[Skybird]

It doe snot happen often that I agree with the opinions voiced in the far-left leaning newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), I dislike this one very much, but every once in a while they surprise me.

America is on fire. From Houston to Brooklyn, from Portland to Atlanta, from Los Angeles to Lafayette Park opposite the White House in Washington, where the ministries of the surrounding ministries normally eat their lunches on sunny days, a wave of violence has occurred in recent days and devastation rolled over the US like the country has not seen in half a century.

The unrest was triggered by a murder: Last Monday, white policeman Derek Chauvin killed Black George Floyd while on duty in Minneapolis - a particularly shocking, but unfortunately by no means rare, case of racist police brutality in America. But the protests have long since resolved themselves from this occasion. They have turned into a much larger uprising, a discharge of anger and violence directed against the police in some places but blind to anything that is in the way in others.

After the violent death of African American George Floyd, the United States does not come to rest. US President Trump threatens demonstrators with the "unlimited power" of the US military.

You can think this violence is wrong and senseless and condemn it, even if you think that the anger that feeds it is understandable and justified. America's blacks have every right to be angry. You have every right to take to the streets and shout out this anger. And they have every right to fight against discrimination and harassment by the police. Freedom and justice, Martin Luther King knew very well, do not fall from the sky. You have to fight for it. However, whether this struggle should consist of looting the shops in their own residential area and setting them on fire is another question.

But the anger of the blacks is only part of the anger that has now swept through American society and is gradually eating away at their cohesion. Anger at "the system". Anger at "the elites". Anger at "the politics". Anger at "those up there". Anger at "the media". Or quite simply and fundamentally: anger at "the others", whoever "the others" may be in the given case. Everyone has something or someone to whom they can direct their anger, contempt and hatred.

This anger has been boiling in America for years. It flared up for the first time in 2008, when millions of Americans sank into a financial and economic crisis that was not their fault and for which none of the responsible bankers and politicians were ever held accountable. At the time, it manifested itself politically in the form of the arch-conservative tea party movement, which has meanwhile destroyed the old Republican Party. When Donald Trump ran for election in 2016, he didn't have to rage. He just had to stir it up. He made his political capital out of anger, it was the fuel for his victory. And because he wants to win again in November, he continues to fuel his anger today. This is immoral and extremely dangerous for America. But Trump could not do what he does with such great success if he did not have a large, eager audience - and many willing helpers: the cheering presenters at the right Fox News channel live just as much from Trump's rage as their outraged competitors at the left MSNBC transmitter. And Twitter, which is suddenly doing so with Trump tweets, owes its importance to a large extent to the man in the White House.

The corona pandemic acted like a fire accelerator in this charged atmosphere. Over 100,000 dead and over 40 million unemployed - this is brutal trauma for a society. The pandemic has not only mercilessly exposed all the political, economic and social injustices that the United States has suffered, but has also intensified them. Whoever had the right job before the virus, the right financial advisor, good health insurance and, above all, the right skin color - knows - will probably get through the crisis reasonably well, at least in material terms. Anyone who had to move from paycheck to paycheck with two or three jobs before the virus - and these are not just long ago, but a disproportionate number of blacks and Latinos - are now at risk of falling. The anger about it is greater than the fear of being infected with the virus in the crowd of a demo.

But the anger that is now pervading America's streets is not an exclusive feature of the political left. Right-wing "patriots" have been deployed to parliaments across the country in recent weeks to protest the curfews imposed by the corona pandemic, often heavily armed. It was less violent than the riots of the past few days, but it was by no means less frightening. These people may have different political views and goals than the Antifa protesters rioting in Minneapolis or spraying "**** Trump" on houses in Washington. What unites them is the anger at a "system" that they think is tyrannical and want to smash. But they see their compatriots in the other political camp not as American citizens, but as enemies. Anyone who believes that the riots last week are the unfortunate but unfortunately necessary prelude to a progressive revolution should be disappointed. Rather, they lead to something that resembles a civil war.

Perhaps the situation in Minneapolis and the other hot spots of the protests will calm down in the next few days. The anger will not go away. The fire is far from extinguished.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/...rika-1.4923221