President Trump's obscene $110 billion arms sale agreement with the Saudis last weekend was accompanied by the farce of his belief that his Arab customer in Riyadh represented Islam. This leaves out another 1.5 billion Muslims around the world who are not part of the deal, and of course some are not Sunni.
Not only is it a long stretch from local hegemony in the Saudi Arabian peninsula to the Taliban of Afghanistan but the weekend deal seemed determined to make war a priority as Trump strangely attacked Shiite Iran at the very moment 75 percent of its citizens had just elected Hassan Rouhani--- the moderate U. S. nuclear accords partner---to be their new president.
A 2010 Pew Research report demonstrates the absurdity of the Trump administration world view.
The Presidential Option for Violence
In the sinister good old days foreign governments meddled abroad at long distance as when Stalin had Trotsky beaten to death in Mexico (1940) or Chile's dictator, Pinochet, ordered the assassination of his political opponent, Orlando Letelier, by a car bomb that exploded in Washington's Sheridan Square (1976).
These days lethal events bear the mark of personal intimacy as Monday's suicide bombing in Manchester demonstrated, and as Trump's intimate foreign policy also demonstrated with last week's riot on Massachusetts Avenue. A jelly bean trail ran from the White House meeting of Turkey's president, Recept Erdogan, to his embassy where he watched from the comfort of his limousine while apparently ordering his personal bodyguards and embassy staff to attack demonstrators across the street who were protesting his policies. You can watch the shocking video here:
and here:
No one has been charged so far but it's to wonder if Erdogan--who has jailed 40,000 of his fellow citizens without trial this past year--was giving us a preview of how he and his American partner, Trump, are able to freely use strong-arm tactics in broad daylight to suppress dissent with impunity.
Here's another preview: Last May 1st this new intimate mode of lethal diplomacy via friendship was on view following a Saudi Arabian delegation visit to the White House. The President's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, invited delegates next door to nail down the $110 billion arms sale subsequently finalized in Riyadh by President Trump. In front of the awed Saudis Jared is reported to have even called Lockheed's CEO, Marilyn Hewson on the spot asking for a discount on the price of a "Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)" system the Saudis wished they could afford to buy. (She said she would look into it.)
Ending the U. S. Addiction to Violence
Of course, there's nothing new about American inspired political violence or U. S. corrupt and bloody deeds in international affairs. Many precedents to the Trump era today include the sorry trail of a CIA in 1953 overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadegh, replacing him with Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi whose imperious alliance with the U. S. led to the Iranian revolution of 1978, the hostage crisis, and on to the American secret arming of Saddam Hussein's Iraq during its 1980's war with Iran (revealed by Seymour Hersh's reporting), followed by the Bush invasion of Iraq in 2003 and our currently running fourteen year Middle East wars that created the rise of the ISIS caliphate.
Americans face a long slog to disown this history and define a democratic route to a civilized nation that practices both justice and peace. The immediate journey ahead includes a possible two term Republican White House, domination of a Right leaning Supreme Court for many years, and little sign of serious legislative initiative to dramatically reduce inequality.
The Impotence of Traditional Faith Communities
Do faith communities have the will to set aside their instituitional priorities and stand against this rising tide of chaos and violence? Recent research by the Pew Research Center suggests not. Their April 27th 2017 survey found that Trump's support from evangelicals is strongest among those who attend church regularly. "Eight-in-ten white evangelical Protestants who attend church at least once a month approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, including 67% who strongly approve of his job performance."
Even when Pew's polling includes the entire theological spectrum--from conservative to liberal--fifty percent of White Protestants and Catholics of all degrees of persuasion approve of Trump's job performance. An earlier March 2017 Pew survey found that "more than half the states (28) have [congressional] delegations that are composed entirely of Christians." Measured by demographics and opinion polls faith communities seem to offer little hope that they will be the bulwark against the rise of a Trump-like autocracy.
Forming New Interfaith Coalitions of Resistance
On the other hand the new Pew surveys found that 83 percent of African Americans and Latinos disapprove of Trump and this does offer hope for the future of a resistance movement. Multi racial interfaith PICO and IAF coalitions across the country are creating a more reliable bulwark against the rising tide of violence and chaos than mainline faith groups seem willing to mobilize.
Public witness for justice and peace in the public square is beginning to create the "new being" Paul Tillich once wrote about and that Rev. William Barber's Moral Mondays movement has activated: including new ways for people to unite around their shared ultimate concerns---becoming learning and witnessing communities of resistance while making institutional life and maintenance secondary; finding new common ground in the work of social repair and rebuilding that is ranging from housing and schools advocates to emergency response teams monitoring threatened ICE deportations, to progressive "political" action groups building cross-cultural, cross-class, trans- racial communities of resistance for the long haul.
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