English

10/5/2020

At point blank: What’s behind anti-lockdown armed groups in Michigan?

The tug-of-war behind the scenes of the auto industry and the political crisis
 

After two provocative armed protests, where radical right-wing sectors of the State of Michigan demonstrated against the continuity of the quarantine, in line with the proposals of “re-opening” the economy and a "return to normalcy" that Donald Trump has been promoting, on Friday May 1st the movement against the lockdown took its first life.


It wasn’t an insurrectional action, but the absurd execution of a security employee of a Family Dollar supermarket in the city of Flint. Calvin Munerlyn (43) asked a customer at the supermarket to put on a facemask or leave. Sometime later, two of his relatives returned to the store and shot Munerlyn in the head.



“Very good people”


Although there is no known direct relation between the killers and the protests, it isn’t hard to connect the murder with the statements made the day before by those who occupied the state legislature with assault rifles calling for the end of the lockdown and the rejection of an extension of emergency powers for the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The protesters carried signs comparing the governor with Hitler and saying "tyrants get the rope”. They also promoted the opening of non-essential businesses on May 1.


The Michigan Liberty Militia, which is identified as the force behind the actions of some hundreds of members, is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (a group dedicated to keeping a record of racist and far-right groups) as part of the far-right movement that builds on conspiracy theories, racism and anti-semitism and is part of the far-right world that Donald Trump supports and from where many of his cabinet members come from.


Trump himself gave political support to the action in the legislature, twitting that the protests were held by a group of "very good people", and that Whitmer should "give a little bit in" to these people who wanted their lives back. "FREE MICHIGAN" he tweeted after. The millionaire and conservative education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has been singled out by The Guardian as funding the Michigan groups. Other billionaire clans behind Trump such as the Koch Brothers and the Coors family also fund right-wing groups calling for a "return to work”.


It is noteworthy that when, in 1967, the Black Panther Party held a peaceful protest carrying legal weapons in the California legislature, its members were arrested. On Thursday, in Michigan, there was a minor shoving with the police and only one protester was delayed after the armed occupation of the building. It is neither secret nor new that far-right groups in the U.S. act with broad collusion with the authorities.


The pace of economic reopening in various states is the focus of the political crisis between the president and many of the governors, while the number of casualties continues growing exponentially. Michigan events are part of the initiatives taken by supporters of Trump and the Republican Party in states disputed in this year's elections and that are key due to their electoral college votes. In this state alone, there have been 43,207 confirmed cases of coronavirus, and 4,020 deaths (as of May 5th)


The weight of Trump’s initiatives in the struggle with the governor is not limited, of course, to a few tweets. The legislature with a Republican majority rejected the governor’s request for an extension, which she extended with an executive order. They have also instructed the Attorney’s Office to file a legal case against its provisions, which has been rejected in the court where it was issued.


The Democratic Party strives to differentiate themselves from Trump in the eve of the elections but also has an end to the lockdown as its goal. They claim they want to do so "responsibly" and with "science" rather than "political interests" at its core. Although they have no trouble appearing "responsible" in contrast to Trump, the truth is that all its wings, including the leftist Bernie Sanders, have supported the fiscal rescue package that is transferring millions from the Treasury directly to the big monopolies and banks in the context of a real catastrophe.


Who laid the serpent's egg?


These events show the extreme political and social polarization that we have already characterized, and which has been aggravated by the transformation of the United States into the global epicenter of the pandemic. The protests mobilize a petite bourgeois sector, of small merchants, without social conscience, self-employed, who are in a state of panic because of the combined impact of the political crisis and the pandemic. Trump has been motivating this social base with his whole repertoire of right-wing demagogy, which includes resuming anti-immigrant campaigns, blaming China (and not his own suicide policy) for the spread of the pandemic or relativizing its severity, promising a vaccine in a short time or the possibility of experimenting with bleach to generate immunity.


This isn’t the mainstream opinion of the American people. A recent poll by The Washington Post states that only 1% of respondents think it is safe to lift restrictions on activities at this time. A survey by Rutgers and Harvard says that in Michigan itself, support for the continuation of quarantine is 68% (against 24%). But it is a minority that Trump, and the employers' interests affected by the quarantine, find useful as an intimidation force. The media has given a huge amplification to these anti-quarantine protests, while tending to cover up workers' and people conflicts.


Clearly the U.S. political regime has no conditions to impose the destruction of the labor movement. It doesn’t have the political resources to impose fascism either. That doesn’t prevent it, however, from promoting and fostering groups that resemble its ideology and social characteristics. This is a warning that the labor movement and political activists in the United States can’t overlook. In the deep crisis we are barely beginning to witness, the deep opposition of the raised interests is going to put forward the need for the political and physical defeat of the right-wing bands.


Why is there panic in Detroit?


Michigan deserves special attention from Trump because it is one of the "swing-states", so it has no defined dominant political force. These states are vital to win the national elections. But the presidential polls are not the only interests behind these clashes. The country's auto industry, which has its center in Detroit (thus its nickname “Motortown”) and its surroundings, was closed down by the initiative of its workers in the face of the spread of the virus. Two dozen auto workers even died of coronavirus, including 15 from the Chrysler plant in Detroit.


The Detroit Big 3 (GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler) have now set the date on May 18 to restart production. The current quarantine conditions appear to be the formal obstacle. The basic problem is the balance of power between the industry owners and the workers. Although the bosses and the union (UAW) have made progress in talks to resume a task that’s in no way essential, the possibilities of implementing the return to work remain to be seen. The "wildcat strikes" in defense of sanitary working conditions have been spreading in different unions over the bureaucratic leaderships.