The Big Idea
Last week, I talked about restructuring the Department of Homeland Security into the Department of National Resilience, and of reforming Customs and Border Protection while shifting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement back to the Justice Department, since immigration matters should be treated as a minor matter of administrative law. Many people would like to “abolish” these organizations, but the hard fact is they do work any government must have done. What we need to do is reinvent these organizations comprehensively—to “democratize” them.
You may recall that, after we conquered Iraq in 2003, Viceroy Jerry Bremer dissolved the entire Iraqi Armed Forces, without any compensation or plan to reintegrate them into Iraqi society. No single action did more to create an insurgency against the U.S., full of angry and well-trained soldiers. Ya’ think it might be a bad idea to repeat that domestically?
The U.S. security sector requires a dramatic restructuring to curb an insurgency, and yet it should be clear we can’t just go kicking people out. We need to create incentives that make career cops want to leave the security sector, while making sure they’re respected and have opportunities in the broader economy—especially since we don’t want these guys moving on to cop jobs in poorer towns or sketchy private security mall-cop work, where they’re most likely to get into fresh trouble. We’d much rather pay for these guys to buy some bass boats and restrict their gun usage to hunting season.
The Biden Administration’s reforms of CBP and ICE should be models the U.S. government then funds for communities that want federal support. They should allow for:
· Immediately retiring all retirement-eligible officers involuntarily, but with full pensions;
· Establishing “Truth Commissions” to review these agencies’ conduct, identify personnel who should be removed, and develop new laws or policies to prevent future abuses;
· Ending all privately-contracted services involving direct contact with civilians, especially prisons and detention facilities; and
· Buying out officers with 10-20 years of experience if we think they aren’t good exemplars of the future security sector we want to build.
We then replace those personnel with the new national/local service personnel we acquire through a broad national service program training first responders in every high school and college. For example, we fill Arizona’s need for CBP officers with kids from Arizona who are willing to spend 2-4 years doing CBP work before moving on to college or jobs, subsidized by a broader national service GI Bill.
“Democratizing” our police lets us break the “Thin Blue Line” mentality and the police unions that support it. We do this, not by “draining the swamp,” but by “flooding the swamp” with a lot more “fresh water” in the form of personnel without long-term professional investment in policing culture. Instead of a dry desert, we get a picturesque security wetland suited for beaches, fishing, and boating.
One of the real benefits of moving to national-service policing is that non-professional, short-term and or part-time cops would be a lot cheaper, which means we can afford many more of them. Research shows that most people, even in minority communities, want more police rather than fewer. This instinct among people matches with evidence that larger forces have less-tired officers who feel safer with more colleagues around, and that this makes officers less likely to commit acts of violence or misconduct.
Is there a problem with de-professionalizing federal and local law enforcement? Maybe. But we don’t have good evidence to show us that professional forces are all that great. Most major crime cases don’t get solved. Experience in service doesn’t correlate positively to complaints about police abuses—that is to say, cops’ behavior doesn’t improve with age. Obviously, someone with 3-5 years of experience as a cop will be better than someone with a year or less. But there is no evidence that 7-15 years makes someone even better still. Obviously, we need experienced, career cops as sergeants, lieutenants, detectives, SWAT snipers, forensic investigators, etc. But that’s a small minority of total police personnel. Short-term volunteers/draftees/reservists should suffice for patrol.
A national-service policing program would take a few years to produce its first cadre. If you wanted to jump-start the process of democratizing policing, imagine a “Teach for America” for cops, where the very brightest Americans could volunteer for the chance to spend a few years in police jobs in under-served communities. CBP and ICE could be the ideal test-beds for such a program.
Frankly, we don’t just need to do this for better policing; we need to do this for better citizens. Being “woke” is cheap; even participating in protest is relatively cheap compared to stepping up and actually volunteering to do some socially-necessary work, like policing and border security. Political leaders and citizens should see that we’d be a better society if more of us were involved in serving and protecting us.
Improved security services are a huge element of domestic counterinsurgency. Next week, I’ll look at the most important element of all: Biden’s political counterinsurgency strategy for 50 fractious states.
The Week
This has been a pretty conventional week. Joe Biden appears to be pulling ahead in both polls and fundraising, while Second Confederate President Donald Trump’s campaign continues to appear as shambolic as the candidate himself. Senator Lindsey Graham blew up another Senate rule—relating to committee quorums—to push Amy Coney Barrett to the floor for a Supreme Court confirmation vote. Senate Republicans seem to be assuming Trump will lose and are focused on creating as big a mess for Biden and Democrats as possible in 2021, just in case the GOP loses the Senate too.
TRUMP STILL CAN WIN. Fair and square. Do not forget that. Don’t stop whatever electoral activities you’re up to. Keep up the pressure. Donate, volunteer, and vote.
I’m working with a group of democracy activists running virtual trainings on election-protection and non-violent resistance. If you’re in a group looking for some good thoughts, reach out to me at monganjh1@gmail.com.
I do want to take a moment to look at one interesting article from this week’s Atlantic, by Graeme Wood, entitled “He Won’t Concede, But He’ll Pack His Bags.” Wood is trying to strike an optimistic tone against the idea that Trump will try to keep a grasp on power. As he sees it, Trump is too lazy and cowardly to make a really authoritarian play, and will prefer to retire, while never actually admitting he lost. Sure, he may be prosecuted, but he can probably dodge actual jail, and with 40 percent of the country still loving him, he can get rich on right-wing media. Wood also has one of the best descriptions of Trump I’ve ever read: “He seems to have thought being President was just like being Ronald McDonald.”
Wood may be right, but if this is “optimism,” we’re in a really dark place! Elided in the article is the reality that if Trump doesn’t concede, 40 percent of the country will still believe he’s President. How the hell is Joe Biden supposed to govern a country where almost half the citizenry don’t accept that he’s President? Sure, it’s somewhat entertaining to imagine how, say, FOX News will address this point, but this is a serious legitimacy crisis.
As I noted recently, I agree with Wood that Trump isn’t likely to take the lead of an anti-government insurgency.
As a reminder, here’s Donald Trump taking to the hills.
But Trump is perfectly capable of blasting inflammatory statements at people, via a new media empire or just Twitter, from the safety of Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster. He may not be the leader of an insurgency, but he’d do just fine as its leading propagandist. He’s a born stochastic terrorist.
So, the immediate threat to a Biden Administration is the kind of diffuse, widespread insurgency I’ve been discussing. The longer-term threat is what an unmoored and defiant Trump will do to the Republican Party. Trump-Is-Still-President will be the new QAnon, something every Republican official will be forced to respond to. Senators and congressmen may get to hem-and-haw for a while, but Republican governors will be on the spot immediately with demands to defy Federal authority.
By 2022, no Republican will survive a primary if they don’t deny Biden’s legitimacy. It will be the new litmus test. Who’ll rise to the top of Republican Party leadership? Whoever can play best to the Biden-denyin’ crowd will take over, and the GOP’s authoritarian, violent, and anti-democratic (small “d”) instincts will strengthen. I need to copyright “Biden-denyin’” so I can at least get in on that action financially.
This truly is the scenario of Lincoln’s “a house divided cannot stand:” Lincoln could have let the southern states secede—the rest of the U.S. could have gone along without them. In fact, getting rid of the South had been a longtime goal for many abolitionists. Biden won’t have this option, because the Republicans won’t be looking to secede—they’ll be looking to oust him.
Sorry, Graeme Wood, but if you were trying to cheer me up with this piece, you blew it.
Correction
Last week I referred to Stanley McChrystal as a retired lieutenant general—a three-star. In fact, he retired as a general—four stars. My apologies to The General. Biden still should make him Secretary of National Resilience.
America’s Mayor is a Russian asset, and the White House is aware of that. But we’re still talking about this like it’s just part of normal politics.
Time is discovering disinformation is potent. The engagement at the end of this article won’t last as a marriage, I guarantee you.
Security Sector Reform
Michael Reinhoehl was suspected of killing an armed Trump supporter when he was killed by U.S. Marshals. While heightened alertness is fair in arresting a murder suspect, it looks like the Marshals may have been trigger-happy. Meanwhile, Trump in Iowa on Thursday said straight-out the Marshals went in with the intent to kill Reinhoehl. No one at DOJ has commented. I would like to think the agency that escorted Ruby Bridges to school hasn’t become a death squad.
There will be armed people at the polls on Election Day. All the more reason to vote early! And if you do see armed groups, remember the right legal actions to take in your state.
NBC has tapes of recruitment and organization of The Base, which is English for Al Qaeda. Its leader is based in St. Petersburg, Russia. It’s a foreign terrorist organization.
Are we facing a rural insurgency? Probably. It’s containable, but would still be bloody.
Civil wars split families. See what QAnon is doing.
Good Reads
I don’t think it’s quite as bad as Umair Haque is saying, but he’s not too far off.
James Carville is unusually inspirational.
Jonathan Chait says it well: if Trump loses, there will be great temptation to say this was all a weird fluke. It wasn’t—we will have dodged a wildly-fired bullet. There will still be people preparing another shot.
Have you noticed the growth on Facebook and Twitter of what look like local media outlets, but seem to portray highly-partisan news stories on national issues? Allow the Columbia Journalism Review to introduce you to “pink slime.”
Privately-owned social media doesn’t seem to be working well for us. Maybe we should try public online parks?
President Biden will need to consider re-doing the census.
Nathaniel Zelinsky makes a great point: the process of democracy is its purpose. You have to value the process over the outcomes, or it becomes zero-sum, and will stop being democracy.
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