Images of African-Americans being brutalized by police have sparked outcry and protests for generations. Yet, the officers responsible have rarely been held accountable for their actions. As has happened far too often, Americans from all walks of life have been outraged over the treatment of George Floyd, an African-American stopped by the police. In an unnecessarily brutal detention, police restraining techniques, in particular Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck, resulted in Floyd's death. Frustrated over the lack of change in police attitudes towards African-Americans, protests broke out nation-wide. Disappointingly, although not surprisingly, the response of President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters has been, not to acknowledge the wide-spread problem of impunity among the police, but to placate the uneducated white voters who make up the Republicans' base of support.
Let's examine Trump's response to the protests over George Floyd's death, and how they were meant to manipulate the emotions of the base of his support. Yes, violence has regrettably accompanied the peaceful protests. But people are angry, and rightfully so. Institutional racism among the police is a problem that grabs the public's attention over and over again. Yet nothing seems to change.
Trump, his Republican allies and their willing accomplices in the conservative media have used the images of that anger, and intentionally conflated the peaceful protests with the incidental violence that has accompanied it. People are yelling angry slogans: "I can't breathe!" The slogans reflect the dying words of George Floyd. In fact, we've heard this slogan far too many times in recent years, as over and over again, police restraining techniques have suffocated the African-American males suspected of committing crimes. And in most cases, those have been minor, non-violent crimes.
Groups of angry people shouting at the police. Fists in the air. These are all frightening images, especially for uneducated white voters.
At the same time, news reporters of violence and looting in the streets of major American cities have flooded the internet and the television airwaves. Juxtapose those images of angry protestors with images of those who have taken the opportunity of the protests to engage in violence, and it can become difficult for the uneducated to distinguish between the two. Trump and his conservative allies took full of advantage of this.
Trump's initial response to the protests was to emphasize the violence, and ignore the root cause. Trump has called the protestors "THUGS" -- itself a racially charged word. He tweeted his willingness to use overwhelming military force to control the cities, warning that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
That phrase is also tainted with racist overtones. It was uttered by Miami Police Chief Walter Headley in 1967, in response to similar angry demonstrations over institutional racism that broke out over fifty years ago. It was a phrase meant to appeal to fears of white voters, with the promise of cracking down on the disturbances, and protect their privileged existence. The phrase has also been believed to contribute to the intensification of angry racial protests in Miamiin the late 1970s and early 1980s, as oppression continued, and African-American demonstrators became more defiant of this assertion of power.
Speaking of assertion of power, Trump has repeatedly tweeted "LAW & ORDER!" He admonished governors to dominate the protestors, not only imploring them to call upon the National Guard, but threatening to step in and take over governmental responses to the protests that did not meet his requirement of hard-line suppression.
The very notion that there were peaceful, albeit very angry, protestors, lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and free assembly was simply lost on him and his base of support.
Trump's reaction to the protests shows that he has no intention to listen to the grievances of the protestors. His goal has not been to engage in constructive dialogue to address the systemic problems. He just wants to crack down on them. And in doing so, to ignite the passions of uneducated white voters, who could only fear the loss of control being portrayed by the conservative echo chamber.
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham of Fox News have all emphasized the violence and the looting and called for strong police and National Guard response. Republican politicians, such as Matt Gaetz, Tom Cotton, Kevin McCarthy, joined with this appeal to scared white voters, also failing to recognize the grievances of the protestors, and calling for a harsh, military-like crack-down.
One of the worst of such appeals came from Republican Sid Miller, Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. On May 31st, Miller posted the following on Facebook:
- Folks this is not a protest. It is a well orchestrated attack on America's major cities with plans to attack the police, riot, loot, and burn buildings. The so-called ‘protestors’ are, in fact, domestic terrorists who were organized and paid for by George Soros to further divide our country. These terrorists were bused into these large cities. We must repel this attack and hold those responsible for their actions. This must be brought to a stop now or we will lose control of our country!
But the most egregious example came from President Trump himself. Fearful of the presence of angry protestors who had gathered in Lafayette Square, a park directly across the street from the White House where all sorts of protestors have historically gathered, on Saturday, May 30th, Trump retreated to an underground bunker in the White House. There, Trump only inflamed passions further, tweeting about "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" that would await protestors who got out of hand.
Trump grew irritated over media reports, which portrayed him as a coward hiding in the safety of the White House bunker. He wanted to project a show of strength, and manipulate the reports that someone had broken into St. John's Episcopal Church the night before and set fire to the basement of the parish house. The location of the church next to Lafayette Square is historically significant, as almost every President since James Madison has worshiped there at least once. His goal was clearly to conflate the violence with the peaceful demonstrations.
On Monday, June 1st, he arranged for U.S. Park Police to use chemical irritants, smoke canisters and flash-bang grenades on people who had been peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights, to clear Lafayette Square. The images of Park Police using brutal, physical force to attack peaceful protestors merely exercising their First Amendment rights lawfully, was shocking. These were unjustifiable war-like techniques, including the use of a police shield as a blunt-force weapon to strike a cameraman of an Australian news crew. Indeed, the indiscriminate police actiondrove away the very Rector of St. John's, Gini Gerbasi.
We learned that this authoritarian show of force was perpetrated specifically to allow Trump to appeal to his base by projecting an image of strength and religiosity. Trump had just finishing an inflammatory speech in the Rose Garden again encouraging governors "dominate" the protestors, "establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence," and pushing for the violence to be "quelled." He then made a spectacle of walking from his speech, through the park that he just had cleared, to use St. John's Episcopal Church as a backdrop for a photo opportunity, as he held a Bible aloft awkwardly.
It bears emphasizing that Trump didn't care a lick about how St. John's and the the Episcopal Church themselves wanted to react to the damage to their building. This stunt wasn't for the benefit of the church. It was to benefit his own ego, and ignite the passions of his Evangelical Christian followers.
He didn't even consult the church before his stunt. In fact, his Park Police not only chased the Rector away, but disrupted the church's chosen response to the protests. Rev. Gerbasi and her colleagues were passing out water and snacks to protestors, and offering prayerful support. Indeed, her op-ed piece in the Washington Post offers further eye witness evidence that the demonstrations on that evening were peaceful. Mariann Budde, Washington Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the very denomination that owns and operates St. John's, immediately condemned Trump for using the church and the Bible as objects in a politically motivated message.
Nonetheless, this piece of showmanship served its purpose. On cue, white Evangelical Christians expressed support for the move, and criticized anyone who saw Trump's use of the Bible as sacrilege. (Such Evangelicals ought to consult the Gospel themselves, paying close attention to Matthew 6:1.)
Trump's tactic is not going to unite the country in an effort to solve the problem of police aggression. His tactic is just going to further divide the country, in particular along racial lines, and ignore a festering issue that has become intolerable to many. Just conflating the protests and their goals with the incidental violence, and keeping his voters scared, will only further divide America, and continue to empower those among the police who resist the imposition of accountability among those officers who continue to oppress and brutalize the African-American community.
By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.
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The photograph “George Floyd protests in Washington, D.C. at the White House perimeter” and was taken by Frypie. Licensing information can be found here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Floyd_protests_in_Washington,_D.C._1250_08.jpg
References
Videos of Events
News Articles and Analysis
Ballasy, Nicholas, "House GOP Leader: 'Rioters and anarchists are not protestors,'" Just the News (June 5, 2020).
Boorstein,
Michelle and Pulliam Bailey, Sarah, “Episcopal bishop on President
Trump: ‘Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,’” The
Washington Post (June 1, 2020).
Cotton, Tom, "Send in the Military," The New York Times (June 3, 2020).
Cotton, Tom, "Send in the Military," The New York Times (June 3, 2020).
Edmondson, Catie, "Trump's Response to Protests Draws Bipartisan Rebuke in Congress," The New York Times (June 2, 2020).
"George Floyd death: More large protests in US but violence falls,” BBC News (June 2, 2020).
Gini Gerbasi “I’m a priest. The police forced me off church grounds for Trump’s photo op.,” The Washington Post (June 3, 2020).
Lamothe, Dan, "Pentagon's top general apologizes for appearing alongside Trump in Lafayette Square," The Washington Post (June 11, 2020).
Nicholas, Peter, "Trump is Terrified of Protest," The Atlantic (May 31, 2020).
Phillips, Amber, "The difference between Democratic and Republican reactions to the protests: Elevate George Floyd or 'antifa'?" The Washington Post (June 1, 2020).
Pulliam
Bailey, Sarah and Boorstein, “Michelle St. John’s Episcopal Church,
historic church next to the White House, set on fire during protests,”
The Washington Post (June 5, 2020).
Samuels, Albert, “In false Facebook posts, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller accused George Soros of paying protesters to “destroy”the country,” The Texas Tribune (June 5, 2020).
Stone, Devin, "American Carnage at Lafayette Square," Legal Eagle (June 3, 2020) (YouTube Video).
Samuels, Albert, “In false Facebook posts, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller accused George Soros of paying protesters to “destroy”the country,” The Texas Tribune (June 5, 2020).
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