John Cusack is a fool.
John Cusack means well.
John Cusack has been willing to put himself at risk to help people of color.
But he’s still a fool.
When he says that he wants the upheavals to continue until Trump is gone, he shows an appalling historical illiteracy.
The upheavals and the violence will help Trump stay in power.
Let me give you my viewpoint. It’s a perspective you may find useful.
In 1964 the Democratic Party was poised to stay in power for a very long time. The radical Right candidate for president the Republicans ran that year was utterly crushed. The Democrats enjoyed commanding majorities in both houses of Congress. And it was the last time the Democrats won a majority of white voters. (True!)
The Democrats used their majorities to establish Medicare, push through the Voting Rights Act, attack poverty, and protect the environment. The whole progressive agenda was being enacted, and the reactionaries were helpless to prevent it.
But things got out hand. Lyndon Johnson made the utterly disastrous decision to expand the U.S. role in Vietnam. And violence in America’s big cities shocked and horrified much of the nation’s populace. The “race riots” (to use an old term) that engulfed the U.S., along with a truly atrocious crime rate and the sometimes violent protests against the war in Vietnam, turned what was then called “Middle America” against us. As a teenager, I saw all this happening, although I didn’t understand much of it. Later, I would learn that more people had died in the horrible 1921 Tulsa massacre of African-Americans than all of the riots of the 1960s combined.
But the damage was done. A white America that had been on our side in 1964 turned against us with a vengeance.
By 1968, the Democratic share of the popular vote had dropped from 61% in 1964 to less than 43%. Richard Nixon and racist George Wallace combined to win 57% of the vote. Richard Nixon squeaked through to victory.
Nixon’s victory was a tragedy. We found out later that Nixon had sabotaged a possible settlement to the war, prolonging it by four years, the greatest act of treason (in my opinion) in American history. Nixon started the catastrophic “War on Drugs”. He appointed the awful William Rehnquist, who had started his career by helping to suppress minority voting in Arizona, to the Supreme Court. He brought Dick Cheney into public life, and Donald Rumsfeld, too. Roger Stone got his start by doing dirty tricks on Nixon’s behalf. Not everything Nixon did was bad, not by any means, but the negative consequences of his election are still being felt.
My message, therefore, is simple:
VIOLENCE ALIENATES PEOPLE. AND ALIENATED PEOPLE TEND TO SUPPORT THOSE WHO PROMISE TO END THE VIOLENCE.
I feel your outrage at the shocking police violence that so often snuffs out the lives of people of color. I am dismayed by the persistence of systematic racism, and I have railed on many occasions against the appalling economic inequality of American life. I stand by all these positions proudly.
BUT I WILL NEVER SUPPORT LOOTING, I WILL NEVER SUPPORT SHOOTING AT COPS, I WILL NEVER SUPPORT ARSON. NEVER.
And if this violence does not end soon, it will play into the hands of one person above all: Trump.
I know I sound like a broken record. But this is an election we MUST win. The future of America itself is riding on it. If we are seen supporting violence and physical attacks on cops, we will lose support, support we cannot afford to lose. If we lose enough of it, we lose everything.
And America’s democratic republic will be firmly in the hands of right wing criminals, authoritarians, and fanatics.
So yes, John Cusack is a fool. A well-meaning fool.
But a fool nonetheless.