On his most recent show, John Oliver pointed out the incongruity of the RNC’s empty words about racial “healing” that almost no Trump voter wants or believes in, and how it proceeded to completely abandon the pretense by allowing a white vigilante couple, who had been seen threatening protesters with guns, to spread the gospel of white racial paranoia and fear freaking-out. Oliver also juxtaposed the optics of what happened in Kenosha: first, police pumping seven bullets into the back of an unarmed black man, and then letting an armed white vigilante who had just killed two people and wounded another to simply walk away. By now we have grown used to racists like Trump, William Barr, Stephen Miller (who composed Trump’s fascist acceptance speech), and the unwashed Chad Wolf, to fail to see what is wrong with that “picture,” but come on the rest of America, wake the hell up!
So Trump traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where a young police officer who apparently was either psychologically unfit to be wearing a police uniform, or had not received proper training on if or when he was to use lethal force, fired his weapon seven times at pointblank range into the back of Jacob Blake. I mean, that is crazy. Yet you have people like this walking around with a badge and a gun—and Trump supporters actually think that is “OK.”
Some people—like Trump—also seem to think it is “OK” for white vigilantes, or at least those who sit in the front row of Trump rallies, to shoot and kill unarmed protesters. When asked the other day about whether he condemned the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, Trump claimed it was a “interesting case,” that it appeared that Rittenhouse was trying to get away from “very violent” people, that he was “defending” himself because he “probably” would have been “killed.” As I pointed out before, Rittenhouse was carrying a long rifle, he killed one man who had confronted him about it, he was running from the scene of his crime followed by two men trying to stop him, he tripped and fell, the two men tried and failed to disarm him, and they were both shot, one of them dead. Despite the fact that Kenosha police were told that Rittenhouse had just shot some people, they just let him walk away. But this is “OK” to some people. This is police “doing their job.”
Trump seemed unaware of the fact that Rittenhouse was arrested in Illinois and charged with murder. He stated that there was going to be an “investigation” into the shooting, which is why Barr was tagging along on the trip. If he is there to “investigate,” we can presume Barr is only interested in hearing the excuses the police are going to give for their behavior in the Blake shooting, and why they allowed Rittenhouse to walk away unmolested from his killings. If the Justice Department actually has the gonads to “justify” the actions of the perpetrators, then we know that if you are not a Trump fanatic, this country is not safe for you to live in as long as Trump remains president.
Trump announced that he was providing Kenosha police $1 million to “go out and do what you have to do”—and we know what that is. None of this would have been necessary if police in Kenosha were not “doing what they were doing,” and they do not need any more money to kill unarmed people, or let Trump-supporting killers walk around unmolested. I mean, only in Trump’s America is property damage a worse crime than murder, so long as the “right” people are doing the killing, and the “right” people are the ones being killed. Trump also promised $42 million for the state for “public safety” and prosecutors. “We’re going to get it fixed up, we’re going to help people rebuild their businesses in Kenosha...we’re getting it straightened out,” he said. Nothing about reforming out-of-control behavior by police, who never seem to learn from past mistakes.
And what about Jacob Blake, Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum? Trump and his familiars had absolutely nothing to say about them. They seem completely incapable of feeling any empathy for them—they are just temporary “impediments” to his reelection campaign. Trump even refused to speak to Blake’s parents, because they had their lawyers present. It should be crystal clear to all that Trump’s campaign strategy is to create and stoke an atmosphere of white racial grievance and chaos which he alone can “fix.” But how can he “fix” something when he seems uncomprehending of how things came to be “broken” in the first place? How can he “fix” something when he can’t even see that it is he himself that in large part is what needs to be “fixed”?
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