While President Donald Trump is haunted by the ghost of party pal and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, there is no hesitation in his regime’s march toward authoritarianism. Still, all across this nation citizens are rallying against the specter of autocracy in America. Along with some politicians, judges and juries, millions are trying to save our fragile democracy from Trump’s treachery.
In Washington, D.C., a federal grand jury recently threw out the case against Sean Dunn, a former Justice Department employee and a decorated U.S. Air Force veteran who was awarded many medals and honors during his five years in the military that included deployment to Afghanistan. Dunn had thrown an unopened Subway sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer during a protest in the nation’s capital. The “sandwich attack” was dismissed, and Air Force Times writer Carla Babb jokingly called it an “assault with a deli weapon.” Attorney General Pam Bondi went into pearl-clutching high dudgeon over the incident, saying, “If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you.”
She wasn’t so eager to go after members of the pro-Trump MAGA mob who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—a 21st century date of infamy in America. On his inauguration day this year, Trump freed the rioters, many of whom had touched law enforcement officers, not with sandwiches, but with real weapons. Dozens of police officers were injured during the MAGA melee, but the Jan. 6 rioters are now back on the streets of America. Already several of the mobsters have been arrested again for such offenses as burglary, sex crimes against children and unlawful possession of firearms by felons.
On Sept. 4 police arrested Robert Keith Packer, a Virginia man who gained notoriety during the insurrection when he was photographed wearing a sweatshirt bearing the words “Camp Auschwitz” with an image of a skull reminiscent of the insignia of Hitler’s Nazis, who ran horrific concentration camps like Auschwitz. Packer’s vicious unleashed dogs attacked four people, all of whom were treated at a hospital for their injuries. Police said that Packer had a long criminal record even before his arrest for his involvement in the 2021 insurrection. Now Packer is awaiting trial again, and a Virginia judge may not be as lenient toward him as the president was earlier this year when he freed Packer and hundreds of other Jan. 6 convicts.
Washington and Los Angeles have been targeted by Trump’s shows of police and military force lately, and now Chicago is in his sights. The midwest metropolis that poet Carl Sandburg called “Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders” could be stormy and brawling again if the Trump regime floods its streets with federal cops, masked ICE agents and National Guard troops. Protesters in the Windy City might find mordant irony in Trump’s vows to fight crime and support law and order while freeing the criminals of Jan. 6, 2021 who brought lawlessness and disorder to Capitol Hill.
Nationwide protests against the Trump regime have brought out millions of Americans in big cities and small towns since the president’s second term began on Jan. 20. More such marches and rallies will take place all over this nation on Oct. 18. Chicago will be a focal point of such events next month, but it won’t be the first time that the eyes of the world were focused on the city. In 1968 antiwar protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching,” as they were clubbed and jailed during what was called a “police riot” outside the Democratic National Convention.
On Sept. 24, 1969, the five-month federal “show trial” of antiwar leaders dubbed the Chicago 8 began in the Windy City. President Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell pushed for long prison sentences for the men and trumpeted the slogan of “law and order,” but it was Nixon who later resigned in disgrace and Mitchell who went to jail for their roles in the criminality of the Watergate caper.
At the Chicago trial 56 years ago, defendant Dave Dellinger spoke words that apply more than ever today: “We will not put up with a facade of democracy without the reality.”
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