The Path to Fascism: Picking and Choosing Which Protesters are "Illegal" with No Regard for the Law
On January 6, 2021, a shameful event cast a shadow on our democracy. Then-outgoing US president, Donald Trump, engaged in actions that, to the minds of many, demonstrated out-and-out inciting of a riot--encouraging his supporters to "visit" (storm) the capital and demand that the 2020 election (which he clearly had lost) be overturned by US lawmakers. Many of Trump's (misguided, I would argue) supporters followed this direction, which famously led to the deaths of five people, including one police officer and one US Air Force veteran.
As has been typical of Trump's experience as a national leader, he paid zero consequences for these actions, in spite of the fact that Federal Law clearly prohibits the act of inciting a riot (which is exactly what Trump did on that date, with fatal and devastating consequences).
In spite of the origination of multiple lawsuits against the president for his role in this deeply depressing situation, Trump has yet to be prosecuted for his role in this shameful mark on US history. And with the Supreme Court leaning heavily in his favor, it is doubtful that he ever will be.
If this all is chilling to you, then you must have a heart. And you must be paying attention. The idea of a president (or anyone) essentially being above the law is, based on my learning about US history (remember Nixon?) fully un-American and against everything that we stand for as a nation.
Trump versus Khalil: An Ironic Comparison
Fast forward to the present. Let's now consider how a protester who is NOT Donald Trump is being dealt with by the current administration.
Last spring, on the heels of devastating events of the Middle East, recent Columbia University alum, Mahmoud Khalil, of Palestinian descent, co-organized, on the campus of Columbia University, a protest of the slaughter of thousands and thousands of people in the Gaza strip. While the Middle East conflict is famously complex, and Hamas' tactics have, indeed, been nothing short of abhorrent, what has happened to the people and infrastructure of Gaza has been nothing short of devastating and traumatizing at a global scale. Protesting the intensive destruction of these peoples and land should certainly be at least understandable by any reasonable person. Especially when said protests, which sprang up around the world last Spring, were intended as non-violent in nature.
This protest, which falls fully in line with traditions of our democracy and are protected by the Constitution's VERY first amendment led to no deaths. Further, injuries that were primarily documented were injuries of protesters themselves that were inflicted by law enforcement.
Khalil has not been convicted of any crime. He holds a green card which offers him permanent residency in the US. He is married to a US citizen--and his wife is eight months pregnant.
Think about that.
According to Trump, this is "the first arrest of many to come."
If you don't find these facts chilling, I truly don't know what to say.
The protests that took place alongside the Columbia protests in Spring of 2024 were widespread across campuses in our country. My own campus, SUNY New Paltz, in fact, had a highly publicized protest that has was ultimately quashed by law enforcement and that led to multiple injuries. I know dozens of people, including one family member, who took part in this protest. The whole thing was (and still is) depressing. What happened at Columbia was hardly isolated. What has been happening in Gaza is outrageous. And outrageous acts SHOULD lead to outrage by people who hold strong moral constitutions.
That all said, let's compare the actions of Trump and Khalil. Trump incited a riot on the United States capital building--a riot that led directly to the deaths of multiple US citizens. Trump has, to this date, gotten off scott-free for this actions. To add insult to injury, after he regained office, he pardoned all of the protesters whom he had incited, several of whom had criminal records for such acts as rape and domestic violence.
Khalil, who played a major role in an organized protest at Columbia University, which led to zero deaths, was, in early March of this year, blindsided by law enforcement taken away from his pregnant wife, and detained in an ICE facility more than a thousand miles from his home--slated to be deported.
Unlike Trump, his actions were fully in line with the US Constitution and with federal law--and, again, led to zero deaths. Further, Khalil was never arrested, suggesting that neither the NYC police nor the administration of Columbia University had concluded that he had done anything wrong.
The deeply ironic and concerning bottom line of this comparison is as follows:
* Trump: Breaks federal law (allegedly) by inciting a riot that led to the death of multiple US citizens. Several lawsuits have been launched to bring him to justice. The federal courts (including the Supreme Court) have, to date, provided Trump immunity in the crimes associated with this case.
* Khalil: An individual of Palestinian descent who has been granted permanent residence in the US with a green card and who is married to a US citizen (who is 8-months pregnant at the time of this writing) led a non-violent protest (leading to zero deaths) on the campus of a private university (Columbia University, where he recently received a Masters degree). He was never arrested for his actions.
Blindsided, and without any apparent due process, Khalil was arrested by Federal Law enforcement and is being imprisoned in Louisiana, over a thousand miles from his pregnant wife, because he led a protest that disagrees with the political stance of the current administration.
When the Administration Unilaterally Arrests People without the Due Process of the Law, There is a Problem
For a leader in the US government to pick and choose people to arrest and deport based on disagreements with their own political stance--with zero due process of the law--is outrageous and is as Anti-American as is anything.
The story of Mahmoud Khalil is, to my mind, the ultimate exemplar of how deep the problems currently are in the United States. If you think that the parallels that people are drawing between the US today and Nazi Germany are exaggerated, I would say that you are not paying sufficient attention to what is happening around us.
Whether you agree with Khalil's political stances is beside the issue. When the president of the United States makes unilateral decisions of this kind--decisions that have the capacity to adversely impact the lives of individuals and families permanently, we all have a problem.
You're allowed to be a dissident in the United States. This country was formed by dissidents who left Europe so they could start a nation in which freedom of thought and ideology would be built into the foundation of the country. And starting with the Revolutionary War, millions of Americans have sacrificed their lives over the centuries so that we can live in a space where such rights are to be guaranteed.
If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention
Think about the renowned and poignant protest song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, released in 1964 by Bob Dylan (on his album The Times They are a Changin'). In this song, Dylan describes the real-life killing of an African American woman who worked for the wealthy Zantzinger family in the South during Segregation. She was killed by William Zantzinger in a killing that largely seemed to stem from his being in a bad mood. As Dylan wrote "(Carroll had) never done nothing to William Zantzinger." The case went to court and Zantzinger was slapped on the wrist with a six-month sentence.
As Dylan eerily states toward the end the song:
For those of you who philosophize disgrace
And criticize all fears
Bury that rag
Deep in your face
'Cause now is the time for your tears
To. my mind, what is happening with Mahmoud Khalil--coupled with the actions and rhetoric suggesting that there is more of this kind of thing to come--parallels the story of Hattie Carroll. In both cases, we turn a collective blind eye to our own peril and to the peril of our fellow Americans.
If you don't think that the Khalil case chillingly anticipates totalitarianism, fascism, and the obliteration of our freedoms, you are not paying attention. When the president of the United States picks and chooses people to be stripped from their families and arrested, in spite of not having been convicted of any crime via our nation's judicial system, fascism looms.
They may well come for any of us next. For reasons that we might not even be able to anticipate. Think about that.
As Bob Dylan wrote in 1964, now is the time for your tears. Further, I would argue, now is the time for your activism.
Interested in what you can do? Here is a post addressing exactly that. And remember, following the model of one our nation's greatest activists, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., peaceful protest is the way to go. It would have been nice if Trump embraced this point on January 6, 2021.
Note that the views expressed herein reflect fully the views of the author and are not necessarily the views of Move Forward New York as a collective entity.