Eric London WSWS
In the days since Michigan authorities and federal prosecutors announced the arrest of 13 people in a plot to kidnap and murder Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, President Donald Trump and his inner circle are intensifying their appeals to the fascist right.
While the plot was centered in Michigan, new information has surfaced making clear the plotters were involved in a far broader and ongoing national conspiracy. The criminal complaint filed last Thursday explained that the Michigan conspirators engaged in a plan to “take violent action against multiple state governments.”
The conspirators clearly felt they were acting with the support of the White House. Even after the plot was revealed, Trump denounced Whitmer yesterday for “complaining” and “crying” about the threat to kidnap and kill her. On Saturday, Trump impersonated Mussolini by giving a speech from the White House balcony in which he ranted to a small audience about the imminent danger that the country will be taken over by “socialists” and “communists.”
In this April 15, 2020, file photo protesters carry rifles near the steps of the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)
In a clear signal to his far-right supporters, the Trump campaign this weekend announced that the president’s son, Eric Trump, will give a rally at a gun shop in New Hudson, Michigan, a few miles from Milford and Waterford Township, where two of the 13 fascist plotters were arrested. The campaign also announced that Vice President Pence will attend a rally Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, another center of militia activity.
It was in Grand Rapids where two of the Michigan conspirators, Michael and William Null, appeared at an anti-lockdown protest this summer and were photographed alongside Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, a leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a fascist network of police founded by prominent Trump supporter and former Maricopa, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Leaf was named CSPOA’s “Sheriff of the Year” in 2016.
Leaf declared on Thursday that the plotters may have just been planning a “citizens’ arrest” of Whitmer, making clear he thought their actions were justified. Leaf had previously refused to enforce restrictions on businesses mandated by state regulations.
Mike Shirkey, Republican majority leader of the Michigan State Senate, reportedly walked up to the gallery of the state legislature in April to greet the fascists—including at least one of the men arrested last week—who had brought their assault rifles inside the building to threaten legislators.
Isolated media reports from earlier this year also raise many questions about the role of Trump campaign officials and big money donors in supporting the anti-lockdown protests that served as a means for the militia conspirators to plan their putsch.
Three groups that provided funding for the anti-lockdown protests, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, the Michigan Freedom Fund and the Convention of States Project, have close ties to leading Trump backers, including MCC founder Meshawn Maddock, an advisor to Trump’s campaign and a leader of the group “Women for Trump.”
Greg McNeilly, a longtime advisor to the billionaire DeVos family, leads the Michigan Freedom Fund. Betsy DeVos is Trump’s Education Secretary. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the former CEO of the mercenary firm Blackwater (now known as Xe) and a close collaborator with former Trump advisor Steven Bannon and Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. The Convention of States Project is funded by the billionaire Mercer family, has close ties to leading Trump immigration official Ken Cuccinelli and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and is led by Eric O’Keefe, a close advisor to the Koch family.
More details are also emerging about the connections of the arrested conspirators with other militia groups across the country. One of the militiamen, Barry Croft, was a prominent member of the fascist Three Percenters and Patriot Movement. National Public Radio referred to him as “a visible figure” who “made waves as an unknown who tried to streamline national leadership of the Three Percent” and aimed to obtain “a senior role in the movement,” based on interviews with anonymous militia leaders.
Two of the conspirators, Daniel Harris and Joseph Morrison, were in the Marine Corps—Harris from 2014 to 2019 and Morrison in the reserves from 2015 until last Thursday, the day of his arraignment. Harris was deployed at Camp Lejeaune in North Carolina, a known center of fascist cell activity.
The more details emerge as to the seriousness of the conspiracy, the more noticeable are the media’s and Democratic Party’s efforts to downplay the plot.
At a public event Saturday in Pennsylvania, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden vaguely referenced the possibility of “chicanery” in the November 3 election. In an indication of how sensitive ruling circles are to bringing attention to Trump’s conspiracy, Biden was forced to walk back his comments hours later, saying he only meant to stress that he would respect the outcome if he lost. Biden said voters “should not pay attention” to Trump’s threats to “influence and scare people from voting.”
In an interview yesterday with Governor Whitmer, CBS’s Margaret Brennan implied that Whitmer herself was to blame for provoking the fascist plot: “Governor, these are your constituents. How do you, in your state, unify things? I know you’re talking about the president and rhetoric, but what do you do to deal with this?” Whitmer responded by saying she wanted to work with all Michiganders, even those who oppose her.
The relative silence of the media and the Democratic Party stands in stark contrast to the howls of indignation from the Democratic Party establishment over the baseless claim that Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump with a few thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads. In advancing the interests of the military-intelligence apparatus, the Democrats are ruthless. But when it comes to safeguarding the most basic democratic rights, the Democrats are terrified of doing anything that will spark broader social opposition.
With the election just over three weeks away, Trump is pressing ahead with his own conspiracies to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the vote. He is counting on support from Wall Street, which backs his policy of “herd immunity,” along with fascistic forces within the police, immigration and military-intelligence apparatus. Trump calculates, moreover, that the Democratic Party is so terrified of opposition in the working class that it will accept a Trump coup rather than risk a social explosion.
But even if the Democrats, with the support of the military and intelligence agencies, prevent Trump from staying in power after the election, this will not alter the basic trajectory of American politics.
Whatever the outcome of the November election crisis, the tendencies revealed in recent weeks will only intensify. If Trump is defeated, his supporters will believe their candidate was “stabbed in the back,” justifying a further turn to the right. Armed militias will be normalized as a new element in the American political landscape.
The working class cannot wait passively for events to unfold. It must intervene into this crisis with its own program. The fight against the Trump administration and the resort of the ruling class to dictatorship and fascistic conspiracies must be countered through the development of an independent movement of the working class for socialism.
Democrats and corporate media cover-up Trump’s role in Michigan coup plot
Eric London WSWS
10 October 2020
In a clear signal to his far-right supporters, the Trump campaign this weekend announced that the president’s son, Eric Trump, will give a rally at a gun shop in New Hudson, Michigan, a few miles from Milford and Waterford Township, where two of the 13 fascist plotters were arrested. The campaign also announced that Vice President Pence will attend a rally Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, another center of militia activity.
It was in Grand Rapids where two of the Michigan conspirators, Michael and William Null, appeared at an anti-lockdown protest this summer and were photographed alongside Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, a leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a fascist network of police founded by prominent Trump supporter and former Maricopa, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Leaf was named CSPOA’s “Sheriff of the Year” in 2016.
Leaf declared on Thursday that the plotters may have just been planning a “citizens’ arrest” of Whitmer, making clear he thought their actions were justified. Leaf had previously refused to enforce restrictions on businesses mandated by state regulations.
Mike Shirkey, Republican majority leader of the Michigan State Senate, reportedly walked up to the gallery of the state legislature in April to greet the fascists—including at least one of the men arrested last week—who had brought their assault rifles inside the building to threaten legislators.
Isolated media reports from earlier this year also raise many questions about the role of Trump campaign officials and big money donors in supporting the anti-lockdown protests that served as a means for the militia conspirators to plan their putsch.
Three groups that provided funding for the anti-lockdown protests, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, the Michigan Freedom Fund and the Convention of States Project, have close ties to leading Trump backers, including MCC founder Meshawn Maddock, an advisor to Trump’s campaign and a leader of the group “Women for Trump.”
Greg McNeilly, a longtime advisor to the billionaire DeVos family, leads the Michigan Freedom Fund. Betsy DeVos is Trump’s Education Secretary. Her brother, Erik Prince, is the former CEO of the mercenary firm Blackwater (now known as Xe) and a close collaborator with former Trump advisor Steven Bannon and Trump’s sons, Eric and Don Jr. The Convention of States Project is funded by the billionaire Mercer family, has close ties to leading Trump immigration official Ken Cuccinelli and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and is led by Eric O’Keefe, a close advisor to the Koch family.
More details are also emerging about the connections of the arrested conspirators with other militia groups across the country. One of the militiamen, Barry Croft, was a prominent member of the fascist Three Percenters and Patriot Movement. National Public Radio referred to him as “a visible figure” who “made waves as an unknown who tried to streamline national leadership of the Three Percent” and aimed to obtain “a senior role in the movement,” based on interviews with anonymous militia leaders.
Two of the conspirators, Daniel Harris and Joseph Morrison, were in the Marine Corps—Harris from 2014 to 2019 and Morrison in the reserves from 2015 until last Thursday, the day of his arraignment. Harris was deployed at Camp Lejeaune in North Carolina, a known center of fascist cell activity.
The more details emerge as to the seriousness of the conspiracy, the more noticeable are the media’s and Democratic Party’s efforts to downplay the plot.
At a public event Saturday in Pennsylvania, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden vaguely referenced the possibility of “chicanery” in the November 3 election. In an indication of how sensitive ruling circles are to bringing attention to Trump’s conspiracy, Biden was forced to walk back his comments hours later, saying he only meant to stress that he would respect the outcome if he lost. Biden said voters “should not pay attention” to Trump’s threats to “influence and scare people from voting.”
In an interview yesterday with Governor Whitmer, CBS’s Margaret Brennan implied that Whitmer herself was to blame for provoking the fascist plot: “Governor, these are your constituents. How do you, in your state, unify things? I know you’re talking about the president and rhetoric, but what do you do to deal with this?” Whitmer responded by saying she wanted to work with all Michiganders, even those who oppose her.
The relative silence of the media and the Democratic Party stands in stark contrast to the howls of indignation from the Democratic Party establishment over the baseless claim that Russia stole the 2016 election for Trump with a few thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads. In advancing the interests of the military-intelligence apparatus, the Democrats are ruthless. But when it comes to safeguarding the most basic democratic rights, the Democrats are terrified of doing anything that will spark broader social opposition.
With the election just over three weeks away, Trump is pressing ahead with his own conspiracies to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the vote. He is counting on support from Wall Street, which backs his policy of “herd immunity,” along with fascistic forces within the police, immigration and military-intelligence apparatus. Trump calculates, moreover, that the Democratic Party is so terrified of opposition in the working class that it will accept a Trump coup rather than risk a social explosion.
But even if the Democrats, with the support of the military and intelligence agencies, prevent Trump from staying in power after the election, this will not alter the basic trajectory of American politics.
Whatever the outcome of the November election crisis, the tendencies revealed in recent weeks will only intensify. If Trump is defeated, his supporters will believe their candidate was “stabbed in the back,” justifying a further turn to the right. Armed militias will be normalized as a new element in the American political landscape.
The working class cannot wait passively for events to unfold. It must intervene into this crisis with its own program. The fight against the Trump administration and the resort of the ruling class to dictatorship and fascistic conspiracies must be countered through the development of an independent movement of the working class for socialism.
Democrats and corporate media cover-up Trump’s role in Michigan coup plot
Eric London WSWS
10 October 2020
Within 24 hours of the announcement of charges against 13 Michigan fascists who plotted to kidnap and kill Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the corporate media has pushed the story off the front pages. The far-reaching implications of this plot, and its connections to Trump’s strategy to transform the election into a coup, are being covered up.
By Friday morning, coverage of the Michigan conspiracy had all but disappeared from the online editions of the Washington Post and New York Times. Neither the Times nor the Post, the main newspapers politically aligned with the Democratic Party, have published an editorial on the plot. It was treated on the cable and network news as a minor part of the news cycle.
Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not issued a major statement on the plot and did not even refer to it at a campaign rally Thursday night in Phoenix, Arizona.
The Democratic Party and the corporate press have raised no questions about the potential role of Trump’s fascist advisers or where the plotters obtained the money to plan their operations and buy equipment. Unlike Watergate, there is to be no investigation or congressional hearings into the connections between the plotters and top operatives in and around the Trump administration. No Democrat has called for subpoenaing Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Steven Bannon, Erik Prince, or any other aides with ties to fascist groups. The position of the Democratic Party is: “nothing to see here.”
By Friday morning, coverage of the Michigan conspiracy had all but disappeared from the online editions of the Washington Post and New York Times. Neither the Times nor the Post, the main newspapers politically aligned with the Democratic Party, have published an editorial on the plot. It was treated on the cable and network news as a minor part of the news cycle.
Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have not issued a major statement on the plot and did not even refer to it at a campaign rally Thursday night in Phoenix, Arizona.
The Democratic Party and the corporate press have raised no questions about the potential role of Trump’s fascist advisers or where the plotters obtained the money to plan their operations and buy equipment. Unlike Watergate, there is to be no investigation or congressional hearings into the connections between the plotters and top operatives in and around the Trump administration. No Democrat has called for subpoenaing Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Steven Bannon, Erik Prince, or any other aides with ties to fascist groups. The position of the Democratic Party is: “nothing to see here.”
A right-wing protester carries his rifle at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan in an April 30 demonstration against Whitmer [Credit: AP Photo/Paul Sancya]
The rapidity of the coverup by the political establishment is inversely related to the amount of information making clear the Michigan events were only one part of an ongoing nationwide conspiracy. There is a clear and present danger of dictatorship in America. Workers must demand answers to questions about the plotters’ ties to the White House, the Republican Party, and their powerful dark money sources within the ruling elite.
The only significant statements about the broader framework of the conspiracy have come from Michigan officials. The state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, told MSNBC’s Katy Tur yesterday: “I will tell you this: this may very well be the tip of the iceberg. I don’t feel as though our work or the work of the federal authorities is complete. And I think there are still dangerous individuals that are out there.”
Speaking yesterday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, Whitmer warned, “I’m not the only governor going through this… It is not unique to me.”
Neither Michigan official gave any details of what they know. However, it is clear that the threats to kill governors and launch insurrections are focused on battleground states with Republican legislatures and Democratic governors: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These states are the linchpin of Trump’s strategy to carry out a coup.
In May, Salon reported police were investigating organized militias armed with assault rifles who were threatening North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper over lockdown measures. Anti-lockdown protesters were bused to the state Capitol with “enthusiastic astroturf support from Republican operatives and megadonors—one of whom offered to pay to bus protesters into the city.”
The rapidity of the coverup by the political establishment is inversely related to the amount of information making clear the Michigan events were only one part of an ongoing nationwide conspiracy. There is a clear and present danger of dictatorship in America. Workers must demand answers to questions about the plotters’ ties to the White House, the Republican Party, and their powerful dark money sources within the ruling elite.
The only significant statements about the broader framework of the conspiracy have come from Michigan officials. The state’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, told MSNBC’s Katy Tur yesterday: “I will tell you this: this may very well be the tip of the iceberg. I don’t feel as though our work or the work of the federal authorities is complete. And I think there are still dangerous individuals that are out there.”
Speaking yesterday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, Whitmer warned, “I’m not the only governor going through this… It is not unique to me.”
Neither Michigan official gave any details of what they know. However, it is clear that the threats to kill governors and launch insurrections are focused on battleground states with Republican legislatures and Democratic governors: Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. These states are the linchpin of Trump’s strategy to carry out a coup.
In May, Salon reported police were investigating organized militias armed with assault rifles who were threatening North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper over lockdown measures. Anti-lockdown protesters were bused to the state Capitol with “enthusiastic astroturf support from Republican operatives and megadonors—one of whom offered to pay to bus protesters into the city.”
In Pennsylvania, a 28-year-old was charged on May 11 for organizing an armed group to kill Democratic Governor Tom Wolf. The next day, on May 12, Trump tweeted: “The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now and they are fully aware of what that entails.”
In Wisconsin, fascist gunman Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two protesters on August 23 during protests in Kenosha against the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse was part of a network of fascist militia who descended upon the city. Trump praised Rittenhouse and defended his actions, writing in August that “he was in big trouble. He probably would have been killed.”
Similar threats have been made against the Democratic governors in other states.
Yesterday, a radio station in Louisiana (which is not considered a battleground state) reported that “more than 30 groups designated as ‘hate groups’ or anti-government militias like the group arrested last week in Michigan” place Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards’ life in danger.
In January, when over 10,000 militia rallied at the Virginia state capital in Richmond, Democratic Governor Ralph Northam said he had “credible intelligence” that the demonstrators “may be armed and have as their purpose not peaceful assembly, but violence, rioting and insurrection.” A state legislator, Democratic Socialists of America member Lee Carter, was forced to flee the capital to a safe house due to threats against his life.
On September 17, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House of Representatives that the agency was conducting “a good bit north of 1,000 [investigations of far-right violence] this year.” This was “higher” than normal, he said, explaining that the threat posed by right-wing militias was “commensurate with ISIS.”
The next day, Trump threatened to fire Wray for these comments, saying, “I did not like his answers yesterday,” and “Antifa is bad, really bad.”
Wray’s testimony and the recent threats against other Democratic governors in battleground states raise serious questions. What do the remainder of the over 1,000 ongoing investigations show? How many fascist groups are mobilizing to carry out insurrection this November? Which governors are next? Who are the other figures on their “kill lists?”
On all of these questions, the Democrats and their main media mouthpieces are silent. By contrast, the pro-Trump Wall Street Journal went on the offensive, publishing an editorial on the Michigan plot that characterized Whitmer’s regime as an “overreaching state government,” which “exceeded her legal authority in the pandemic, and often in arrogant fashion.” It went on to denounce Whitmer for blaming Trump and echoed Trump’s declaration that she should have thanked the “Trump Justice Department.”
The silence of the Democrats and the media on what is the most advanced conspiracy to overthrow the constitution in American history can only be understood in class terms. The principal concern of the Democratic Party, a party of Wall Street and factions of the military-intelligence apparatus, is that the working class will become aware of the enormous dangers and take independent action.
On Wednesday, after Trump left the Walter Reed Medical Center, the World Socialist Web Site explained that he had to return rapidly to the White House because his ongoing political conspiracies could not be orchestrated from a hospital bed. While noting the extreme crisis of the Trump administration, the WSWS wrote:
There is one factor that works in Trump’s favor: the duplicity, spinelessness and fundamentally reactionary character of the Democratic Party. The Democrats can claim no credit for the crisis of the Trump administration. Rather than exposing his plots, they have done everything they can to stifle mass opposition to Trump’s fascistic conspiracies and cover up the danger of dictatorship.
The Democrats’ response to the attempted coup in Michigan once again exposes their political role. They want to ensure that the unprecedented political crisis remains confined entirely to the conflicts within the ruling class and its state.
Opposing Trump’s plot against America means pulling the rug out from under the financial aristocrats who plot and conspire against the democratic rights of the population. This task falls to the working class, which produces all of society’s wealth and is forced to go to work and school under deadly conditions. It is this powerful social force that must lead the opposition to Trump’s attempt to establish a dictatorship.
/cloudfront-ap-southeast-2.images.arcpublishing.com/nzme/5G4GA25GWYRM56TY7VM673X4LQ.jpg)
In 2016, Hadjian performed in Sharjah at an event that commemorated Armenian Independence Day. Nancy Hajian
