The Huffington Post – Page 3

Donald Trump has failed this country over and over in the past 3 1/2 years, but the murder by police last week of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, along with the nation’s ensuing distress, offered Trump another opportunity to show up as president. Alas, Trump once again chose not to accept the opportunity.

Racism has always thrived in the United States. Donald Trump didn’t start it, and though he can’t singlehandedly stop it, either, he has a powerful platform from which he could condemn the systemic racism that infiltrates American institutions, and that has led to the brutality and murder of so many people of color, including George Floyd.

We’ve all witnessed how Donald Trump’s base hangs on his every word and places their trust in him, despite his cheating in business, cheating on his wife, degrading women, making fun of disabled people, telling more than 18,000 lies while in office (as documented by The Washington Post), and having a long list of corrupt close associates. Imagine if Trump said words that condemned the racism and supported those who want change. Imagine how his base might, though momentarily confused, begin to change their rhetoric.

Clearly, the above scenario is fantasy. But even if all Donald Trump did were to condemn the police violence against black people that has brought us to this point, or, if he even addressed the nation in some sort of attempt to be empathetic or induce calm, it might offer, even momentarily, some reassurance that there is, after all, someone in the White House who is trying to lead.

But Donald Trump has chosen not to condemn police violence against black people.

Trump has instead turned his condemnation toward the Democrat leaders of states and cities where protests have taken place. Trump has repeatedly told Democrat leaders in Minnesota, including Governor Walz and Mayor X, of Minneapolis, that they need to “get tough” on protests.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “Liberal Governors and Mayors must get MUCH tougher or the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests.”

On Monday, during a phone call with the governors, Trump called them “weak.” Though he berated governors and urged them to be “tough,” Trump himself had hidden in the White House bunker on Sunday, after crowds outside the White House became hostile. It’s possible that the Secret Service persuaded him to retreat to the bunker, but Trump has chosen to hide in a bunker, literal or figurative, each time the country has faced a crisis (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) that called for a president’s leadership.

And on Monday evening, as a group of protesters in Washington, D.C. demonstrated peacefully, Trump decided that, after hiding in the bunker over the weekend, he needed to show that he was a tough guy. It was more important for him to “dominate” the scene than it was to connect with the demonstrators and empathize with their pain.

At Trump’s bidding, and after Trump’s having just said a moment before that he was on the side of the protesters, U.S. Military Police moved in on the peaceful demonstrators. Without provocation, the MPs deployed tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. They were making way for Trump, who wanted to take a stroll through the park to a church so that he could pose for a photo op with a Bible in his hand and impersonate a godly president.

During Monday’s bizarre and disturbing spectacle, Trump also announced that the states should deploy their Army National Guard forces to help with the protests. If states don’t bring in the National Guard, said Trump, he’ll send the U.S. Army.

Despite beating his figurative chest about the protestors and proclaiming himself “the Law and Order President,” though, Trump has remained silent on the topics of police brutality and the police murder of George Floyd.

Now, as in the past, he points to, and magnifies every issue but the real one, taking to Twitter to promote divisiveness, blame, falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and, especially in the case of the current demonstrations, violence.

Earlier last week, in reference to the demonstrations and unrest in Minneapolis, Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” which was widely seen as a threat to shoot demonstrators. Trump tried to walk back this comment on Twitter, saying that he really meant that shooting was a natural consequence of looting.

Donald Trump either doesn’t understand the difference between the peaceful protesters and the opportunistic looters and rioters, or he just doesn’t care. Or, more likely, he does understand the difference, and is taking delight in the confusion, rallying his base as he provokes the “opposition.”

When the difference between those who simply want to exercise their right to a peaceful demonstration, and those who only come to a demonstration for the looting and vandalism gets blurred, it also blurs the line between the good actors and the bad, giving false justification for the police to “get tough” on all demonstrators. It also perpetuates the narrative that black people who demonstrate, as well as those who demonstrate along with them on their behalf, are “thugs.” Trump knows all this.

The time for Donald Trump to step up and be a president instead of an inciter has passed. Trump has proven beyond doubt that he is not interested or able to take the country successfully through a crisis.

In the span of less than three months, Trump let the country fall into a pandemic that has now killed more than 100,000 Americans. In the span of one week, the nation, under Trump, has become a mass of violence, fire, and fury ignited by a brutal act of racism that Trump has not directly addressed.

We can, and must, vote to protect our unraveling nation from the likes of Donald Trump. With six more months till Election Day, and the country still in the throes of both COVID-19 and the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, however, it’s terrifying to think of how much more damage Donald Trump could do.

Trump tells governors to ‘dominate’ protesters | CNN [2020-06-01]

George Floyd riots: Donald Trump rushed to bunker as protesters surrounded White House | 7NEWS Australia [2020-05-31]

It’s time the Trump administration, many GOP members of Congress, and Trump’s base own up to the fact that they are not pro-life. For decades, many Republicans have voted based on a single criterion: whether the candidate was “pro-life.” It’s been evident for nearly as long, though, that their much tossed-around phrase, “the sanctity of life,” is meaningless unless it can be used as a political weapon to fling at an opponent who supports abortion, or as an opportunity to squelch the rights of someone they perceive as morally or socio-economically inferior (women and people of color, for example).

We’re already too familiar with the frequent ways the pro-lifers defile the sanctity of life. We’ve observed how they advocate for babies as long as they’re unborn, yet vote against any forms of relief or assistance for them and their families once the babies are born. We’ve noticed how they oppose affordable or government-sponsored healthcare. We’ve seen how they purported to be concerned for human life when they opposed the Affordable Care Act (the ACA, or “Obamacare”), falsely spreading alarm about Obamacare “death panels” that they said would determine who (the elderly and infirm, for example) would get to live and who they might deem “not worth saving.”

They have voted for pro-life candidates, even if those candidates support other important policies they don’t agree with, and even if the candidates are corrupt (witness our current president). And they’ll vote against candidates who are ethical—religious, even— and whose platforms they otherwise agree with, if the candidate is not “pro-life.”

Some of them think it’s ok to pass such wacky legislation as making it a crime for a woman to have an ectopic pregnancy surgically removed (ectopic pregnancies are never viable pregnancies), and to charge licensed physicians who perform abortions with felony. That is how “pro-life” they claim to be.

With the advent of COVID-19 and local government leaders’ efforts to help mitigate its spread, however, “sanctity of life” has become inconvenient for pro-life conservatives who are against the lockdowns. Staying home, closing businesses to protect workers and customers, wearing masks, and taking other precautions to help slow the spread of the coronavirus have grown old.

When science presents information that threatens our comfort or our bank accounts, some politicize it and call it “tyranny.” Before America even reaches the peak of the COVID-19 spread—let alone a decline—these “pro-lifers” have been demanding that their leaders let Americans “get back to work” (and back to nail salons, gyms, churches, and crowded beaches).

In late March, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that he and other older Americans should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the economy, which he said was in “mortal jeopardy” as a result of COVID-19-related shutdowns.

“Let’s get back to living,” Patrick (R) said. “Let’s be smart about it. And those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves, but don’t sacrifice the country.”

Many Americans found Lt. Governor Patrick’s comments chilling. It seems, however, that in recent weeks, Patrick’s idea has gradually begun to catch on among conservative lockdown protesters, whom we can now only laughingly refer to as “pro-life.”

Let’s repeat what Patrick was saying : Older Americans should be willing to be sacrificed for the good of our economy. (Remember those Obamacare “death panels” they kept clutching their pearls about?)

Many conservative state governors have fully re-opened their states against the advice of public health experts, citing the need to “save the economy” (and the lives of many be damned). Some restaurants, churches, and other areas where people congregate are now dangerously full of mask-less people in close contact with each other.

Public health experts have warned against opening up too soon; they’ve predicted a resurgence of the virus and an uptick in the number of deaths if we’re not cautious.

The relaxing of masks, social distancing, and other health precautions for the sake of “reopening” of the American economy could be a death sentence for many vulnerable Americans, who are at the mercy of the degree of prudence or carelessness (or stupidity) of those around them.

But public caution would require some inconvenience, as well as a hit on our bank accounts. Lockdown protesters in recent weeks have been clear on their position that even though it means more deaths, the economy needs to fully reopen, and reopen now.

It seems the “sanctity of life” is one of the first ideals to be jettisoned when it interferes with finances, re-election prospects, or…a hair appointment.

As long as all that’s required is to condemn abortion and perhaps stand outside an abortion clinic and yell epithets, it’s easy to profess to be “pro-life.” But for those “pro-lifers” who think it’s fine to sacrifice any number of human lives for the sake of their 401K or their “right” to crowd into churches, stores, and bowling alleys, it’s time they admitted that “pro-life” has nothing to do with what they stand for.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Claims Seniors Willing To Die Of Coronavirus For Economy | HuffPost [2020-03-24]

Blackwell presses pastor: How can you be pro-life and keep your church open? | CNN [2020-05-05]

Category: The Huffington Post

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