<nettime> The Democracy Test

[Brian Holmes via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

After only five months of incompetent rule, with naked corruption surging
past all historical benchmarks, having moved to wreck the economy with
arbitrary tariffs, to massively degrade scientific and educational
institutions, and to make the US a pariah on the international stage,
Trump's administration is collapsing into acrimony, ridicule and
incoherence on all fronts. Therefore the would-be dictator is already
turning toward what everyone knew would be his ultimate tactic for
cementing authoritarian rule: the use of military force against
anti-deportation demonstrators in Democratic cities with high immigrant
populations.

Trump's aim in LA - and soon in Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Houston,
Seattle etc - is to provoke real uprisings, pitched battles on urban
streets, in order to invoke the Insurrection Act which would give him very
broad repressive powers. With the spectacle of burning police cars on every
TV, he believes he can legitimize a sweeping state of emergency, galvanize
his brown-shirt base and proceed to the normalization of brutal repression.

This is the democracy test.

Our society can pass it, but it will not be easy. The crucial thing to
realize is not only that masked Federal agents are pulling mostly Latino
immigrants out of workplaces and public buildings, threatening shocked
bystanders with weapons, tearing families apart and deporting people
overnight without due process. The really crucial thing is that immigrant
communities, Latinos first of all, are fighting back to defend their
people. To measure the determination that will be shown in the weeks and
months ahead, everyone who cares should watch this extraordinary document,
an interview with LA high-school history teacher and organizer Ron Gochez:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/6/9/los_angeles_protests_immigration_ice_raids

LA is only the first mass theater in the emergent struggle between
immigrant communities and federal authoritarians. It's going to be tense,
property will be destroyed, many protesters will be wounded and some may be
killed, especially if paramilitaries like the Proud Boys take action. I
have no doubt that huge amounts of people in the affected areas will know
how to stand in solidarity with the communities under attack, despite the
inevitable violence that is being provoked on the streets and
instrumentalized in the media. The weak link here is not the people on the
ground. Nor is it the progressive white middle classes in the suburbs,
despite their usual cringing ambivalence. Instead it is the Democratic
elites - exactly those who all-too-recently put down the Gaza protests -
who will have the signal honor of determining the fate of US society. If
they too do not stand and fight, in all arenas of law, administration and
public opinion, then our centuries-old democracy can easily fail.

Everyone's contribution matters, and to hell with those who stand on the
sidelines hoping everything will be resolved by the Supreme Court. This is
happening now, and it can only be judged in light of whatever unfolds over
the coming months. We are experiencing an authoritarian bid for power and
there can be no foreknowledge of the outcome. The democracy test began this
weekend.
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