Chris Powell: The Devil in Weimar New Haven
The New Haven Green in happier times.
While it is home to a renowned university, Yale, New Haven often seems as anti-intellectual as any place on the planet, on account of the city's street theater, which isn't so funny anymore as it evokes the political disintegration of Germany's Weimar Republic, when Nazis and Communists rioted until democracy gave way.
On July 8, there were rumors that "right-wing" groups would rally on New Haven's green. So hundreds of counter-protesters got there first. According to the New Haven Register, what was nearly a riot developed as the counter-protesters confronted the half-dozen or so supposed right-wingers who showed up. One of the supposed right-wingers, who said only that he was "anti-socialist," was told by the counter-protesters to leave the green and as obscenities were shouted at him he was shoved and kicked and his hat was grabbed from his head. Police made several arrests for disorderly conduct.
Afterward Mayor Toni Harp issued a statement: "We were in no way supportive of any assembly that intends to incite fear, hatred, and violence. New Haven is and remains an inclusive city and I personally take responsibility for ensuring that this is the case."
But how "inclusive" is a city that assaults and runs out of town anyone merely suspected of planning to disagree with the local mob? Of course this kind of thing is happening throughout the country, as left-wingers and right-wingers spoil for such fights and sacrifice the law for a chance to strike a blow.
The left started the trend years ago with political correctness. Donald Trump trumped it with the hatefulness and vulgarity of his presidential campaign. Now the left is trying to trump Trump with political violence, forgetting that when guns are outlawed, only Trump will have guns. Maybe this situation will give old-school liberals pause about the powerful executive style of government that they long have celebrated.
In any case the country will be lucky if the current chief executive continues to be too incoherent and incompetent to play Caesar. Indeed, the country will be lucky simply to maintain the rule of law through the next 3½ years as even people sworn to its impartial enforcement discard it quickly to smite their political adversaries, as Connecticut's secretary of the state, Denise Merrill, did last week by refusing the Trump administration's request for elections data that was public until the administration asked for it.
If Trump really is the Devil this would be a good time for television networks to broadcast the brilliant 1966 movie of Robert Bolt's play about the Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons. Paul Scofield's More memorably reprimands his daughter's suitor, Roper, a fanatic not unlike those of today:
ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you -- where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.