One point I’ve tried to make over the last year is that the Trump administration has a starkly unsophisticated vision of power. Where a subtler president might cajole and persuade, President Trump demands and threatens. He prefers subordinates to partners and tries to dominate his opponents rather than de-escalate a situation or find a mutually beneficial solution. He rejects persuasion altogether. If he wants something, he takes it.
Colleges and universities won’t support the president’s crusade against diversity programs? Then he’ll revoke their funding until they bend the knee. European and Asian nations won’t give the United States ever more favorable trading terms? Then he’ll impose large, impractical tariffs on their exports in order to force them into compliance. Denmark won’t give him Greenland to claim as new territory? Then he’ll threaten military force to get his way. Ordinary Americans won’t stop protesting his draconian deportation force? Then he’ll harass them, arrest them and look for excuses when his paramilitary agents gun them down on the streets.
The only thing Trump and his allies know how to do is use the coercive force of the state. When met with resistance, defiance or indifference, their go-to move is to apply more force, in hopes of forcing their opponents to bend the knee. One reason the president is constantly threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act against protesters is because he sees it something like an “I win” button — a move that guarantees instant victory because it represents overwhelming force.
The arrest of Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and several others (including another independent journalist, Georgia Fort) for their presence at the protest of a Minneapolis church — Cities Church, where a pastor serves as a senior official for Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is another instance of this blunt force approach to the use of power. There is little chance these arrests will lead to a viable prosecution. Justice Department officials struggled to find a judge who would authorize the arrests since protest, and the journalistic coverage of a protest, are among the activities explicitly protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The point of these arrests is less about the ultimate outcome than the spectacle; they are meant to send a message to other journalists to watch their words and their movements or face punishment. But here, again, the White House does not seem to understand the limits of repression. In the same way that the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti only galvanized more Americans against the president, the arrests of journalists will likely further convince many ordinary people that the most reasonable response to Trump administration is opposition.
The White House is caught in a spiral of its own making. The more it tries to repress and dominate its opponents, the more it loses ground with the public, and the more it loses ground, the more it leans on force and threats of force to save face. Eventually, the president and his allies will find that few people fear either his bark or his bite.
What I Wrote
I argued that the Trump administration’s actions in Minneapolis were a failure and analogized the overall situation to the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg.
ICE and C.B.P. still roam the streets, and Trump’s authoritarian aspirations have not dimmed. But surveying the wreckage of Operation Metro Surge — of this reactionary administration’s crushing defeat at the hands of another band of tenacious Northerners — it does look to me like MAGA’s Gettysburg.
I did not include it in the column, but it is worth noting that a key part of the Union victory at Gettysburg involved the bravery of the 1st Minnesota, which launched a practically suicidal bayonet charge on Confederate forces advancing toward the Union center, holding them off until reinforcements could arrive. In the course of the wider fighting, the 1st Minnesota also took the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment, which is still in possession of the state of Minnesota. It is a heroic story but it also doesn’t quite work as an analogy to the actions of ordinary Minnesotans in the face of ICE and Customs and Border Protection, so I left it out.
As usual I joined my colleagues David French and Michelle Cottle for an episode of The Opinions. I also made the case for more immigration in my weekly video column.
Now Reading
Adam Serwer on the bravery he saw in Minneapolis for The Atlantic.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on the blood-and-soil vision of the Trump administration for Vanity Fair.
Emily Witt on the efforts to protect the schoolchildren of Minneapolis for The New Yorker.
Julia Azari on the missing American presidency for the Good Politics/Bad Politics newsletter.
Max Read on politics and the death drive for his newsletter.
Photo of the Week
I took this last fall while riding down the bike trail that goes from Rosslyn, Va. down to Alexandria.
Now Eating: Pressure Cooker Lentil Soup With Sausage
We have been snowed/iced in for the past week, which means we haven’t had a chance to go to the grocery store. Thankfully, I keep a healthy supply of dried goods in the pantry and one of our meals during this confinement was this soup, which is flavorful and delicious whether or not you make it with sausage (I actually happened to use some smoked turkey wings I had in the freezer). Serve with fresh bread and a green salad if possible. Recipe from New York Times Cooking.
Ingredients
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Olive oil
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1 large red or yellow onion, chopped
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Kosher salt and black pepper
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1 pound hot or sweet Italian sausage (pork, chicken or turkey), casing removed
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6 garlic cloves, chopped
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1 teaspoon onion powder
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1 teaspoon garlic powder
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3 fresh thyme sprigs or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
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2 tablespoons fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
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Generous pinch of red-pepper flakes
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¾ cup dry white wine
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1 (14-ounce) can whole or chopped tomatoes
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8 cups chicken stock
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2 cups dried lentils, preferably black beluga
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1 bay leaf
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5 ounces delicate leafy greens, such as baby spinach or baby kale, or 8 ounces hearty greens, such as chard or collards (stemmed and chopped), fresh or frozen
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1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
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Chopped fresh basil, for serving
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Grated Parmesan, for serving
Directions
Cover the bottom of a 5- to 8-quart pressure cooker with a thin layer of olive oil. Add the onion and season lightly with salt. Using the sauté setting, cook until the onion is softened and translucent, stirring constantly, about 5 minutes.
Add the sausage. Cook, breaking the sausage into small pieces with a spatula or a wooden spoon, until it starts to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the fresh garlic, onion and garlic powders, thyme, oregano, red-pepper flakes and several generous grinds of pepper. Stir to combine and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the wine and stir, scraping the bottom of the pot to remove any browned bits. Simmer until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and their juices (if using whole tomatoes, crush them into pieces with your hands as you add them), followed by the chicken stock, lentils and bay leaf. Season generously with pepper and stir to combine. Cover and set steam valve to sealed position. Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes, then release the remaining pressure manually.
Open the lid. Remove and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Using the sauté setting, stir in the greens and cook until wilted and tender, 2 to 5 minutes, depending on the type of green. Stir in the vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Divide among bowls and top with basil and Parmesan.
The post Trump’s Brute-Force Approach to Power Is Wearing Thin appeared first on New York Times.
