Yep, Donald John Trump said today that the man killed by Minneapolis cops — whose death has spawned a national protest movement against police brutality — would be happy to see the jobs report that stunned economists and politicians.
He conflated a national tragedy with a stunning increase of 2 million jobs and a reduction in the jobless rate from 14 percent to 13 percent.
Trump said, “Hopefully George is looking down right now and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.”
George Floyd is still dead. The Minneapolis cops who killed him are charged with murder in his death. The nation grieves for Floyd’s memory and is demanding fundamental change in the way many police departments handle cases involving African-Americans.
And the president of the United States seeks to suggest that Floyd would be happy at the good news suggesting an economic rebound?
Is this guy for real? Well, he is … I am disheartened to say. Donald Trump simply cannot — or will not — respond appropriately to anything.
Yes, the nation got some good news economic news today. I am cheered by the prospect of businesses filling many of the jobs that were emptied because of the coronavirus pandemic. Then we have Donald Trump making outrageous predictions about the economy storming back at record levels.
What’s more, he is seeking to turn a national tragedy into a political plus for him. Absolutely bizarre!
The Portland Press-Herald, the largest newspaper in Maine, offered a tart response to Donald J. Trump’s planned visit to the state.
“We’re sorry that you decided to come to Maine, but since you are here, could you do us a favor? Resign,” the paper said in an editorial published today.
There you have it, Mr. POTUS. The editors of the Press-Herald don’t want you to enter the state. They are fed up with your mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and with your fomenting of division and mistrust in the wake of George Floyd’s death on a Minneapolis street more than a week ago.
“You have never been a good president, but today your shortcomings are unleashing historic levels of suffering on the American people,” the editorial said.
I could not possibly agree more with what the Press-Herald has opined. It’s their call … and I am proud of them for making it.
This must be said, too. Trump won’t heed the paper’s call. He will show up and will boast and bellow about all he has done to “make America great again.” He will continue to lie. Trump will ignore reality even as it gnaws at his hopes for re-election.
As the Press-Herald noted: America needs to heal again. Please resign now, and let us begin.
Hey, wait a second! Weren’t we worrying ourselves into a tizzy over that COVID-19 matter, the pandemic that is killing thousands of Americans each day?
It appears it took another tragedy to knock the pandemic off our front pages, off our news channels’ reporting of issues of the day, even off our own conscious thoughts. We’ve been caught up by the George Floyd tragedy in Minneapolis … as we should, given the monumental implications of the death of a black man at the hands of white cops who were brutalizing him.
I do want to turn my attention — and maybe even yours — back to the pandemic for just a brief moment.
I’ve lost count of the number of Americans who have died from the viral infection. The last figure I saw was 108,000-plus and climbing. It has slammed the brakes on the economy. The U.S. Labor Department is likely to tell us Friday that our jobless rate is now at around 20 percent. Meanwhile, we’re still getting sick at an alarming rate and we’re still dying.
So what has been Donald Trump’s focus? Get this: He is going to pull the Republican National Convention out of Charlotte, N.C. Why? Because Gov. Roy Cooper won’t guarantee that the RNC will be able to fill the arena with screaming Trumpkins cheering the nomination of their guy for a second term as president. Oh, did I mention that Cooper is a Democrat? Trump is having none of what the governor is saying, so he’s now shopping around for a more, um, friendly governor who will allow the RNC to pack an arena and expose thousands of Republican delegates and their families to potential exposure to the coronavirus.
Smart, huh? No! It’s pretty damn dumb! It is profoundly stupid! It is going to put Americans in jeopardy!
That doesn’t matter to a president who doesn’t give a rat’s a** about them or their health or their well-being. He cares only about himself, which many of us predicted would be the result of electing this carnival barker/con man/fraud/pathological liar to the nation’s highest office.
So … the pandemic continues to ravage the nation that has seen its attention diverted to another tragedy.
I just felt compelled to remind everyone that we’ve got a plate full of crises that the man who took an oath to protect us is failing to tackle in any sort of decisive fashion.
Americans have witnessed so many tragedies that we have become numb — or so it seems — to their effects.
Politicians get assassinated. Buildings are blown up. Madmen open fire in schools, churches and movie theaters. And, yes, police officers kill citizens in acts of brutality.
However, this latest tragic event — the death of George Floyd more than a week ago on a Minneapolis street — seems sadly different. This one well might stick in our national consciousness for far longer than anything else we had have witnessed.
Why is that?
I want to posit a couple of theories.
One is the physical evidence we all have seen of a cop holding Floyd to the ground, with his knee pressing against the man’s neck. We watch the cop do nothing to respond to Floyd’s pleas for help, his cries for his mother, his crying out that “I can’t breathe.” The cop, Derek Chauvin, hold him down — while the suspect is handcuffed. Floyd loses consciousness. Chauvin still doesn’t lift his knee off of Floyd’s neck.
How in the name of human decency does one explain this away? How will this former police officer tell the world why he held down a man who offered no resistance until he no longer has a pulse? You’ve seen the video, yes? He looks at the young bystander who took the video as if to say, “So what are you looking at?”
This event calls out loudly and clearly to the issue of how police treat African-American men and whether they treat them differently than they do, say, white men or white women.
The second notion that might produce the seminal moment in police-black community relations has been the reaction of police agencies around the country. We are hearing other law enforcement officials condemning the actions of Derek Chauvin. They are standing — and kneeling — with peaceful protesters in cities from coast to coast to coast in solidarity with the concerns they are raising.
So, the dialogue has commenced. Americans are demanding justice be delivered to Chauvin and the three police colleagues who watched him kill George Floyd. They also are demanding that police cease demonizing American citizens simply because of their skin color.
This outrage should last for as long as it takes for there to be tangible evidence that we are slaying this deadly beast.
I admire former President George W. Bush’s restraint.
He seeks to calm the roiling water with words that appeal to our better angels. The 43rd president did so with a message released this week in the wake of George Floyd’s hideous death at the hands of brutal cops in Minneapolis.
Here is what the former president said in a statement:
“Laura and I are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country. Yet we have resisted the urge to speak out, because this is not the time for us to lecture. It is time for us to listen. It is time for America to examine our tragic failures – and as we do, we will also see some of our redeeming strengths.
“It remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country. It is a strength when protesters, protected by responsible law enforcement, march for a better future. This tragedy — in a long series of similar tragedies — raises a long overdue question: How do we end systemic racism in our society? The only way to see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America — or how it becomes a better place.
“America’s greatest challenge has long been to unite people of very different backgrounds into a single nation of justice and opportunity. The doctrine and habits of racial superiority, which once nearly split our country, still threaten our Union. The answers to American problems are found by living up to American ideals — to the fundamental truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by God with certain rights. We have often underestimated how radical that quest really is, and how our cherished principles challenge systems of intended or assumed injustice. The heroes of America — from Frederick Douglass, to Harriet Tubman, to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr. — are heroes of unity. Their calling has never been for the fainthearted. They often revealed the nation’s disturbing bigotry and exploitation — stains on our character sometimes difficult for the American majority to examine. We can only see the reality of America’s need by seeing it through the eyes of the threatened, oppressed, and disenfranchised.
“That is exactly where we now stand. Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason. Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions. We know that lasting justice will only come by peaceful means. Looting is not liberation, and destruction is not progress. But we also know that lasting peace in our communities requires truly equal justice. The rule of law ultimately depends on the fairness and legitimacy of the legal system. And achieving justice for all is the duty of all.
“This will require a consistent, courageous, and creative effort. We serve our neighbors best when we try to understand their experience. We love our neighbors as ourselves when we treat them as equals, in both protection and compassion. There is a better way — the way of empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice. I am confident that together, Americans will choose the better way.”
All of this, to no one’s surprise, will be lost on the current president, who foments anger with his tough talk about “thousands and thousands of well-armed military” taking control of our city streets. Donald Trump likely will not even read this statement in its entirety.
I believe I have discerned why Donald Trump’s hideous photo-op at the Episcopal church near the White House has played so badly in the public’s mind.
This individual is so transparently phony!
It’s the clumsiness of that appearance and the obvious intent of his seeking to be photographed brandishing a Bible that has roiled the public mind.
He went to the church after delivering a stunningly grim national message, vowing to call up the military to put down demonstrations against the death of George Floyd, the man who died in Minneapolis after being asphyxiated by the cops.
He said he had “thousands and thousands of heavily armed troops” at his disposal to follow his orders to put down the demonstrators.
Then he traipsed off to the church. He held the Bible in front of the sign. He let photographers take pictures of him. Then he went away.
It was such an obviously blatant and empty gesture that offended many Christians and people of other faiths that he would use a church in such a hideous manner. There was not a single subtlety that could be interpreted.
And yet … there remain those who think he just is the leader we need in this time of dire peril.
“This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity.”
— Robert Hendrickson Rector at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Ariz.
The comments attributed to Robert Hendrickson speak so well, so eloquently to one of my enduring frustrations.
It is that Donald Trump is able to persuade the enabling class of voters to whom he clings that he actually speaks their language, that he feels their pain, that he cares about them, their concerns, their loved ones.
He trooped over to the Episcopal church in Washington on Monday to stage a ridiculous, clumsy and laughable photo op. Millions of Americans — me included — saw it for what it was. Others, though, see it as some sort of demonstration that Donald Trump actually cares about them.
How else can I say this, other than to say simply: No. He doesn’t care. Not about you, or me, or anyone other than himself.
For this amoral/immoral imbecile to grasp a Bible — a book of which he has zero knowledge or understanding — and display it in such a fashion soils and sullies the holy and revered text it contains.
Words damn near fail me as I seek some understanding of what I witnessed Monday from the president of the United States of America.
Donald Trump delivered some chilling remarks about how he intends to deal with those who protest violently in response to the death of George Floyd, the man who died when Minneapolis police officers choked the life out of him. Trump vowed to bring the force of the U.S. military to bear on those who vandalize private property.
Then, trailing the advance guard of police officers in Washington, D.C., who cleared out some peaceful protesters near the White House, Trump traipsed over to John’s Episcopal Parish House that had been damaged in a riot the previous day. He was carrying a Bible, a book I am certain he hasn’t read.
He stood before the church — with its boarded-up windows and doors — and posed for pictures. He stood there for about 90 seconds brandishing the Holy Book, holding up over his head, staring down at it, looking oh, so solemn and somber.
The rector of the church, the Bishop Mariann Budde, called it a disgraceful display of political posturing. She said she is horrified that Donald Trump would use the church where she preaches as a political prop in that fashion.
Given the juxtaposition of Donald Trump’s message and his appearance at the historic church, I have to endorse Bishop Budde’s view that we all witnessed one of the most callous, callow and shallow displays of political pandering many of us have ever seen.
It was made even worse by the belief among millions of us that Donald Trump — unquestionably the most amoral man ever to hold the office of president — has not a scintilla of understanding of just how Jesus Christ himself would view what the rest of us saw.
I want to see more of what we witnessed Monday night in Fort Worth, and in Santa Cruz, Calif., and in Portland, Ore.
I want to see police “taking a knee” as a show of anguish over the death of George Floyd a week ago in Minneapolis, Minn. I also want to see peaceful protesters recognize that demonstration in the moment and thank the officers for the good faith they are demonstrating.
It’s not at all clear to me whether there is any healing or reconciliation in store immediately in the aftermath of Floyd’s hideous death while being arrested by cops. The officers, four of whom were fired by the department, held Floyd down; one of the officers shoved his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck, choking the life out of him. That officer, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with murder and manslaughter; the three other officers stood by and watched — and to my eye they are complicit in Floyd’s ghastly death.
We are starting to hear from police officers around the country stand up for the rights of those who feel persecuted by law enforcement. They are telling us that what they witnessed in Minneapolis — just as what we all saw — was wrong.
They are speaking out and and they also are standing with the peaceful protesters.
Fort Worth police found themselves buried in the embrace of those who gathered to demonstrate against violence. Portland police were getting high-fives and hugs from those in that city who gathered to protest peacefully. The same thing happened in Santa Cruz. It’s happening in communities all across the land.
Is this the end of the story? It’s just the beginning of it. May it continue, though, with reason, rational discussion and restraint.
George Floyd’s death has sparked a national protest movement.
People are marching in streets calling for the police across the land to examine closely the practices they use to arrest and detain African-Americans. The concern is legitimate. Yes, many of these demonstrations have gotten out of hand.
Still, it is the “out of hand” element that has drawn the exclusive attention of Donald John Trump, who today made a public statement about the reaction to Floyd’s death while he was being arrested by Minneapolis police officers — for allegedly seeking to pass a counterfeit $20 bill.
The cops killed Floyd. They snuffed the life out of him by using tactics that other officers acknowledge are not part of the training manual section that describes arrest techniques.
Donald Trump instead took dead aim at the more violent reaction to this hideous event. The Numbskull in Chief didn’t say a single word today about the conduct of the officers. He offered nothing in the way of acknowledgement that the officer who crushed Floyd’s windpipe with knee has been charged correctly with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Trump has appealed yet again to the darker instincts of a riled-up nation. He said governors need to get tough … or else. Trump said he will mobilize the military. He bellowed about being the “law and order” president.
My goodness. We need someone in the Oval Office who can appeal to our better angels, not to our darker impulses.
