So now Trump wants to distance himself from Monday’s St. John’s Church fiasco:
Good luck with persuading anyone outside the Fox echo chamber that Trump didn’t know. As is clear from the timing of events, Trump owns it all. Every bit of violence since the George Floyd murder.
Yup, even this:
On Saturday, Trump said the protestors were “Antifa” and said he’d be designating “Antifa” as a “terrorist organization.”
On Sunday, Trump tweeted “Law and Order”:
In a phone call Monday morning, Trump told the governors they needed to get tougher and dominate the streets or they will look like a bunch of jerks.
Trump’s AG-Henchman Barr was also on the phone. He explained exactly what Trump meant when he said the demonstrators were “Antifa” and should be treated like “terrorists”:
Specifically, Barr said if the protestors are treated as “demonstrators” the police are “pinned back.”
In other words, if treated like protesters, the police will have to respect their rights. No surprise there: Remember what Trump told us about how terrorists should be treated?
Also, the AG doesn’t have the legal authority to order law enforcement (including federal, such as Park Service or National Guard) to do anything.
However, according to Elizabeth Warren, Barr reportedly ordered Lafayette Plaza cleared and is responsible for the brutalizing of the protesters and Episcopal priests.
Now Trump wants to say he knew nothing about the forceful removal of protesters. (Yeah, riiight. As my stepdaughter used to say when she was in middle school, “Do I have stupid written on my forehead?”)
Remember when Trump told the police they should rough people up more during arrests?
Trump has called neo-Nazis very fine people. The Confederate flag is waved at his rallies. How does this not send a message to minority communities that the president is out to hurt them?
It also sends a message to his supporters that they should hurt them.
Trump owns the police attacks on journalists. He’s not only encouraged police brutality, he has singled out journalists as “enemies of the people.”
Here is Secretary of Defense Espry trying to weasel out of complicity with Trump’s clear attempt to circumvent law and due process
Of course, Trump didn’t like Esper’s statement.
It’s hard for a would-be dictator to have fantasies about a military coup when his own secretary of defense makes a statement like that.
So Trump applied pressure, and within hours, Esper caved.
James Mattis then rose to the occasion. In a stinging rebuke, he said Trump was a threat to the Constitution and compared Trump to Nazism.
The hypocrisy of Trump claiming to be “law and order” is glaring. I took him apart for it here.
In Trump’s phone call to the governors, he talked about the need to “dominate” the protesters.
Trump’s use of the word “dominate” and his use of the phrase “law and order” to mean “maintain hierarchy” is best explained by what I’ve called the “fairness v. hierarchy” methods of governing. (For more, see this post.)
The dichotomy explains why Trump didn’t want to invoke the Defense Production Act to save lives in a pandemic, but is perfectly happy to invoke the Insurrection Act to send troops to put protesters in jail.
Saving lives is what “fairness” leaders want to do.
Trump has no interest in fairness.
He and the entire Trump-FOX-GOP want to maintain the hierarchy.
Their objective is for those at the top of the hierarchy to brutalize those lower who do not stay in line and do as they’re told.
That’s why, this:
This is also why I say Trump owns all of it.
Every bit of it.
