For the past week, the whole world, with bated breath, has been watching a show called "Revolution in America." Someone with gloating (there are quite a few of them), someone with fear, someone with sympathy. I think that it’s not enough completely indifferent: the United States, whether someone would like it or not, is the strongest power on the planet, and the well-being of the rest of humanity directly depends on how things are going on there.
For many years, the United States, with all its internal problems, looked in the eyes of the whole world as an unshakable colossus of stability and a gold standard of prosperity. For the first time, this image cracked on September 11, 2001, when the twin towers of Manhattan collapsed. But then the States managed to mobilize and respond with blow to blow, and the scale of this response was incommensurable with the damage received from the September 11 attack. The two wars unleashed by the Republican administration of George W. Bush did not bring victory laurels to America, but for twenty years restored its reputation as a world policeman capable of punishing the "bad guys" wherever they hide.
It is not surprising that after such an impressive demonstration of power, forecasts about the imminent collapse of the dollar system, the inevitable end of Pax Americana and a new civil war in the United States began to be received with a fair amount of skepticism. The prevailing point of view is that a well-thought-out system of separation of powers and powerful state and public institutions make American democracy extremely stable and stable. Only the alien invasion or the explosion of the notorious Yellowstone volcano could vibrate her (as everyone understands, the probability of both events tends to zero).
The more surprising and unexpected was the unfolding now before our eyes crisis of the very institutions that were considered the main pillar of the stability of the American system. The crisis provoked by such an event as the murder of an unemployed African-American George Floyd by the police arresting him (and whether this was a murder in the legal sense of the word, is still unclear: the results of the two examinations, official and independent, do not coincide, in addition, it turned out that the moment of death, Floyd was under the influence of potent drugs - methamphetamine and fentanyl).
Floyd, who suddenly turned from a criminal and drug addict into a national hero, was solemnly buried, the Mayor of Minneapolis wept over his golden coffin (in a week, Floyd’s family received $ 15 million in tax-free donations “for funerals” and, it seems, managed to quarrel because of this money ) - it would seem that justice has been restored. And not just, but in abundance. But no.
For nearly two weeks, America has been shaken by racial unrest. Protests, pogroms, robberies, looting, hooliganism, vandalism - all this overlapped with the months spent in quarantine because of the pandemic, which, by the way, now almost no one remembers. The white majority is actively repenting to the black minority - it all started with the fact that in Houston, in the homeland of the deceased “hero,” dozens of parishioners of the local church knelt before the Floyd family, asking for forgiveness from “black brothers and sisters for the years of racism”.
Houston's example turned out to be contagious - soon all over America whites knelt before the descendants of slaves brought from Africa, and some especially advanced liberals enthusiastically kissed the shoes of the "black brothers".
But all this is ultimately only a picture for television. It would be a big mistake to believe that all white Americans are obsessed with the idea of repentance, and the impressive shots of the night pogroms in Manhattan should not be perceived as a come true prophecy of Danila Bagrov from the movie "Brother-2": "Soon your kirdyk". But what really causes serious concern for the future of the United States is the reaction of state and public institutions.
This is clearly seen on the example of power structures, and especially the army.
As you know, it is impossible to use the army to suppress internal unrest in the United States - for this there is the police and the National Guard. Unlike the army, both of these tools are largely decentralized: the police, with the exception of the FBI, are subordinate to local authorities, the National Guard has double subordination - to the state and federal.
This explains the “strange” behavior of the police and the National Guard, captured on videos widely circulated on the network, when law enforcement officers and reservists not only do not apply any measures to rioters and rioters, but also dance with them in a hip-hop rhythm or get on one knee . As rightly noted Major General of the FSB (retired) Alexander Mikhailov, "the officers themselves will never kneel, which means that they have been put on their knees by the bosses."
And the "bosses" in this case are the liberal mayors and governors of cities and states. “The authorities of several states and local governments failed to take the necessary measures to protect residents,” stated US President Donald Trump on June 2, a few days after the riots began. Therefore, the only way out of the situation was the use of forces of federal subordination, that is, the FBI and the army.
“I will mobilize all the resources available to the federal government, both civilian and military, to stop protests and looting, put an end to routs and arsons, and protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment,” the president said, speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden of the White House. - Mayors and governors must ensure the overwhelming presence of law enforcement until the violence is suppressed. If the city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to protect the lives and property of its residents, then I will send the US military there and quickly solve this problem for them. ”
Trump has a legal loophole for using army units domestically - this is the 1807 Uprising Act, which was last applied in 1992, during the Los Angeles riots. The president’s words nevertheless caused hysteria in the camp of American liberals who voted about fascism and dictatorship.
And yesterday (June 7), the following entry appeared on President’s Twitter:
“I just ordered our National Guard to begin the process of withdrawing troops from Washington, DC, now everything is under full control there. They will go home, but if necessary, they will be able to return quickly! “There were far fewer protesters than expected last night!”
However, this is not entirely true. Indeed, this weekend the Washington police did not arrest anyone. But the protests on Saturday and Sunday were even more crowded than in previous days.
Actually in Washington (a city in which a little more than 700 thousand people live) tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets. On May 17, Columbia County Mayor Muriel Bowser (an African American and, of course, a member of the Democratic Party) herself joined the protesters, who on the eve renamed the 16th Street section adjacent to the White House to Black Lives Matter Plaza.
What really happened in the five days that separated Trump’s statement about the entry of troops and the record of their withdrawal?
On June 3, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, during a Pentagon briefing, said he was against using regular army units to suppress riots in U.S. cities, even under the 1807 law. “The ability to use the existing duty forces as law enforcement agencies should be used only as a last resort and only in the most urgent and difficult situations,” said Esper. - Now we are not in such a situation. I do not support the application of the law “On Rebellion”.
After that, Trump was forced to backtrack: to the journalist’s question whether he should send an army to American cities to restore order, he replied: “I don’t think we will have to do this,” although he repeated that he could use not only the National Guard, “If necessary.”
In fact, Trump was faced with overt sabotage on the part of the Pentagon - and after all, he considered the military for a long time (with good reason) one of his few systemic allies. And it’s not only Esper’s issue - General Mark Milli, Chairman of the Joint Staff Command Committee, actually supported the protesters by contacting the US military with an open letter about the problems of racism and the right of citizens to peaceful protest. “I, like you, strongly believe that Americans who are disappointed, angry, and eager to be heard should be provided with this opportunity,” Millie writes in this letter. The letter is a general (repeatedly, incidentally, calling "aggressive Russia" the number one threat to America) decided to compose not just like that, but in case the commander in chief gives an order to the US Army to clean up the streets of American cities.
The matter was not limited to letters. On June 5, Pentagon chief Esper ordered the recall of approximately 900 troops who had previously been deployed to the vicinity of the American capital to possible bases in order to maintain order in protest conditions. Officially, the military decided to withdraw, since enough soldiers of the National Guard arrived in the capital (about 5 thousand guardsmen). But after this, the mayor of the District of Columbia, Muriel Bowser, demanded that Trump immediately withdraw all federal power units from the city - and on Sunday her request was met. As a result, the US capital was left without protection, and therefore, in the full power of the protesters, BLM and antifa.
As for the police, in recent days the Defund Police movement has been gaining strength throughout the country (“Deprive the police of financing”). It all started with the same Minneapolis, where the police department with the tacit approval of the most liberal mayor Frey was burned down by protesters. Now the Minneapolis City Council calls not only to deprive the police of funding, but also to dissolve the city’s police department and replace it with “something else, new, transformational”.
By the way, at the head of the revolutionaries from the city council is the young liberal Jeremiah Ellison, for a second - the son of the Attorney General of Minnesota Keith Ellison. Should I clarify which ethnic group the aforementioned Jeremiah belongs to?
The revolutionary demands of the city council were too radical, even for Mayor Frey, who said he would veto such a decision if the council adopted it. The council did not heed and voted for the dissolution of the police department, and the mayor was driven away from the next protest rally by whistling and hooting.
For all the locality of squabbles between the mayor and the council of Minneapolis, much depends on what is happening in this city, which has become the focus of the current protests. Defund Police demands sound louder in the cities of the West Coast, in Los Angeles and Seattle. Democrats and liberals across the country will be happy to pick up the experience of Minneapolis in order to replace the "racist" police in their cities and states with something more progressive, tolerant, more in line with the spirit of the times ...
But such a "rebuilding" of one of the main power institutions of the American political system may end in anarchy throughout the country. Against the background of the actual transition of the army leadership to the side of the liberals and opposition of the democratic governors to the deployment of the National Guard forces in their territories, police paralysis will lead to the fact that the streets of American cities will finally come under the control of the outrageous gangs of leftists, antifa and other "fighters for a just society." But in American cities, in addition to black gangs, there is a very powerful Latin American criminal network - and if militants of the same Mara Salvatrucha, armed to the teeth, come out of the underground, the country can plunge into bloody chaos, compared with which the current robberies and pogroms seem innocent pranks.
Supporting the first protests of black residents of Minneapolis against police violence, American liberals released a malicious genie locked there from a bottle. And now this genie threatens to tear to pieces not only the presidency of the hated liberals Trump, but also the entire political system, which before our eyes passes the most difficult endurance test in the last hundred years.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the publisher.