Viral Spring #18: If I Had a Hammer

-- By Tom Phillips
                            
Thirty-one years ago this spring, I was in Tiananmen Square amid a huge peaceful protest -- the largest the world has ever seen, the center of a nationwide movement for democracy in China.  As the protests built across every major city in China, the mood was euphoric; it seemed impossible for the ruling communist party to ignore the pent-up demands for personal and political freedom.

Americans are feeling the same euphoria today, as young people -- black, brown and white together -- turn out en masse in peaceful protests against racism and police brutality, and a president who embodies these abuses by denying them. With his poll numbers falling and ex-aides blasting him in public, it looks like a rout to some. "The Trump Regime is Beginning to Topple," headlined the Atlantic a few days ago.  

                                            

                               If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning

                               I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land..  

        

In China, it also seemed the regime was toppling, but in fact it was hardening and consolidating. Behind palace gates, moderates were purged, a new chain of command took charge.  Army units mobilized and took up positions near central Beijing.  

                                                                         

In Washington today -- Army troops remain on call, as do the new secret police -- the goons who cleared the way for the president to cross the street last week.  The White House is fortified. Inside, the Trump team is intact.  No one has quit, no leaks have sprung.  On Capitol Hill, nearly all congressional Republicans still keep their "eleventh commandment" -- not speaking ill of one another.                          

         

Under pressure, police around the country are closing ranks. Police unions -- one sector of organized labor Republicans have never opposed -- stand behind their men.  Attorney General William Barr denies systemic racism is a problem in policing.  He blames urban violence on a shadowy group of left-wing extremists -- though not a single one has been captured or identified.  Fox News amplifies the White House line.  Within five minutes last week, The Ingraham Angle blamed disorders on Antifa, suggested that parents of protesters turn their children in to police, and presented a montage of scruffy talking heads who mentioned capitalism as one cause of society's woes.  "You see where this is going," said the host..  

Such nonsense resembles what state  media broadcast about the Tiananmen protesters, who were in fact students and ordinary workers, simply wanting more freedom to live their lives and choose their leaders. (I was there, I talked to them.. ) After a few days of sympathetic coverage, the emphasis changed to concern for the protesters' safety, and then dark questions about their intent.  Middle-aged demonstrators appeared, posing as members of the movement;  they showed up on TV,  in China and in America, threatening to overthrow the government.   
                                           
A week into the Tiananmen protest, military helicopters buzzed the square and a tinny voice crackled over loudspeakers.  "Martial law has been declared in Beijing," she said.  "The situation is very dangerous, go home." The plug was pulled on our CBS News coverage. The stage was set for a massacre.

When it came, Americans from President George H.W. Bush on down condemned it -- except for Donald Trump.  He told Playboy magazine:  "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it.  Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength." 

President Trump almost blew it last week when his photo-op turned into a fiasco, and military commanders nixed his notion of using military force against peaceful protesters.  But the idea is still alive.  Senator Tom Cotton hasn't recanted his call to "send in the troops."  And Attorney General Barr has been laying the groundwork -- logistic, legal, and rhetorical -- for an unprecedented use of presidential power.   The president doesn't mind being "vicious or horrible" -- this is the very Glamour of Evil.  

He still believes in "the power of strength," and may see it as his last chance.  All it needs is a spark.  And that can be arranged. 

                       I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning -- 

                      I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters

                             All over this land.

           

- Copyright 2020 by Tom Phillips  

"The Hammer Song" by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger                                      

                                                           For the 1989 story, click here