New Book By Islamophobia Expert Destroys The Myth That Muslims Equal Terrorism

New book by Internationally Known Islamophobia expert tackles tough issues and urges readers to assume the best of our Muslim neighbors

We live in a time when it is almost impossible to stay informed on every issue in the news. It takes willingness and effort to go beyond the surface and biased sound bites. Todd H. Green's new book, Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn't Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism (Fortress Press 2018), serves as both a primer and an invitation for self-reflection.

A 2001 to 2007 Gallup Poll revealed that 93 percent of the world's Muslim population believed the 9/11 attacks unjustified. Another study from the Muslim Public Affairs Council found that one in three al-Qaeda terrorist plots between 9/11 and 2011 were disrupted with the aid of Muslim Americans. 

Muslims speak out against terrorism all the time. Yet, a disheartening pattern has emerged in the West whenever acts of terror occur. Almost immediately, public figures ask the same question: "Why don't Muslims speak out against terrorism?" The implication—Muslims don't speak out—is obvious.

According to Green, it really isn't a question but a condemnation, because it "wrongly assumes Islam is the driving force behind terrorism." Moreover, he says this assumption diverts our attention from unjust Western violence, preventing us from confronting our own troubling history.

Green, a religious studies professor and former advisor to the US State Department under both the Trump and Obama administrations, debunks other myths, showing how ISIS actually targets Muslims more than any other group and why politics matter more than religion in driving terrorism.

Ultimately, Green argues, "It's time to end the distractions and to spend more energy on coming to terms with unjust Western violence." Only then can we honestly assess the causes of violence, stop relying on damaging stereotypes, and begin to ask better questions of our Muslim neighbors. 

More About "Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn't Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism":

(Via Fortress Press)

All of us should condemn terrorism–whether the perpetrators are Muslim extremists, white supremacists, Marxist revolutionaries, or our own government. But it's time for us to stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism under the assumption they are guilty of harboring terrorist sympathies or promoting violence until they prove otherwise. Renowned expert on Islamophobia Todd Green shows us how this line of questioning is riddled with false assumptions that say much more about "us" than "them."

Green offers three compelling reasons why we should stop asking Muslims to condemn terrorism:
1) The question wrongly assumes Islam is the driving force behind terrorism.
2) The question ignores the many ways Muslims already condemn terrorism.
3) The question diverts attention from unjust Western violence.

This book is an invitation for self-examination when it comes to the questions we ask of Muslims and ourselves about violence. It will open the door to asking better questions of our Muslim neighbors, questions based not on the presumption of guilt but on the promise of friendship.

⏩ Download the free Discussion Guide

About The Author:

Todd H. Green teaches at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. 

He is a sought-after speaker, giving lectures on college campuses and to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Green's work has appeared in the Huffington Post, and his expertise has been cited by the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for American Progress, the NAACP, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. He has been interviewed by CNN, NPR, and Al Jazeera. 

He is the author of The Fear of Islam.

SOURCE: Fortress Press

Donald Trump Anonymous Staffer Speaks Out – Treason Or A Public Service?

Somebody say something. (EPA/Shawn Thew)

One of Donald Trump’s senior White House staff has made a truly unprecedented move against their ultimate boss. The staffer anonymously published an opinion piece in the New York Times, in which the individual described a dilemma: should the White House’s employees stand by and watch a president who they see as “a threat to the health of our republic”, or should they quietly work to resist what they see as Trump’s “amoralism” and “misguided impulses”? Trump reacted to the piece in his usual style, accusing the author of “treason” and demanding the New York Times hand over their name.

It is easy to see the op-ed and ensuing furore as just one more indicator of the abject state of the Trump presidency. But the incident also poses a much more profound dilemma: when the elected politician they serve is a liability to the public, should staffers speak out and challenge them publicly, or remain loyal and do their boss’s bidding?

Among commentators, researchers and staffers themselves, there are two major schools of thought. On one side are the loyalists, who take the view that staffers should be unquestioning servants. According to loyalists, since politicians are elected officials with popular mandates, their orders must be carried out. A staffer’s role, then, is to find the most effective and efficient way to do that.

On the other side are the lifesavers, who hold that staffers are obliged to save a politician from their own stupidity, thereby protecting both institutions and the public from their bosses’ irrational whims. Modern states are highly complex entities, they say, and to run them effectively, you need a large body of specialists with deep experience who can sustain institutions while elected officials come and go.

So who’s right? Many politicians, and Trump especially, want their staffers to be loyalists. But this is a grave mistake. It’s the lifesavers who will actually help a politician to achieve their objectives, or can at the very least avert a costly or catastrophic onmishambles. There are at least three reasons why.

Fight or flight 
First, politicians are often far less knowledgeable than their staffers. Most have little to no understanding of the issues they are dealing with, and are routinely given portfolios they have zero experience in: energy ministers who have never set foot in a power plant, transport ministers who don’t use public transport, ministers of justice without the first idea of how the prison system works. It often takes politicians a year or two to get to grips with their portfolio, by which time they are liable to be shuffled on to an entirely unrelated job.

The role of the staffer is to guide these clueless politicians through complex policy domains they don’t understand. Doing that frequently requires a staffer to tell a politician they can’t do something.

One of the roles of any staffer worth their salt is to regularly rain on an enthusiastic politician’s parade. Elected officials often get worked up about pet projects and cherished ideas; staffers need to force them to think critically. Even if a staffer is wrong, this process of challenge is likely to lead to more robust decisions. By voicing their doubts, lifesaving staffers can cut through the dangerous groupthink that can set government policy on a course to disaster.

A house divided against itself. (EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo)

Finally, politicians should be pleased when their staffers speak up simply because it’s better than the alternative. Some time ago, the economist Albert Hirshmann pointed out there were three alternative courses of action an official could take when faced with a failing institution: remain loyal, leave, or speak out. Later researchers added a fourth option: to simply neglect their job and stop caring. So how should frustrated, demoralised or panicked employees decide what to do?

When faced with a failing policy, civil servants can remain loyal and get to work on the necessary turd polishing. That might make their masters feel good in the short term, but it can also drag everyone concerned deeper into a potentially disastrous course of action.

Leaving, meanwhile, might relieve the pressure on the individual staffer and make their political master happy, but simply pulling the pin is unlikely to fix the problem. Rather, some new staffer is likely to come along and make the same mistakes all over again. The upshot could be a revolving door of misfortune. And while staffers could also simply neglect their duties, the comfort that would offer them and their boss alike may well be offset by disastrous consequences for the public.

That only really leaves one option: to speak out.

Cooler heads prevail 
Staffers are likely to be punished for putting their heads above the parapet, and the politicians they serve are often disinclined to listen. But sadly, voice is one of the few ways that endemic problems get corrected before they terminate in disaster.

For any staffer looking to speak up, grave dangers lie ahead. But research suggests there are more or less effective ways of getting your point across. Studies conducted in large American corporates have found that the best way forward is to create underground resistance from the inside. The staff who do so have been described as “tempered radicals”.

Tempered radicals typically work by creating underground networks both inside and outside an organisation. These networks bring together people who care about an issue. They provide the platform for future action. Tempered radicals manage their heated emotions about the issue. They might be fuming, but they try to let rationality rather than passion lead them, using the values of their institution to push forward their claims.

If the people in charge value individual freedom, staffers trying to change course should use arguments about individual freedom to push their agenda forward. Finally, tempered radicals create behind the scenes actions which help to push their agenda forward. These are smaller actions which help to make people’s lives better. Over time, these modest interventions build up to bigger wins.

It’s true that in politics, loyalty is one of the most valued currencies. But being loyal doesn’t mean always saying yes to seniors; it also means staying committed to the values of an institution, even when that might mean questioning or challenging the person temporarily in charge. That can be hard. But it can also help save politicians from themselves.

About Today's Contributor:
Andre Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Cass Business School, City, University of London

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

John McCain, Dead At 81, Helped Build A Country That No Longer Reflects His Values

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain arrives for a news conference in Annapolis, Md. (REUTERS/Jim Young)

Arizona Sen. John McCain – scion of Navy brass, flyboy turned Vietnam war hero and tireless defender of American global leadership – has died after a year of treatment for terminal brain cancer.

“With the Senator when he passed were his wife Cindy and their family. At his death, he had served the United States of America faithfully for sixty years,” McCain’s office said in a statement.

I am a scholar of American politics. And I believe that, regardless of his storied biography and personal charm, three powerful trends in American politics thwarted McCain’s lifelong ambition to be president. They were the rise of the Christian right, partisan polarization and declining public support for foreign wars.

Republican McCain was a champion of bipartisan legislating, an approach that served him and the Senate well. But as political divides have grown, bipartisanship has fallen out of favor.

Most recently, McCain opposed Gina Haspel as CIA director for “her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality” and her role in it. Having survived brutal torture for five years as a prisoner of war, McCain maintained a resolute voice against U.S. policies permitting so-called “enhanced interrogations.” Nevertheless, his appeals failed to rally sufficient support to slow, much less derail, her appointment.

Days later, a White House aide said McCain’s opposition to Haspel didn’t matter because “he’s dying anyway.” That disparaging remark and the refusal of the White House to condemn it revealed how deeply the president’s hostile attitude toward McCain and everything he stands for had permeated the executive office.

McCain ended his career honorably and bravely, but with hostility from the White House, marginal influence in the Republican-controlled Senate, and a public less receptive to the positions he has long embodied.

The outlier 

McCain’s first run for the presidency in 2000 captured the imagination of the public and the press, whom he wryly referred to as “my base.” His self-confident “maverick” persona appealed to a more secular, moderate constituency who like him, might be constitutionally opposed to the growing political alignment between the religious right and the Republican Party. 

McCain enthusiastically bucked his party and steered his “Straight Talk Express” through the GOP primaries with a no-holds-barred attack on Pat Robertson and Rev. Jerry Falwell. The two were conservative icons and leaders of the Christian Coalition and the Moral Majority.

McCain branded Robertson and Falwell “agents of intolerance” and “empire builders.” He charged that they used religion to subordinate the interests of working people. He said their religion served a business goal and accused them of shaming “our faith, our party, and our country.” That message earned McCain a primary victory in New Hampshire but his campaign capsized in South Carolina, where Republican voters launched George W. Bush, the stalwart evangelical, on his path to a presidential victory in 2000 against Democratic nominee, Vice President Al Gore.

By 2008, McCain saw the political clout of white, born-again, evangelical Christians. By then, they comprised 26 percent of the electorate. Bowing to political winds, he adopted a more conciliatory approach.

McCain’s willingness to defend America as a “Christian nation” and his controversial choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, an enthusiastic standard bearer for the Christian right, as his running mate, signaled the electoral power of a less tolerant, more absolutist “values-based” politics.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 2008. (REUTERS/John Gress)

McCain’s about-face revealed a political pragmatist willing to make peace with the Christian right and accept their ability to make or break his last attempt at the presidency.

His strategy reflected his tendency to abandon principles if they threatened his quest for the presidency. Having railed eight years prior against the hypocrisy of the right-wing religious leadership, McCain may have felt some personal discomfort kowtowing to the dictates of self-appointed moral authorities. But the electorate had changed since then, and McCain showed he was willing to shift his position to accommodate their beliefs.

The primary that year also required an outright appeal to independents and even crossover Democrats. That would potentially provide enough votes to boost him past George W. Bush, whose campaign had already expressed allegiance to the conservative religious agenda.

In 2008, Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon considered religiously suspect by many evangelicals, emerged as McCain’s main rival for the nomination.

Sensing an opportunity to establish a winning coalition, McCain jettisoned his former objections to the political influence of the religious right, shifting from antagonism to accommodation. In doing so, McCain revealed his flexibility again on principles that might fatally undermine his overriding ambition – winning the presidency.

In fact, the incorporation of the religious right into the Republican Party represented but one facet of a more consequential development. That was the fiercely ideological partisan polarization that has come to dominate the political system.

The lonely Republican 

Rough parity between the parties since 2000 has intensified the electoral battles for Congress and the presidency. It has supercharged the fundraising machines on both sides. And it has nullified the “regular order” of congressional hearings, debates and compromise, as party leaders scheme for policy wins. 

Fueled by highly engaged activists, interest groups and donors known as “policy demanders,” partisan polarization has overwhelmed moderates in our political system. McCain was a bipartisan problem-solver and was willing to compromise with Democrats to pass campaign finance reform in 2002. He worked with the other side to normalize relations with Vietnam in 1995. And he joined with Democrats to pass immigration reform in 2017.

But he was also one of those moderates who ultimately found himself on the outside of his party.

McCain’s dramatic Senate floor thumbs-down repudiation of the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare turned less on his antipathy to Trump and more on his disgust with a broken party-line legislative process.

On an issue as monumental as health care, he insisted on a return to “extensive hearings, debate, and amendment.” He endorsed the efforts of Sens. Lamar Alexander, a Republican, and Patty Murray, a Democrat, to craft a bipartisan solution.

Foreign and defense policy was McCain’s signature issue. He wanted a more robust posture for American global leadership, backed by a well-funded, war-ready military. But that stance lost support a decade ago following the Iraq War disaster.

McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign slogan of “Country First” signified not only the model of his personal commitment and sacrifice. It also telegraphed his belief in the need to persevere in the war on terror in general and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in particular.

Presidential candidate McCain at a rally San Diego, 2000. (REUTERS/Mike Blake)

But by then, 55 percent of registered independents, McCain’s electoral base, had lost confidence in the prospects for a military victory. They favored bringing the troops home.

Over the course of six months that year, independent support for the Iraq war fell from 54 percent to 40 percent. Overall opposition to the troop “surge” was at 63 percent. Barack Obama’s promise to wind down America’s military commitment and do “nation-building at home” resonated with an electorate wearied by the conflict and buffeted by their own economic woes.

Advocate for global leadership 

McCain continued to assert the primacy of American power. He decried the country’s retreat from a rules-based global order premised on American leadership and based on freedom, capitalism, human rights and democracy. 

Donald Trump stands in contrast. Trump, like Obama, promises to terminate costly commitments abroad, revoke defense and trade agreements that fail to put “America First,” and rebuild the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

In his run for the presidency, Trump asserted that American might and treasure had been squandered defending the world. Other countries, he said, took advantage of U.S. magnanimity.

In Congress, Republicans have become cautious about U.S. military interventions, counterinsurgency operations and nation-building. They find scant public support for intervention in Syria’s civil war.

Seeing Russia as America’s implacable foe, McCain sponsored sanctions legislation and prodded the administration to implement them more vigorously.

Accepting the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia, McCain repudiated Trump’s approach to global leadership.

He declared, “To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.”

McCain spent his life committed to principles that, tragically – at least for him – have fallen from favor, and the country’s repudiation of the principles he championed may put the nation at risk.


About Today's Contributor:
Elizabeth Sherman, Assistant Professor Department of Government, American University School of Public Affairs

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

(This is an updated version of an article originally published on on June 12, 2018.)

US: Michael Cohen’s Guilty Plea? ‘Nothing To See Here’

After the Manafort and Cohen news dropped, many wondered how Trump would respond. By the following morning, a messaging strategy seemed to coalesce. (Nick Lehr/The Conversation via Reuters and AP Photo)

On the afternoon of Aug. 21, when news of Paul Manafort’s conviction and Michael Cohen’s plea deal emerged within hours of one another, the social media channels of Donald Trump’s most vociferous supporters went dark.

The statements of Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, seemed damaging.
Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges of campaign finance violations and swore, under oath, that he acted to prevent “information that would be harmful to the candidate and to the campaign” from reaching the public for the “principal purpose of influencing the election.” In confessing to the federal crimes Cohen also implicated his client, Trump, by saying he committed these crimes at the behest of “a candidate for federal office.”

As a New York Times analysis put it, Cohen’s statement in court “carried echoes of President Richard M. Nixon, who was named an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the special prosecutor’s investigation of Watergate.”

Because of the seriousness of Cohen’s plea, the question wasn’t if Trump and his surrogates would respond, but when.

When someone attacks me, I always attack back...except 100x more. This has nothing to do with a tirade but rather, a way of life!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2012

Trump and his team reportedly “spent hours working on a statement” to attempt to clear Trump’s name and reject the “unindicted co-conspirator” label. By the following morning, a messaging strategy seemed to coalesce.

As a professor of rhetoric and argumentation who is finishing a book about Trump’s presidential campaign, I paid close attention to what Trump’s camp decided to say in his defense.

“Apologia” – an Ancient Greek term for the speech of self-defense – can assume a few well-known forms. They include: denial (“I didn’t do it”), differentiation (“It wasn’t what you think, it was something else”), bolstering (“Important people approve of what I did, so you should, too”) and transcendence (“Let’s focus on what is really important here – the big picture”).

Trump’s apologia has been primarily based upon denial and differentiation. He wants to persuade Americans that he did nothing wrong and that things are not what they appear to be.

To buttress this, his defenders relied upon what rhetoric scholars call “points of stasis,” which are questions that debaters since Aristotle have used to develop their most persuasive appeals.

Points of stasis deal with four questions: What happened? How should we understand it? How should we value it? What should we do about it?

In coming up with answers to these questions, debaters will attempt to frame what happened, influence how we should understand it, dictate how we should value it and outline what should be done about it.

When paired with apologia, points of stasis can be used to try to wiggle out of difficult situations. They can help an audience understand new information from the perspective of your side and mitigate damaging charges.

For example, Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, attempted to explain what happened when he released a statement denying that Trump was implicated at all in the Cohen matter. “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen,” it read, framing the events in a way that vindicated Trump from any wrongdoing.

But, you might wonder, if Trump wasn’t specifically implicated in Cohen’s guilty plea, then how should we understand what happened? Didn’t hush money still get paid to help the campaign?

To shape how observers might make sense of this, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, the author of the book “The Case Against Impeaching Trump,” appeared on CNN, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Fox and Friends” to argue that everyone commits campaign finance violations – and that campaign finance rules are incomprehensible anyway.

In other words, viewers should realize that this is something really common in politics – an easy mistake to make that shouldn’t be thought of as a big deal.

According to Dershowitz, campaign finance violations are trivial infractions like jaywalking. And if hush money were paid, while it’s not exactly noble behavior, it isn’t a crime. Little value, he seems to be saying, should attributed to the crimes – if they were committed at all.

Furthermore, there’s not much that can even be done about it, they say. A sitting president cannot be indicted (and therefore audiences and courts do not get to judge). And even if it were crime, it isn’t a “high crime,” so it isn’t an impeachable offense.

⏩ To recap the points of stasis:

• What happened? There’s no allegation of wrongdoing by the president in the government’s charges.
• How should we understand Cohen’s guilty plea? It’s a mere campaign finance violation, which everyone commits.
• What sort of stock should we put into this crime? It’s like jaywalking.
• What if Trump paid hush money? Not great, but not illegal.
• What can be done about it? Nothing. The president can’t be indicted.

In the days since Cohen’s plea deal, these points of stasis have been repeated to shore up Trump’s denial of wrongdoing and differentiate campaign finance violations from “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the phrase in the Constitution that describes impeachable offenses.

.@Scaramucci: "What's clear is that you can't indict a sitting president." #TheStory pic.twitter.com/4lkGDEN7IL

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 21, 2018

Of course, this isn’t playing out in a courtroom or in the Athenian Agora. Instead, it’s playing out in the court of public opinion. Impeachment is a political process, and it seems to hinge on whether enough voters get fully behind the effort.

In this sense, one bolstering strategy may resound the most. Trump’s base is so firmly in his camp, some of his backers in the media have argued, that this news won’t hurt Trump’s political standing.

It doesn’t really matter if he is an unindicted co-conspirator, they say – because his supporters won’t care.

Trump may have enough support for now to stay afloat. How long he can tread water is unclear.

About Today's Contributor:
Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor of Communication, Texas A&M University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Bonus Picture:

Will Donald Trump need to pardon himself after all? (Image from Trumpton Facebook Page via LoupDargent.info)

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Despite Donald Trump's Numerous Tweets And Rants Against MSM, Survey Shows That More Americans Trust The Media Than They Did Last Year

Finally some good news: Trust in news is up, especially for local media (Image via The Poynter Institute)

There's good news for journalists: three-quarters of Americans trust their local TV news and local newspapers. Trust is also on the rise for all types of news, despite increased attacks on the credibility of the American press by President Donald Trump and others.

These findings come from The Poynter Institute's second Media Trust Survey, released today. The research found 54 percent of Americans have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust and confidence in the media, a five-point increase from Poynter's first Media Trust Survey published in December 2017.

Other key findings include:

• 76% of Americans trust local television news
• 73% trust local newspapers
• 59% trust national newspapers
• 55% trust national network news
• 47% trust online-only news outlets

One reason trust in local news is significantly higher than in other news outlets is because Americans across the political spectrum trust it. According to the study's authors — Jason Reifler of University of Exeter, Brendan Nyhan of the University of Michigan and Andrew Guess of Princeton University — this pattern is driven by Republicans and independents who are otherwise more distrustful of the media than Democrats:

• 23% of Republicans trust news media overall, up four points since 2017
• 71% of Republicans trust local TV news
• 62% of Republicans trust local newspapers
• 86% of Democrats trust news media overall, up 12 points since 2017
• 88% of Democrats trust local TV news
• 88% of Democrats trust local newspapers

The divide in attitudes toward local versus national news is especially pronounced among Republicans. There is a 43-point difference between Republicans' trust in local and national TV news and a 33-point difference between their trust in local and national newspapers.

"Local journalism connects with people where they live and in ways that are relevant to their daily lives," Poynter President Neil Brown said. "Trust comes when there is a relationship, and for lots of people, even those with great interest in national affairs, the more personal relationship is with their local news source."

In December, Poynter's most heralded finding was that 44 percent of Americans believe news media frequently makes up stories about Trump. Eight months later, it's down slightly to 42 percent, though the 2018 question asked about fabricating stories in general.

When asked about whether the government should have the power to remove broadcast licenses from news organizations it says publishes fabricated stories, only 36 percent of Trump supporters upheld these ideas. Last year, 42 percent of Trump supporters thought the government should be able to stop a news media outlet from publishing a story that government officials say is biased or inaccurate.

"It's clear American citizens want to trust their news providers. But they need to feel as if the journalists reporting the news know them and understand them," said Poynter Senior Vice President Kelly McBride. "This is a big opportunity for news leaders to reach out to their audience. Be transparent about what you're doing and why, how you make decisions. Overcommunicate to the audience, invite them into your process. It goes a long way toward building trust."

⏩ Poynter's second annual Media Trust Survey interviewed a national sample of 2,000 Americans in July 2018. It was conducted by YouGov, a global public opinion and polling company, and funded by The Poynter Institute and Craig Newmark Philanthropies.

About The Poynter Institute: 
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st-century public discourse. 

Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, and at conferences and organizational sites around the world. Its e-learning division, News University, newsu.org, offers the world's largest online journalism curriculum in seven languages, with relevant interactive courses and over 150,000 registered users in dozens of countries. 

The Institute's website, poynter.org, produces 24-hour coverage about media, ethics, technology and the business of news. The world's top journalists and media innovators come to Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcast producers. 

⏩ This work builds public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and protects discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

SOURCE: The Poynter Institute

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Related Picture:

Mr Trump and The Media (Image from Trumpton Facebook Page via LoupDargent.info)

Donald Trump's Space Force Plans Analysed By A Sci-Fi Expert

(Marc Ward/Shutterstock.com)

The US leadership has plans to introduce a “US Space Force” by 2020. Already announced by president Donald Trump in June, US vice president Mike Pence outlined further details of the plan at a press conference on August 9. The Space Force, he said, would consist of an elite corps of soldiers trained to fight in space, and a space command that would design military strategies for warfare beyond the atmosphere.

Much acrimony and ridicule has ensued, with debates over what such a force could or could not do; the only certainty being that it will cost billions of dollars. Seasoned watchers of both US politics and US science fiction will have had the uncanny feeling, though, of having seen this all before.

The rhetoric of both Pence and Trump, referring respectively to “the boundless expanse of space” and the necessity for “American dominance”, is inherently science-fictional, but of a particularly American kind. It is not the cooperatist vision of Soviet science fiction, nor the ramshackled approach of British sci-fi (take Doctor Who), and certainly not the Afrofuturist marriage of esoteric technology and indigenous folklore, seen most recently in Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time.

An American fiction 
Instead, it is the projection of the values of Manifest Destiny (that the settler population has an inalienable right to the uncharted lands) into outer space. Not for nothing did Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign manager, Brad Parscale, write that Space Force would be “a groundbreaking endeavor for America and the final frontier”.

As film and media studies expert, Constance Penley, observed in her 1997 book, NASA/Trek, the Cold War politics of the Space Race dovetailed beautifully with the frontier vision of Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. This is particularly true of the pioneer spirit of (to paraphrase the original series’ opening words) exploring “strange new worlds”, seeking “out new life and new civilisations”, and “boldly” going “where no man has gone before”.

Roddenberry himself was in a lineage of writers from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Ray Bradbury who, with varying degrees of scepticism, projected frontier values into outer space (most typically, onto the surface of Mars). And as historian Frederic Krome has shown, future war stories published in the US pulps between 1914 and 1945 fed into the cultural and military thinking of how to plan for future conflicts.

Perhaps most bizarrely, the mission to capture Saddam Hussein during the Iraq War was named after John Milius’s post-apocalyptic teen movie, Red Dawn (1984).

Indeed, the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), envisaged by president Ronald Reagan in 1983, not only became known as “Star Wars”, but its rhetoric was also derived from science fiction writers such as Ben Bova and Jerry Pournelle. SDI’s vision of a circling belt of laser-armed satellites, protecting the US from Soviet attack, chimed perfectly with Pournelle’s dream, and with that of other science fiction writers such as Robert Heinlein and Larry Niven – an American renaissance through the militarisation and colonisation of space.

Space force rebooted 
The current rhetoric of Pence and Trump, in announcing their Space Force, almost exactly echoes the rhetoric of SDI and its then supporters. Both groups posit a pattern of US military decline, under the alleged negligence of previous administrations, in which space, the “natural” home of the US following the moon landings, has been left exposed to foreign aggressors. According to them, it is their enemies, not the US, who have militarised space. And now, they argue, only a show of strength can make space safe again for US democracy.

In this way, the ratcheting-up of an arms race in space is glossed over by a utopian vision, in which the US is regalvanised by dreams of expansion into space – see, for example, the proposed mission to Mars.

There has been genuine concern since 2007, when China shot down one of its own satellites. But to imply that space has only now begun to be militarised glosses over the steady militarisation of space since the 1960s, while even supporters of the proposal suggest a cyber-hacking force is more necessary.

Instead, the proposal for an elite corps of specialised soldiers and strategists sounds more like Heinlein’s controversial novel of a fully militarised society, Starship Troopers (1959), in which humans are embroiled in a seemingly endless war against the utterly alien “Bugs”. There are echoes too of E E Smith’s interstellar police force, Galactic Patrol (1937), and even the BBC’s more low-key Star Cops (1987), glumly policing off-world mining colonies in the outer solar system. Of course, the proposal may never take flight – it would still require an Act of Congress – so these more hyperbolic fears and desires may need to be momentarily put aside.


Instead, what we can deduce from the proposal is that we are firmly in the logic of the reboot, that much loved tactic of longrunning movie franchises. But, as science fiction scholar Gerry Canavan has argued, the reboot “can show us a story, but can’t tell us a plot”. Rather than an original and inspiring vision of space exploration, what we have instead here is a meaningless reiteration of past rhetoric that may, quite literally, go nowhere.

About Today's Contributor:
Paul March-Russell, Lecturer in Comparative Literature, University of Kent

This article was originally published on The Conversation.