This Civil War will be Fought in the Courts
by Mark Van Proyen
August 31, 2024
Gabriel Heimler, “The Wall Jumper,” 1989, mural at Berlin’s East Side Gallery.
Courtesy of the Heimler and Proc Art Studio.
It sure seems like Infowars architect Alex Jones is in jail, as he certainly deserves to be. For the time being he is not. He is too busy liquidating his assets to pay $1.1 billion for a June 14 civil judgment awarded to the families of the 27 victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. Now, it is all quiet on the Infowars front because the parent company that sponsored Infowars is also undergoing court-administered receivership. Over a decade ago, Jones proclaimed that the massacre was a media hoax that never really happened, ignoring the overwhelming and irrefutable evidence to the contrary. When challenged by his refusal of facts, he responded with the assertion that his lies were protected by the First Amendment, which in fact they were insofar as criminal prosecution was concerned. But civil suits and their ensuing bankruptcies are a different matter, meaning that Jones has been effectively silenced. That is good news for those who have long been exasperated by his incessant bull-moose bellyaching about the necessity of “Civil War!” Recent reports have him considering an offer of asylum from Vladimir Putin.
Robert Rauschenberg, “People for the American Way Print,” 1991, lithograph and
screenprint on Arches Cover paper, 48 x 35 3/4”. Courtesy of Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
With Jones’ withdrawal from the field of conflict, others are seeking the position of alpha blowhard. On August 11, CNN devoted a full hour to some of these contenders for leadership of the crazy caucus, all plucked from the convocation of meth-mouthed cousinfuckers platformed at the 2024 Republican convention held in Milwaukee from July 15 to July 18. Since that time, things have not gone well for the Republican party or for presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is also appealing a multi-million-dollar civil judgment and a 34-count felony conviction. In rapid succession we witnessed the politically tone-deaf nomination of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate and Trump’s own disastrous 92-minute acceptance speech, followed by President Joe Biden’s stepping away from the nomination for a second term three days later. At the Democratic convention a mere four weeks later, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz accepted his party’s nomination for Vice President, and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her rousing acceptance speech. In the five weeks since July 21, poll numbers dramatically changed, with Harris now leading in all three rust belt swing states plus Arizona, with momentum building in Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina. Their suddenly ebullient, upbeat campaign based on the alleged politics of hope and joy (not hope and change) has reversed what had become a death march. Pundits are calling this sea change “the shift,” noting that the politics of “woke” identities, anti-fracking, defunding law enforcement, and blanket asylum for immigrants have been shoved aside. In fact, the Democrats have reclaimed the same idea of patriotism that was once the Republicans’ stock in trade.
Thomas Cole, “The Consummation” from “The Course of Empire” series, 1836, oil on canvas, 51 x 76”.
Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
The political focus has shifted from the Republicans’ framing of the election as a contest between strength and weakness to the Democrats’ reframing it as being between crazy and sane, with Robert F. Kennedy’s August 23 endorsement of Trump adding icing to the cake. This abrupt pivot is partially explained by the raising of alarms over “Project 2025,” the 900-page blueprint for a second Trump administration’s Christian Nationalist/Fascist takeover of the federal government. At last, it is getting the attention that it deserves, and people are talking, even as Trump and other Republicans are now seeking to distance themselves from a document that is thoroughly covered with their fingerprints. The Harris campaign is not allowing that disavowal, made by serial liars, to go unchallenged. Whatever else the 2024 election might be, it most certainly must be understood as a referendum on “Project 2025.”
Thomas Cole, “Destruction” from “The Course of Empire” series, 1836, oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 63 1/2”. Courtesy of the New York Historical Society.
Another thing that the Democrats are now doing is reminding voters that there had been a solid, bipartisan agreement addressing border security presented to Congress that, at Trump’s direct command, the House Speaker refused to allow to come to a vote. The reason? So Trump could make immigration one of the pillars of his campaign. When Harris and Walz were interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash on August 29, they missed an opportunity to drive that crucial point home. Even though the interview was more soft-ball than hard-ball, they side-stepped some other opportunities to address tough questions, still managing to avoid any real disaster while making a few modest rhetorical gains when they peeked out from behind boilerplate responses.
Can the enthusiasm and momentum of the Democrats’ “vibe” campaign be sustained until November? Does the emphasis on spectacle misdirect our attention from other things, such as the surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory near Kursk? There are several factors that complicate any answer to these questions. Sooner or later, the ever-more desperate Trump campaign will reset, presuming that their standard bearer stops melting further into sheer incoherence. Running mate JD Vance brings with him a full 18 months of government experience and a grating personality. Expect an even dirtier dive into abject pettiness, further amplifying the Jerry Springerfication of right-wing discourse.
Mariko Mori, “Peace Crystal,” 2024. Courtesy of the Faou Foundation and the artist. Photo: Marta Buso/Studio Carmeni.
Then there is the Trump campaign’s plan to populate state election boards with loyalists who will refuse to certify vote tallies in November. So far, an estimated 35-to-70 such election deniers have been identified in several swing states, although Georgia has recently prevailed in a court case leading to their ouster, at least until the partisan Supreme Court says differently. To quote a July 29 article from Rolling Stone by Justin Glawe, “While refusals and delays of certification have not held up in court in Georgia and Arizona, pro-Trump local election officials are seeking to make certification discretionary … lawsuits that are currently being decided by state judges … in order to give his campaign another method to challenge election results in November.” This has drawn Democratic scrutiny and the developments of plans to counter such tactics.
To the ramparts we must go, because yet another battle for the soul of the nation must be joined. Only now, instead of the rolling hills of Gettysburg or the pollsters’ shifting electoral map, it will take place in state and federal courts. Fortunately, the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is on the case. They have recently published a lengthy document titled “Election Certification under Threat,” providing a detailed legal analysis of these new election saboteurs and the legal strategies to counter them. The document also names some of the imbedded election deniers, but declines to include their addresses, preempting instances of patriotic overreach.
Sue Coe, “Force Birth,” 2022, lincut on white paper, 13 x 10”. Courtesy of George Adams Gallery, New York.
Certainly, this kind of electoral chicanery lacks the drama that might drive would-be supporters to reach for their checkbooks, but it is a real threat, all-the-more so because it flies below the misdirected radar of both conventions’ triumphal embrace of sheer spectacle. It is of a larger piece that bespeaks an ongoing Cold Civil War between constitutional loyalists and crypto-religious insurrectionists.
Maybe I am being hyperbolic, but I am reminded of a rather execrable piece of cinematic incoherence released in April of this year: Alex Garland’s “Civil War.” This dystopian saga tells the story of a quartet of journalists undertaking an odyssey through a full-out social collapse, trying and failing to make any sense of random and rampant violence. The film lurches from incoherence to the preposterous when it depicts rebel forces driving M1 tanks up to the front door of the White House in advance of a mass assassination of the President and other government officials. The film was over-the-top (and under the bottom), reeking of gratuitous exaggeration layered upon sheer implausibility. But the fact that a studio gave it a green light still gives pause. Even though it was in and out the theaters in only a few weeks, it attracted an audience inclined to romanticize such things.
Zygimantas Amelynas, NATO mural, 2024, in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Thorny topics of foreign policy were almost absent during the rhapsodic speechifying at the Chicago convention. Both conventions would have their viewers believe that the election is about domestic butter rather than geopolitical guns, the real political difference being about who will receive what amount of butter. But world events and the United States’ role behind and amidst them tell a different story. The only convention speakers besides Harris to remark on foreign policy were former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, who both promoted our commitment to NATO and Harris’ qualifications to function as Commander-in-Chief in a complex world. When Harris delivered her acceptance speech, she made it clear that her administration would continue along the same neoliberal path charted by all modern Presidencies, with the exception of Trump’s, swearing financial fealty to NATO and Israel while holding out olive twigs to the estimated 2,000 pro-Palestinian protestors peacefully demonstrating outside the United Center.
To be fair, we need to remember that in addition to being a nominated Presidential candidate, Harris is also a sitting Vice President, meaning that she is a player on Biden’s foreign policy team. Both Harris and Biden claim to be working tirelessly on a hostage release and cease-fire deal in Gaza. They will continue to spin their wheels until they stop treating Benjamin Netanyahu and Yahwa Sinwar, neither friends of the Biden administration, with kid gloves.
