
Tags: politics, donald trump, george floyd, protests, policing, authoritarianism, performative authoritarianism, vladimir putin, journalism, usa.or.portland, author.anne applebaum, source.the atlantic, paywall.soft
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-putting-show-portland/614521/

Link information

This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.

Title
Trump Is Putting On a Show in Portland
Authors
Anne Applebaum
Published
Jul 23 2020
Word count
528 words

5 comments

  1. [4]
    skybrian
    Link
    It seems to me that the protesters are winning the propaganda war. Isn't this part of the point of protests, to get the authorities to do bad things and get that in the news? The article is...

    It seems to me that the protesters are winning the propaganda war. Isn't this part of the point of protests, to get the authorities to do bad things and get that in the news? The article is describing tactics that give the other side what they want as if they were smart, but that doesn't make them so.

    3 votes
    1. [3]
      Kuromantis
      Link Parent
      Yes, but right-wing news outlets will say it's the other way around and say the authorities came as a reaction to the 'violent' protests, instead of as an occupation force to stop them.

      Yes, but right-wing news outlets will say it's the other way around and say the authorities came as a reaction to the 'violent' protests, instead of as an occupation force to stop them.

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        Yes, some will say this, but that doesn't mean it's enough to win. Right-wing news doesn't control the narrative, and they might not be united in support either, just because Trump wants them to be.

        Yes, some will say this, but that doesn't mean it's enough to win. Right-wing news doesn't control the narrative, and they might not be united in support either, just because Trump wants them to be.

        3 votes
        1. Kuromantis
          (edited )
          Link Parent
          I agree, but that's not really winning the propaganda war, just making it worse. In the end, when news outlets begin to reject reality like this, its hard to reach out to their viewers without...

          I agree, but that's not really winning the propaganda war, just making it worse. In the end, when news outlets begin to reject reality like this, its hard to reach out to their viewers without getting them to actually experience it themselves, and even then, to get them to understand what they're experiencing, which is only made worse given how rural the GOP base tends to be.

          Until Fox news is gone and rural areas are being populated by young people, I don't see this getting better, at least for the core Trump base's delusion IMO. The folks in suburbia or small towns still in the GOP are definitely being reached by the protests, but the rest maybe, despite everything, still isn't.

  2. Kuromantis
    Link

    Welcome to the world of performative authoritarianism, a form of politics that reached new heights of sophistication in Russia over the past decade and has now arrived in the United States. Unlike 20th-century authoritarianism, this 21st-century, postmodern influence campaign does not require the creation of a total police state. Nor does it require complete control of information, or mass arrests. It can be carried out, instead, with a few media outlets and a few carefully targeted arrests.

    The attack on demonstrators in Portland is like that: a performance designed to show just how much Trump dislikes “liberal” Americans, “urban” Americans, “Democrat” Americans. To put it differently (and to echo my colleague Adam Serwer): The chaos in Portland is not an accident. The chaos is the point.

    The chaos is also a tactic, and now it will be put to use. Now that it has been deliberately escalated, the violence will provide pictures, footage, video clips, and other material for Trump’s media supporters, and eventually for his campaign advertisements. On Fox News, Sean Hannity has already denounced Portland as a “war zone.” Tucker Carlson has spoken of protesters as “mobs” who keep liberal Democrats in power. The next stage will implicate Joe Biden in this same story: The president’s aides have told journalists that Biden, if he wins, will “allow left-wing fascists to destroy America.” Protesters, mobs, chaos, fascists, the left, the “Dems”, Biden—they’re all one narrative. The Trump administration will show people pictures of its uniformed troops pushing back against them, restoring order with a strong hand. And it will use the kind of language that appeals to that part of the population that prizes safety over all else.

    2 votes