The gratuitous and protracted killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on Memorial Day spurred an unprecedented outpouring of black American demands for police accountability and systemic change – beginning in Minneapolis, with some high visibility instances of property destruction, looting, and violence.  But in the main, nationwide protests have been peaceful.  They also exhibit hitherto unseen transracial and societal solidarity, well outside the urban areas where protest began.  This is a rapidly developing constituency with the potential to drive a major recalibration of American society.

Much remains uncertain.  But the breadth of the perception gap builds on an already stunning polarization in American society as the November elections approach – and the prevalence of firearms (and their centrality in the identity, in particular, among Trump’s constituency) makes this a particularly volatile moment.  What became abundantly clear with Trump’s attempt to militarize responses to protests and unrest, as well as having Lafayette Square cleared of peaceful protesters for his photo op at St. John’s Church, was that there are no limits to his efforts to drive polarization.  It is not incidental to his agenda.  It is essential.

The political dynamics playing out at present emerge organically from the soil of America’s four centuries of racial oppression and inequity.  But the Black Lives Matter Movement and demonstrations nationwide gained a global resonance and solidarity, spurring societal reflections and calls for justice.  These are both closely related to the abuse of power which generated the popular outrage – systemic police brutality, but also local issues of systemic unfairness and lack of reckoning with the past.  So while this historical moment emerged with specific American contours, it is a global one. 

Some parallels can be made from quarters not typically high in the US public consciousness.  Trump’s operating system is strongly reminiscent of those which have played out from the late 1980s to date in the former Yugoslavia.  The resemblance is so strong that I have called Trump “our first Balkan president.”  

Inated States of America

Trump’s initial and continuing appeal to his constituency has been reaction to and fear of societal change, as well as resentment at its perceived prime movers and beneficiaries.  In what became the waning days of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milošević appealed to Serbs, first in Kosovo where they felt outnumbered and displaced from a rightful dominance by the majority ethnic Albanians, but then throughout Yugoslavia, playing on their sense of having been cheated in the multinational Yugoslav federation.  A potent element in his – and other nationalists’ – repertoire was inat (Ee-not), a word brought via Ottoman Turkish usually translated as “spite,” but closer in meaning to German schadenfreude, requiring a longer explanation in English.  It connotes in four letters “this is going to hurt me, but it’s going to hurt you more – and I am going to enjoy that you are suffering.”  While English has no snappy equivalent, it is clearly felt here and has become pandemic.  “Owning the libs,” “rolling coal,” and “triggering” are all evidence of this trend.  Donald Trump’s harnessing a deep seam of untapped inat made him president.  His administration has been a breeder reactor of it ever since. 

The fear of a reckoning for past wrongdoing can be a strong bonding agent for communities and societies.  This was evident in Nazi Germany in 1945, as Allied armies advanced from east and west. Germans flocked westward, fearing the revenge of a ravaged Soviet Union.  In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik has often said the country was untenable because of Bosniak desire for “revenge,” while continuing to deny that genocide had been committed against them by Bosnian Serb forces in the war – a legally established fact.  His rationale was clearly to frighten Bosnian Serbs to cleave to his leadership, for fear of being overwhelmed.  Demographic fear of being outnumbered by Muslim fellow citizens proved of great utility as a mobilizing tool among Serbs in particular; a “green transversal” theory was touted – and remains in circulation.  Genocidal policies and acts from the wars of the 1990s have provided inspiration for white identity nationalist violence worldwide, most vividly in Anders Breivik’s 2011 Utoya massacre in Norway and in the Christchurch shootings in 2019.  The “great replacement” theory – that whites and Christians will be outnumbered and dominated by migrants and non-Christian minorities – gained traction in Europe and the wider West, despite the evidence contradicting the apocalyptic Clash of Civilizations visions.

While the demographics at play in the United States are very different – African Americans are 13% of the population – the fears of the waning of white dominance in the US have been central to Trump’s appeal to “Make America Great Again.”  But the direction of travel toward whites ceasing to be the majority in just a generation, provides an ambient fear environment undergirding the entire Trump agenda.  Trump’s referring to white nationalist demonstrators at a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville as “very fine people” was widely seen as validation. (The rally featured a Nuremberg-style torchlit march in which participants chanted “you will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” and one antifascist demonstrator, Heather Heyer, was killed and several more critically injured in a deliberate car attack.) The fact that Trump advisor Stephen Miller, behind the Muslim ban and institutional brutality toward asylum seekers, is reputed to be writing an upcoming Trump speech on race, is indicative of the likely content.  The timing and venue of that speech – initially scheduled to be delivered on June 19^th in Tulsa, Oklahoma – seems as calculated and egregious an expression on inat politics as any in the Trump presidency.  June 19, “Juneteenth,” is the day American blacks celebrate the end of slavery; Tulsa was the scene of a particularly devastating racial pogrom against the black community in 1921.  The fact that the rally has been shifted a day has done nothing to dull the initial message sent that black lives do not matter, but rather only provides (im)plausible deniability.

Such calculated polarization to maintain power remains endemic in post-Yugoslav politics.  A Catholic mass in Sarajevo, sponsored by the parliament of Croatia, to commemorate victims of the summary executions by Tito’s partisans of Croat and other collaborationists (including civilians) fleeing Yugoslavia in Bleiburg in 1945 was the most recent such example of spectacles designed specifically to inflame and divide.  The backlash in Sarajevo against the mass was predictable, though its scale surprised many during the current pandemic.

Now that a much more pronounced demand for an end to police brutality against blacks has been made, and the disproportionate harm the coronavirus has wreaked upon the black population in particular (and people of color more broadly) has come into focus, demands for a more thorough recalibration of the American social contract and order are being heard.  It precipitated palpable angst, particularly in exurban and rural white Trump strongholds, in large part due to disinformation.  Yet in that same terrain, less predictably, unprecedented solidarity demonstrations continue.  Polling conducted on June 9-10 shows overwhelming support for peaceful protests, with even a 59 percent majority of Republican respondents in favor – 82 percent for banning police chokeholds.  This is a tectonic shift.

Trump’s call on governors to “dominate” the protests, employing overwhelming force, as well as insistence on the theatrical deployment of National Guard and militarized, unidentified federal agents, demonstrates a clear desire to play to those fears and escalate a sense of crisis.  It is likely that he wanted to seize the initiative to precipitate more confrontation and violence, to give both a pretext for the harsh crackdown he desired and to scare white voters who might have thought of gravitating to Biden or sitting the election out into voting for him.  In essence, by escalating radically, he aimed to force them to choose between fear and a sense of justice or fairness.  The greater the perception of chaos, the more likely they would vote for him.

Efforts to escalate deep social divides for political gain were seen recently in another part of the former Yugoslavia – North Macedonia – twice in two years.  In both cases – a still murky firefight between security forces and ethnic Albanian militants in the town of Kumanovo in May 2015 and a “spontaneous” nationalist attack on opposition lawmakers to prevent the formation of a government in April 2017 – the evident aim was to stoke fears of renewed ethnic conflict (or even actual violence) to justify a clampdown and Nikola Greuvski remaining in control (in 2015 as prime minister; in 2017 as the clear power behind a caretaker government).  In neither case did it have the desired effect.  Gruevski is now a political asylee in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

Trump’s Phantom Paramilitary Boogeymen

Dominance of media isn’t feasible as before – but it doesn’t need to be once society is so polarized that the information space is effectively politically segregated.  In this world – in broadcast, online, and social media – Antifa, a loose self-organized agglomeration of leftist streetfighters who sometimes appear at demonstrations and engage in violence, has been amplified from the fringe phenomenon it truly is into a fearsome paramilitary army in the Trumpworld imaginary.   But this has already had real world consequences, with peaceful multiracial Black Lives Matter marchers having to pass a long lineup of heavily armed residents in northeast Indiana – in sight of police – being just one of many examples of the potential confrontations set up trough manufactured fear. 

In the past week, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has provided a perfect window into this dynamic, showing a number of Yugoslav-era parallels.  In his monologue, Carlson acts deliberately as a white fear agitator and amplifier – both to Fox’s overwhelmingly white, right-wing viewership, but at least as importantly to President Trump himself, playing to his most authoritarian and repressive instincts.  It is, in effect, an admonition not to “go wobbly,” but rather to radicalize, as demonstrated in Lafayette Square.  He spoke of “the mob” swarming “like hornets,” calling on those in government to “protect your people.”  Carlson in particular among major media commentators is promoting what might be called a “black scare,” stoking an ambient fear of chaos which can only be met with repression, both from the government, but also from militia types.  The fact that such messages continue long after any significant incidence of property damage or violence from demonstrators is telling.  In a recent episode, he argued that any engagement with the Black Lives Matter movement was a slippery slope.  Maintaining group homogenization – and segregation – is a staple of top-down Balkan politics.

This is a typical post-Yugoslav technique.  Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik, for example, could have scripted this immediate grasp for the lever of fear.  In response to demonstrations at poverty and lack of accountability which erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in early 2014, Dodik spoke darkly of the threat to the Republika Srpska from the neighboring Federation half of the state, illegally establishing checkpoints, as well.  But he was simply the best positioned to act with coercive power on the fears he stoked; other politicians in the country had parallel instincts to ethnicize the protests to deflect public anger away from themselves. The fact that this failed to gain traction was not lost on citizens throughout the country.  Four years later, following the still murky murder of a Banja Luka youth, David Dragičević, demonstrations began, led by his father, Davor, against widely suspected police misconduct and perhaps involvement.  The deep public distrust of the official version from Dodik’s authorities helped the movement grow – and gain palpable solidarity across ethnic lines, merging with demonstrations in Sarajevo against authorities for the killing of local youth Dženan Memić – also with high suspicion of official malfeasance.  The fathers of the young men became allies and friends – and struck fear into the static political establishment like no bottom-up effort since the war.  Violent suppression of demonstrations in Banja Luka in late 2018 broke the momentum.  But the demonstrated popular solidarity challenged the dark soul of the country’s corrupt power-sharing machine, showing the limits to the effectiveness of the old divisive toolkit. In another parallel, the Covid-19 crisis has given established political leaders the ability to direct public resources in blatantly self-dealing ways – or without any transparency at all.  This phenomenon was observed ludicrously in Bosnia, where an SDA-connected raspberry farmer was able to get a concession for ventilators at an absurd markup – a fact exposed through investigative journalism.  In the US, Trump’s Treasury Department refuses to disclose the distribution of $500 billion in aid to businesses, with Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin stating that the information concerning this public money was “proprietary.”  In both cases, fear of accountability is evidently absent, as patronage is surely present.

The movement’s rapid growth, wide reach, and wider pool of sympathy may, counterintuitively, stiffen resistance and its recalcitrance.  The very diversity of participation in the growing demonstrations, as well as their broad reach, is likely an amplifier of angst for a certain segment of the white population.  If my children, grandchildren, friends or neighbors don’t evidently share my fears, at least I know Trump does – and he has my back. 

Over the course of the Trump presidency, much has been made of his erratic nature, that he seems to lack a governing strategy.  But in a land without strategic opponents, the intuitive tactician is king.  Trump has a thin playbook (the very term is antithetical to his ethos), but the plays in it are tried and true.  General James Mattis correctly observed he hasn’t even tried to unite the American people.  This is by design.  He never could to begin with; his goal is to keep his own constituency galvanized behind him and to keep his opponents divided or otherwise neutralized.  The noxious, caustic atmosphere of division, resentment, fear, and enemies is the only air that he can breathe to survive politically.

His trip to the White House bunker was therefore metaphorically perfect, as well as a reflection of genuine fear – leading to his performance of authoritarianism in “the battle of Lafayette Square.”  The broadening of a popular movement for change against police brutality, which he has advocated and supported, does not bode well for him.  The terms of the political discourse in America have already changed radically as a result first of a global pandemic, and now a concurrent movement demanding equality and justice.  That changes the atmospheric composition to one upon which Trump cannot survive.

Social movement research demonstrates that developing breadth in a movement – and cutting into support bases of the regime – dramatically increases the possibility of success.  And this is precisely what Trump fears.  Furthermore, the loyalty of security forces is also essential.  The unwillingness of the (rump) Yugoslav Army and much of the police to violently disperse crowds in Belgrade after Slobodan Milošević’s attempt to steal an early presidential election put paid to his regime – and ultimately landed him in the dock to face war crimes charges.  The statements by former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and several other secretaries of defense, chiefs of staff, and defense officials are clearly aimed at encouraging those in uniform to not obey an illegal order.  The June 11^th statement by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley that his appearance with the president in his photo op had been “a mistake” which made the military appear political, amplified this.

We may never know what went through Trump’s mind as he heard chanting crowds outside the White House and hurried downstairs.  But his phone call to governors and photo op soon after seemed an attempt to calm himself, to “take back control.”  But like the Wizard of Oz, his machinery failed him.  Unfortunately, he is not the only one afraid.  And we can count on the fact that he will do his utmost to amplify and capitalize on those fears.  There’s nothing scarier than scared white people.

The post Polarization for Power and Profit: the Balkan Echoes of Trump’s Politics appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

Valery Perry, DPC Senior Associate

While my colleague Kurt Bassuener pointedly described Donald Trump as “America’s first Balkan president” in 2019, the parallels have been evident to followers of politics in the US and the Balkan region for some time.

Aleksandar Hemon presciently identified Trump’s evident and opportunistic populism in 2016; and more recently he pointed out the seemingly inevitable next phase as Trump’s followers have been steadily radicalized and primed for action, whether through the ballot box or as armed gangs laying physical claim to the public square. Hemon has seen this all unfold before, and knows well the impact on his native Bosnia and Herzegovina.

One can never discount the visceral and emotional element that characterizes the relationship between populist, nationalist leaders and their willing followers, or the ease with which “blood and soil” becomes the basis for both sloganeering and a purported policy option. However even the most effective propagandists would fail in the absence of a fertile ecosystem for such shallow yet somehow seductive platitudes.

The perverse sexiness of propagandists get the most attention in any age – from Leni Riefenstehl’s Nazi fever dreams to the mastery of social media tools by reprehensible groups ranging from ISIS to the violent far-right. Yet more mundane explanations for the social readiness of populations to fall prey to such spectacle can very often be found in the dullest mechanisms of accountable governance and independent oversight, and the lived despair and frustration-fuelled grievance that mushrooms in its absence.

Seeing the impact of weak (or weakening) accountability mechanisms in the seemingly very different cases of Bosnia and the US show the challenges and threats regardless of scale and scope, and in spite of the seeming “maturity” of democratic institutions in the latter.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina the velocity of corruption’s acceleration has been swift, its pursuit blatant – but completely predictable. The notion that a rural berry farmer would suddenly be managing multi-million dollar deals to procure ventilators from China is indeed ludicrous, and has been treated as such by irate citizens on social media. However it is an obvious target mostly because it is simply a visible and easily understandable example of self-dealing, simpler to grasp than much more complex multi-year schemes, or the technocratic financial shell games of public budget rebalancing.  

In the US the acceleration of corruption and malgovernance has been equally shameless, but comes with a much higher price tag. In terms of ease of understanding, the American berry farmer equivalent might be the failed $69 million ventilator procurement deal that was essentially brokered over Twitter.

Yet even more nefarious is the systemic and systematic influence peddling that has steadily taken over Washington since it was turned into an art form in the 1980s (not coincidentally by several men who would go on to advise Trump.) While arguably unethical, much of this is legal, though overreach has led to lawbreaking as well.

A lengthy whistleblower report recently filed in the US directly noted pressure to steer contracts to companies and individuals with personal ties to the Trump family, beginning already in 2017, but now also during the heightened pressure of the pandemic, as huge public sums are suddenly available. The whistleblower explicitly called for an investigation by the inspector general, “to help break up the ‘cottage industry’ of marketing consultants and political influence into these contracts.”

This is legalized corruption, given a veneer of respectability but at the end of the day equally demonstrating the corrosive practice of transferring public resources towards targeted and personal private gain.

In normal times in the US, abuses of this kind this would be (imperfectly) countered as the system’s auto-immune response kicked in – the lauded “checks and balances” of American governance. However, in line with Trump’s ongoing war on independent oversight that hampers him from rewarding his family and friends, these accountability mechanisms themselves are  under threat. 

And these cases are not just about money being skimmed off the top and stolen. They are about intentionally undermining trust in democratic and accountable systems and processes of governance. In the absence of trust, and particularly in environments of growing inequality, disenchanted citizens can more easily withdraw from public space, or gravitate towards their own tribal politics, whether that is through joining a party, donning a red cap, or fall prey to more extreme affiliations online, or in the real world.

In these environments, the very basic citizen solidarity needed to serve as an additional correction to abuse frays. And this is not an unintentional byproduct of innocent theft. It is the goal of state – or party – capture.

The irony is not lost on those familiar with years of American support for whistleblower and other anti-corruption programs abroad as a part of general democratization support programming. Those who share DPC’s foundational commitment to accountability in democracy promotion recognize how damaging such blatant malfeasance is, feeding cynicism on hypocrisy in “the West”. Yet such a humbling also demonstrates that there is no magic wand; no country or political system is immune to exploitation and institutionalized corruption. Citizens who believe in a right to accountable governance increasingly recognize they are all fighting the same fight.

Events unfolding in both the US and BiH  – in spite of the massive differences in scale and influence – represent an official political disregard for the established institutions of transparent decision-making on how the people’s tax money should be allocated for the public good. And both represent the rot that happens when kafana or country club politics allows for and facilitates nepotism and self-dealing at the expense of sound and transparent public policy held in check by independent oversight.

The post Unmasked Self-Dealing: Different Games, Same Goal appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.