A critically important interview. — Molly
*****
"We are now in an emergency situation,” says journalist Allan Nairn, a longtime critic of the Democratic Party. “You have to be tactical. You have to, at this moment, vote in the warmongers who will preserve democracy to block the warmongers who would abolish it.”
The
2018 U.S. midterm elections mark a critical point in the era of President
Donald Trump, as the potential Democratic takeover of the House of
Representatives has unleashed a torrent of white supremacist vitriol in the
run-up to November 6. In the past week alone, a militant Trump supporter was
accused of mailing three pipe bombs to CNN and 12 bombs to people
Trump frequently criticizes; two African-Americans were murdered by a white
supremacist outside Louisville, Kentucky; and 11 Jewish worshipers were
massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white supremacist who railed on social
media against Jews who help refugees. Both the gunman and Trump have called
immigrants “invaders.” Meanwhile, Trump has sharply escalated his attacks on
immigrants, threatening to send as many as 15,000 U.S. troops to the
U.S.-Mexico border and to rewrite the Constitution to revoke birthright
citizenship. We speak with investigative journalist Allan Nairn, who says that
fascism is on the rise in the U.S. Nairn has been a fierce longtime critic of
the Democratic Party and its support for war and neoliberal policies, but he is
calling for the public to mobilize to elect Democrats in the midterm elections.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: The 2018 U.S.
midterm elections mark a critical point in the era of President Donald Trump.
The potential Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives has unleashed
a torrent of white supremacist vitriol that is without precedent in recent
years. In the past week alone, a militant Trump supporter was accused of
mailing three pipe bombs to CNN and 12 bombs to people Trump frequently
criticizes, including the Obamas and the Clintons; two African Americans were
murdered by a white supremacist outside Louisville, Kentucky, after he
unsuccessfully tried to enter a predominantly African-American church; and 11
Jewish worshipers were massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white
supremacist who railed on social media against Jews who help refugees, or
“invaders,” as he and Trump call them.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as
President Trump has sharply escalated his attacks on immigrants. So far this
week, Trump has threatened to send as many as 15,000 U.S. troops to the
U.S.-Mexico border and to rewrite the Constitution to revoke birthright
citizenship. He and the right-wing media are also continuing to fixate on a
caravan of Central American migrants that’s more than a thousand miles from the
U.S. border. On Wednesday, Trump posted an explicitly racist ad on his Twitter
feed suggesting Democrats are letting immigrant murderers into the country.
And
Trump also has escalated his attacks on the media, despite the recent Saudi
murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the
Turkish Embassy—in the Saudi Embassy in Turkey and the recent bombs sent
to CNN.
To
talk about what’s at stake on Tuesday, we’re joined by longtime investigative
journalist Allan Nairn. For decades, he has covered U.S. foreign policy across
the globe, including in Indonesia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti,
past winner of the George Polk Award.
Allan
Nairn, welcome back to Democracy Now!
ALLAN NAIRN: Thanks. Good to be
with you.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the
state of affairs in this country right now.
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, this midterm
election, this is it. The U.S. is facing incipient domestic fascism. The
rightist revolution that Trump dragged to power has a chance to consolidate
itself. The way to stop it is to vote the Democrats into control of at least
one, and preferably both, houses of Congress.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting
you say that, because you’ve been a fierce critic of Democrats.
ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. I mean, for
years, I’ve been documenting how many of the senior Democrats are complicit in
war crimes, how they belong in prison. But we are now in an emergency situation
in which there is a huge, fundamental difference between the Democrats and the
Republicans at this moment. The Republicans would abolish democracy. They’re
looking—because that’s the only way they can perpetuate their power. They have
a minority of the votes. They have to rig the system so they can stay in power,
as their minority of votes diminishes over time. The Democrats, their interest
is in maintaining, even expanding, democracy, because that will help bring them
to power. In addition, Trump personally—
AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking
about voter suppression there—
ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —and expanding the
vote.
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, all sorts of
things—voter suppression, gerrymandering—the tactics that the Republican
rightist revolution is using to maintain its hold in power, even though they
can’t win a straight-up vote.
Secondly,
there is the element that Trump personally has brought to power. When he
dragged the Koch brothers and the Paul Ryans and the American oligarchs to
power, he did it with a two-pronged platform. One was punching the elites in
the nose, as the banker Jamie Dimon put it. The other was racism. Without the
element of punching the elites in the nose, the Republicans could never have
won the election. Romney tried running on the elitist platform of giving tax
breaks to the rich, getting rid of Social Security, Medicare. He lost. They
can’t win with that. But Trump presented himself as someone who, A, will
support social justice and who, B, had the capacity to unleash the beast within
white America.
And
so he dragged the American rich into power. They came with a preprogrammed plan
to make an even more massive shift of government resources and taxpayers’ money
to the richest people in the country. You know, there are just three
individuals now whose wealth is equal to that of the bottom 50 percent of the
American population. I mean, it’s already insane, but the Republican core value
is to make it worse. And, secondly, he did it by unleashing these fascistic
forces in the American population, in the American grassroots.
And
there are many good Democratic candidates in this election, people who, in one
way or another, will represent a breakthrough for social justice, who all have
essentially pledged to support Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, Medicaid,
when the Republicans would abolish it. But also, many of these, or a
substantial number of these, Democrats are arguably war criminals—not as big as
the war criminals on the Republican side, but still war criminals. And they
belong in prison.
But
we are facing such a crisis in this country at this moment that you have to use
your head. You have to be tactical. You have to, at this moment, vote in the
warmongers who will preserve democracy to block the warmongers who would
abolish it—and then, the day after the election, go back to the deeper work of
creating real, better, more constructive political alternatives and also
helping the base of the Democratic Party take back the party from the
consultants, from the rich donors. But that’s for the day after the election is
completed, and maybe the runoffs in Georgia and Mississippi, if they happen,
after those are completed. Right now, the task is to stop the incipient fascism
that Trump and the rightist revolution represents. And you can’t really say
that you were working toward an anti-fascist goal if you’re not mobilizing for
the Democrats right now. That’s the urgent reality that we’re living.
Please continue this interview, or to watch the full video, please go here: https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/1/allan_nairn_the_us_is_facing?fbclid=IwAR1br_AxVXp3-n2427Set7ULiVEm1zfb5UbuU_QOhevg6K3GSdNblwRib5k
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