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Framed it as a call to action or a presidential election announcement, Gavin Newsom’s speech to America on Tuesday took advantage of our periodist (who at the moment feels strangely appropriate) as others have.
“Democracy is being attacked right in front of our eyes,” Newsom said during a live broadcast with the California flag and the US flag in the background. “The moment we were afraid of has arrived.”
What moment does he refer to exactly?
President Trump has empowered Marines and national security guards to be placed on the streets of Los Angeles and everywhere. On Wednesday, top military leaders said these forces could “detain” protesters, but they could not arrest them entirely despite what they saw in right-wing media.
But when the fear they create must be enforced in actions to cement power, all authoritarians ultimately face a critical moment.
The danger of the moment for the king is that it is also the time when rebellion is most likely and most likely to be effective. People wake up. By using his own power over citizens, leaders risk alienating supporters and energizing resistance.
In Los Angeles, what happens next between the military and the protesters – this group is perceived as invaders – could determine what happens next in our democracy. If the military is an invader and the protesters remain largely peaceful, Trump risks losing support.
If protesters are violent, public perception could give Trump even more empowerment.
Presidential immigrant emperor Tom Homan said what happens next on CNN is “everything depends on the activity of these protesters — that is, they make a decision.”
Welcome to that incredible moment, America.
Who thought Newsom would guide it very effectively?
“Everyone who is not Trumpist in this society is still grogated from the authoritarian attacks of the past five months,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard government professor and author of How Democracies Die.
Levitsky told me it would help to shake off that shock so that others could look and have a national leader who could gather behind them. Especially as fear tweaks into silence.
“You never know who that leader will sometimes become. It could be a newspaper,” Levitsky said. “Maybe his political ambitions will converge on a little D, democratic opposition.”
perhaps. Newsom’s reach has skyrocketed since his speech and the accidental funny online attack of the A-game. Millions of people look at his address, and hundreds of thousands chase him on Tiktok and other social media platforms. According to CNN, searches about him on Google increased by 9,700%. I thought it would be easy to love his message and laugh at it. It had reached it. Partly because it was acquiesced and clear and unexpected.
“Trump and his loyalty are thriving in division to allow them to take more power and exercise even more control,” Newsom said.
I was on the ground with protesters this week, and from first-hand experience I can say there are a few agitators and many peaceful protesters. But Trump did an excellent job of creating crisis and fear by portraying events that were outside the control of local and state authorities and therefore needed his intervention.
Republicans “need that violence to support their story points,” Mia Bloom told me. She is an extremism expert and a professor at Georgia State University.
Violence “When there was a riot, like the aftermath of George Floyd, it actually helped the Republicans,” she said.
Levitsky said authoritarians are seeking a crisis.
“Entering authoritarian behavior requires a rhetorical and legal emergency,” he said.
So Trump created opportunities by building traps in immigrant sweeps in immigrant cities.
And it calls for that — pointing to the danger that protesters are becoming violent, yet still seeking peaceful protests — Newsom puts Trump in a precarious position that the president may not have expected.
“Repressing protests is a very dangerous venture,” Levitsky said. “It’s often, but not always, but often, it’s a trigger pushback.”
Levitsky has already pointed out that there is some evidence that Trump may have overestimated and lost support.
A new poll by the Institute for Public Religion found that 76% of Americans are opposed to a military birthday parade that they plan to throw in Washington, D.C. this weekend. That includes disapproval from more than half of Trump’s supporters.
Another poll by Kinipiac University found that 54% of those voted to disapprove of how he handled immigration issues, while 56% disapprove of his deportation.
Bloom warns that there is a risk in raising too many alarms about authoritarianism for now, as we still have some guardrails that are working. She said too much fear could backfire because of newspapers and democracy.
“We are very biased in the country, and the moment when these are told through two very different types of stories, and the moments we give to the other side, the moments that are very apocalyptic and nihilistic stories, we feed them and justify the worst policies,” she said.
She pointed to the Iranian revolution in 1979. She said she changed public perception when protesters placed flowers in soldiers’ gun barrels and held peaceful protests. That’s what she needs now, she said.
Newsom was evident in his call for a peaceful protest. However, it is also clear that it is a call to action at a historical inflection point. Levitsky cannot know who or what history remembers.
“It’s really important that the most privileged of us stand up and fight,” he said. “If they don’t, the citizens will look around and say, ‘Well, why should I do it?’ ”
He said it’s worth having a leader willing to be a target when many people feel the risk of speaking up.
Because fear can spread like a virus, but courage can also be transmitted.
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