Piers Morgan, here’s why the Trump protests aren’t ‘endless hysteria’

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/01/piers-morgan-trump-protests-endless-hysteria

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Tens of thousands of people gathered at Downing Street on Monday evening to protest against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and Theresa May’s decision to cosy up to the new administration. Whitehall was packed with little room to move even before the official start time and the crowd only grew as the evening went on. Protests like that don’t happen very often, let alone with only 48 hours’ notice – such big numbers take not only outrage but a popular desire for action. People feel empowered to do something about Trump – that’s what Piers Morgan didn’t understand when he called the protest “endless hysteria” in an interview with Owen Jones on Good Morning Britain.

Morgan is concerned that while Trump may be wrong to have signed his executive order, protests against him and calls to cancel his state visit are hypocritical when the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Russia and China aren’t met with the same level of popular resistance. It’s true, far fewer people came out on to the streets against the leaders of these nations, but is it really surprising that the British public are more likely to scrutinise the US, given its own self-perception as a western liberal democracy?

A state visit by Vladimir Putin in 2003 attracted protesters, just as visits by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the Chinese president Xi Jinping did more recently. Of course the crowds they attracted were much smaller than Monday’s protest against Trump and May. Critics of a visit by George Bush a few months after Putin’s invitation turned out in smaller numbers too.

Usually the excuse given for inviting these people is expediency, not sincere friendship. Saudi Arabia, Russia and China have long been presented to both Britons and Americans as consistent violators of human rights. Saudi Arabia hates women and supports extremism. Russia is anti-liberal, aggressive and hates LGBT people. China is belligerent and treats dissenters harshly. We’re taught that they’re undemocratic and that dealing with them is an unfortunate reality of international politics and because of that the British public do not feel able to criticise them.

But while British governments practise diplomacy with all manner of world leaders we’re constantly reminded that one thing makes the US different: we have a special relationship. When May visited the White House a week after Trump’s inauguration she made clear how close the two countries are in terms of history, politics and shared values. Not only that, she described her personal appreciation for the new president’s success and vision. Britain is close to the US and the two countries do have a great deal in common – that’s precisely why so many people have come out in anger here at Trump’s policies and our own government’s lack of criticisms for them.

If few images are more closely associated with the US than the Statue of Liberty, few national stories are more familiar than the arrival of immigrants via Ellis Island. It’s a grossly incomplete history, but for many those are the go-to symbols of America’s foundation. It’s the land of freedom and opportunity with a constitution often exalted even in the UK, where we make do with an unwritten one. In short the US is exactly the sort of nation Morgan holds up as a stick to beat other, less democratic, nations with. Why then the confusion when Trump is held to the standards he swore to defend?

In truth American liberty often sits on top of a far messier underlying reality. About four miles from Ellis Island today is the New York City field office of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, whose detention centres process migrants for removal, out of sight in guarded facilities. The Transportation Security Administration too makes sure that at airports across the US those Muslims and immigrants that need extra screening are carted off to special areas where no one else will see, while visa policies quietly exclude undesired “aliens” before they’ve even arrived.

These uncomfortable features of liberal democracy have bubbled below the surface for decades – sometimes unnoticed and more often ignored. Trump’s ban was the moment they boiled over and the fear now is that his administration marks an erosion of what the west has until recently happily considered democracy. For protesters in the US and UK – where the border regime is no less pernicious than it was in pre-Trump America – a breaking point has been reached. That’s not hysteria, it’s just anger.

Criticising these mobilisations because they don’t target Saudi Arabia, Russia, China or any other nation Morgan thinks is more worthy of ire is backwards logic. If we don’t ruthlessly criticise our own governments, we have little business hectoring those who are further from our ideals. In reality the “Why aren’t you protesting about X?” refrain is an anti-protest shibboleth as hackneyed as “Get a job!”. They’re both easy retorts for people who don’t want to see radical politics on the streets.

By all means protest every single one of the world’s baddies – outrage is not a scarce commodity – but Trump is chief among them.