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Casting aside pointless riots provoked by losses of hockey games and other senseless ostensibly spontaneous riots, the common theme of Canadian riots noted has been deprivation of income, jobs or rights.
The Detroit 1967 riot stands among those of a different character. Like many other racially based riots in America, the deprivation is economic but premised upon overt racial discrimination.
Unfortunately, racially based riots have been characteristic of America’s unusual culture since immediately after the U.S. Civil War. They have continued in some form until 2020. Sadly, they may continue in the future as racial and political divisions in America appear to have become fixed.
Of all America’s destructive riots, however, none appears to have been more pointless than that inspired by an irresponsible president against the very institution he had sworn to uphold.
That a narcissistic president played upon the fears, frustrations and outright hatreds of some marginal Americans should not be entirely surprising.
Fully two months before America’s presidential election a widely reported poll suggested that 40 per cent of Americans — of both parties — held a belief that violence would be justified if the candidate of the other side were to win.
Trump’s incitement dipped deeply into that trove of distrust festering within America’s political system.
President Roosevelt declared Dec. 6, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy,” one day after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor; doubtless, Trump will best be remembered for his Jan. 6, 2020, personal day of infamy.
Authoritarian populism has become the style of aspiring autocrats. From Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro to Russia’s Vladimir Putin or India’s Narenda Modi and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Aspiring demagogues rely upon rhetoric and histrionics rather than reason and openness.
Trump has largely been a failure as president but successful as an inciter. Not much of a legacy is it?
lbj@uwindsor.ca
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