Here is an idea that comes from a 1960s hero, Barbara Garson, of whom more shortly:

Trump and his stooge, Attorney General Bill Barr, disingenuously claim that their storm troopers are in Portland (and other cities that just happen to be governed by Democrats) to protect federal property.

Suppose Black Lives Matter interposed itself between Trump’s gestapo and federal buildings. Then we’d find out who is defending the constitutional order and who is trying to overthrow it.

For those under about 65, God help me, Barbara Garson was the playwright of the Hamilton of its day, a 1967 send-up of LBJ and his family called MacBird!, modeled on Shakespeare’s Macbeth. She was in her twenties when she wrote it, and MacBird!, with its intrigue between the Johnson and Kennedy families, played for a year at the Village Gate in New York. (Trump awaits his bard—there are several mad kings from which to choose.)

Remembering David Bensman

Our friend, colleague, and Prospect contributor David Bensman has died, just short of his 71st birthday. A stalwart of the labor studies program at Rutgers, David was one of America’s great labor historians and an activist champion of working people everywhere. A much loved, gentle teacher and a noble man.