The Chasm: How Trump is trying to split the left

There have been multitudes of articles and op-eds pointing out the obvious truth: Donald Trump wants a violent reaction to his military deployments. From the moment he returned to Washington, Trump has engaged in a series of ever-greater provocations, all of them designed to generate a response giving Trump an excuse to snap up those few powers Congress and the courts had not readily surrendered.

Appointing a parasite-riddled conman to head the nation's health was not quite enough to bring people into the streets. Neither was the ham-fisted destruction of federal agencies, adopting economic policies last seen bringing on the Great Depression, or launching a war on trees.

Allowing the world's richest man to persecute the world's poorest children almost generated the kind of heat Trump was seeking. But not quite.

To give Trump the excuse he's been looking for to literally call out the Marines, it took sending the faceless fascists of ICE to chase hapless farm workers across fields, beat down day laborers at Home Depot, and grab fourth graders from an elementary school. These horrific scenes added to everything else that's wrong with Trump's white supremacy plan, including welcoming white South Africans just to underscore the racism, finally gave Trump what he wanted.

After getting what the LAPD estimated was 100 people to push back against an ICE assault, Trump seized the opportunity. He sent two waves of National Guard forces followed by Marines who have no experience in non-lethal tactics. It's not just outrageous, it's designed to be outrageous.

On Wednesday, military magazine Task & Purpose provided this note about the 700 Marines deployed to Los Angeles.

The roughly 700 Marines recently ordered to deploy to Los Angeles have not yet completed training on less-than-lethal weapons and training on the Standing Rules for Use of Force, which governs the use of force for military personnel within the United States, said a spokesperson for U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM.

Trump wants violence. He wants bodies in the streets. He wants to do what he’s doing in L.A. in every city.

Trump (and Fox News) thrives on images of burning cars. He loves every thrown stone. Because that's how he sells his followers on the lie that American cities are lawless hellholes dominated by violence and homelessness. Most of all, it's how he maintains the fear of Black and brown people who are coming to eat your pets, burn your pickup, and rape your women.

That narrative fuels Trump. It's what has always fueled Trump.

To state the obvious one more time, Trump always intended to deploy the military to destroy the First Amendment right to protest and silence his critics. He tried to do exactly the same thing repeatedly during his first time in Washington, right down to proclaiming a military parade and trying to deploy active military against protesters. But last time he was stopped by professionals at the Pentagon who still held their oath to the Constitution above their loyalty to Trump and by a Congress that had not surrendered all its authority to the Dear Leader.

Those barriers to power no longer exist. Napolean Bonespurs is now free to do whatever he pleases with what he views at "his troops."

That Trump is using this moment to reinforce his attacks on "Democrat cities" for his followers on the right is obvious, but that's just half of what's necessary to give him the unlimited power he wants. The other part, the not-quite-so-obvious but definitely intentional part, is using this moment to drive a deep wedge into the left.

Many progressives believe, as towering figures like John Lewis have in the past, that the only path to justice comes through resolute non-violent action. This doesn't mean turning a blind eye or passively accepting every act of injustice. Nonviolence is, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, "a courageous confrontation of evil" by those willing to meet assaults with steadfast love.

Others believe, as Malcolm X did for many years, the nonviolence translates into defenselessness and surrender. How can anyone seek to demonstrate the injustice of their opponent by receiving a blow, if the supporters of that opponent only cheer? Why seek “friendship and understanding” with people who scorn both? The think that fighting back requires exactly that—fighting.

Right now, in the streets of Los Angeles, and increasingly in other cities, there are people in the streets who believe deeply that nonviolence is the only moral and effective means of stopping Trump. And there are people marching beside them who feel just as sincerely that only active response—including returning a blow received—can secure rights from those unwilling to treat others as equals.

It's almost certain that you have deep feelings and well-reasoned arguments as to why you believe one of these positions.

If you're convinced there's no point in trying to shame those who are shameless, it's easy to view signs and chants as useless. Or even cowardly. If you believe only a non-violent response can bring progress, those who respond to tear gas and rubber bullets with rocks or bottles may be seen as instigators who only perpetuate the cycle of violence.

And the truth is ... you don't know which is right. Or if either is right. Both MLK jr. and Malcolm X wrestled deeply with these issues. Their positions were never so sharply defined as we tend to describe them decades later. They changed their minds, changed them again, and were still wrestling when their lives were brought to untimely ends. Ditto Mohandas K. Gandhi. (And of course, all three were killed by men whose position on the use of extreme violence was much more obvious,)

Are wars won through the steadfastness of conscientious objectors who refuse to carry arms even at the cost of their lives, or by those who are willing to press the button on a bomb release even though they know what it means? Well ... Yes.

The extent to which both acts of selfless love and expressions of unchecked rage contributed to every significant advance of the past isn't known to us. And may be unknowable. But this much is certain: If Trump is able use this schism the way he has used every other and lever the left into fragments, then he whole argument will be pointless.

Please don't take this as a pardon for any level of violence. Though I'm not even Catholic, much less a 16-century saint, I try to hold fast to the simplest demand of Thomas More. I wish none harm. Not even Trump. Not even, on my best days, Stephen Miller. Even so, I'm disinclined to reject those who are less taken with the idea of accepting blows without ever delivering one in return.

It’s okay to be pissed at the guy who throws a punch you know will show up 10,000 times on Fox. And it’s okay to be disappointed at the protestors who are chanting when you feel like they should be fighting. It’s all okay as long as you remember that the real problem isn’t how to respond to Trump’s authoritarian power grab; it’s Trump’s authoritarian power grab.

Trump has no problem using violence, even when it's not needed. Especially when it's not needed. Because the cruelty is always the point. Don‘t let him use that cruelty to divide the people who are all fighting in their own way for the same goals.