The periodic, life-altering killing sprees in the United States should not be viewed as random events. They are a reflection of a sustained process of disintegration of the sovereign authority of the State.
Sovereignty, as the ultimate foundation of authority, is based on at least two precepts: indivisibility and monopoly of the legitimate exercise of force. Only the State, through its police power, is licensed to use violence in defense of the state (against a foreign attack or against domestic terrorism or crime).
The loss of confidence in the police power of the State is dangerous, above all because it invites one to respond by one’s own hand to the perception of insecurity or injustice. When the state is no longer trusted for the provision of security and justice (for the preservation of the fabric of society), the answer by hand it can become a rival of state sovereignty.
Historically, the rise of fascist political movements it was associated with the parallel rise of private militias: Mussolini’s blackshirts, Hitler’s brownshirts, Brazilian greenshirts, and Irish fascist leader Eoin O’Duffy’s blueshirts.
dangerous currents
In the United States today, isolated acts of domestic terrorism coexist with more organized forms of violence. Adding the insurrection on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021the increasing sale of weapons to a population that already has them in abundance and the growth and normalization of right-wing extremist militias and political organizations, there is ample evidence of an accelerating breakdown of the shared belief in state sovereignty.
Right-wing ‘Deep State’ conspiracy theories and GOP lies about stolen elections reflect the same purpose: to question the legitimacy of the state. The dissemination of this questioning through the traditional press and social networks reinforces acceptance of non-state sources of violence. At the same time that violence is condemned, it is idealized, another common pattern in the rise of fascism.
(You can read: The audios of the band that is supplying cocaine to Chicago).
The loss of confidence in the police power of the State is dangerous, above all because it invites one to respond by one’s own hand
When violence is widespread, it feeds back. It becomes proof that the old sovereign is dead or dying and is therefore no longer able to preserve the indivisibility of sovereign power or maintain its monopoly on power. legitimate use of force. The conclusion that emerges from that premise is that the intervention of a viable counterforce is needed. As Donald Trump said on January 6: “If they don’t fight like hell, they’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Flooding the market with weapons (as well as flooding the market with lies, as former Trump adviser Steve Bannon proposed) amplifies social instability.
As confusion and fear grow, reactionary forces gain power. And those who are afraid may not want direct violence but they will begin to support those who are willing to do it for them.
Press and protests, keys
The best way to shield liberal democracy against this growing threat is to mobilize the institutions that still work: the press, the peaceful demonstration and the electoral process. But it must be done soon, because the three of them are in more and more danger.
Facebook, Twitter and TikTok are already our main news sources; but in their business models based on the ‘attention economy’, profits are more important than truth. What lies spread faster and generate attention for longer than the facts, they end up being more valuable to companies that depend on the attention time of users to sell advertising.
Facebook, Twitter and TikTok are already our main news sources; but in their business models based on the ‘attention economy’, profits are more important than truth
Meanwhile, the right to peaceful protest in the United States is threatened by new laws at the state level, which open the door to violence against protesters. In Oklahoma, for example, drivers who ram someone (even if they kill them) will no longer be held liable if they do so “fleeing a riot” (…) in the reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect against serious injury. or death to the operator of the motor vehicle.
(Also: The country’s fears of a recession go beyond the United States.)
To the same extent, new punishments are created for protesters who obstruct the streets or vehicular traffic, which include fines of up to five thousand dollars and up to one year in prison.
Also, in Iowa and Florida, someone who rams a demonstration with the car will be able to pedir civil immunity if you say you acted in self-defense. The danger posed by laws of this nature should be obvious.
An analysis by Ari Weil of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats shows that in 2020, after the murder of george floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, there were 72 hit-and-run incidents in 52 cities over the course of just one month.
Elections under threat
Finally, the electoral process in the United States is threatened by state-level laws that could give state legislatures (under Republican control) the power to ignore election results. presidential election and appoint their own representatives in the Electoral College instead of those chosen by the voters of the state.
(You may be interested: The axes of the talk between the heads of US and Russian diplomacy).
The United States Supreme Court recently made disturbing gestures toward endorsing a dubious legal doctrine that it would exempt state legislatures from any judicial review at the state or federal level; that is, there would be no legal means to prevent the substitution of the members of the Electoral College.
In the face of this accumulation of threats, the defense of fundamental democratic institutions such as a free press, the right to peaceful demonstration and free and fair elections will demand not only greater collective commitmentbut also authentic courage.
The kind of courage ex-slaves showed in the face of racist Jim Crow laws and the rise ofThe Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. The kind of courage shown by activists who fought for civil rights in the 1960s against entrenched segregationism. The kind of courage shown by the women who fought for the right to vote, and who must now do it again for the right to make their own reproductive decisions.
The stakes may never have been higher than today, but the essential teaching is the same as always. In a free republic, fundamental rights must be earned again every time the sovereign authority of the state (embodiment of the core values that hold Americans together) is at risk.
The violence that erupts across the country today pushes the limits of civil discourse and the rule of law and tests the peaceful continuity of the struggle for a shared identity that is the founding ideal of the United States expressed in the motto E pluribus unum: ‘Unity in diversity’.
RICHARD K. SHERWIN*
© Project Syndicate – New York
Law professor at the New York Law School.
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