Julio Cortez/AP
The horrifying killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer (please be warned: I found the linked video upsetting to watch) has unleashed protests in cities across the US.
[Update 1:41 pm CDT: the officer identified as keeping his knee on Floyd's neck, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and will be charged with murder and manslaughter by the Hennepin County Attorney.]
President Trump is actively seeking to turn the situation to his re-election advantage.
In Minneapolis and St. Paul, protesters burned and looted stores and a police station.
President Trump, whose political instincts shouldn't be underestimated, has sensed an opportunity and has set out to exploit it. In a tweet that criticized and mocked Minneapolis's mayor, Trump wrote,
The president added a tweet which read,
"These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!"Twitter flagged that one:
This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the Tweet to remain accessibleThus we see here the spectacle of the president simultaneously sending out dog whistles to his base, picking a fight with a progressive mayor, and fanning the flames of his ongoing war with Twitter and other social media companies.
Meanwhile, protests continue to erupt. Floyd's death is at least the third racially-charged incident I'm aware of recently (Ahmaud Arbery's shooting in Georgia, and that woman with her dog in Central Park being the others; and no doubt there are yet others which I haven't yet heard about). And this in the context of a pandemic in which urban African Americans have been disproportionately affected, and with unemployment reaching toward 25%, a level which is unprecedented in my lifetime. It's not surprising if urban areas are tinderboxes.
Our country is beset by a pandemic, racial tensions and an incompetent and demagogic leader. Let us pray for justice, temperance, peace, wisdom and any other gifts of the Holy Spirit we can think of on this eve of Pentacost.
"Let us pray for justice, temperance, peace, wisdom and any other gifts of the Holy Spirit we can think of on this eve of Pentacost." Yes, definitely!
ReplyDeleteAnd while for the most part church leadership has shown more wisdom and prudence than some of our civil leaders, there are exceptions. Check out this piece by Michael Sean Winters on the NCR site. The Minnesota bishops have not exactly shown responsible leadership, but allowed themselves to be used as poster children by the Becket Find.
Jim, it sounds like your Cardinal Cupich delivered a pretty good takedown without mentioning names.
I should clarify that the Minnesota bishops weren't speaking about the recent tragedies, but about defiant reopening.
DeleteMichigan's gov wisely did not include places of worship in closure orders, but the vast majority of churches, synagogues and mosques did shut down beginning in mid-March. The happy-clappies have held drive-in services. They actually look like fun.
DeleteJim, I think that's a good analysis of Trump's savvy ability to get his base revved up. I think dismissing him as a dolt is dangerous.
ReplyDeleteIf there is no COVID19 surge before the election and many people go back to work, he will have big reductions in unemployment to brag about in the run up to November before flu season + COVID surge start in December.
If there is a viable COVID vaccine approved by then that he can promise to distribute widely through his Big Biz friends Walgreen, CVS, Walmart, etc., he will win, hands down.
We are trying to get The Boy to consider job hunting in New Zealand or Canada. Too late for us, but there is nothing here for young people but pestilence, poverty, unemployment, mass killings, race riots, and floods.
Of course your son has to do what's best for him, but not every location in the US is the same. It just seems like looking for work in a foreign country could be pretty dicey right now; they're not exactly welcoming Americans with open arms.
DeleteNow the COVID virus is complicating job searches everywhere with unemployment being so high. But there still are a lot of places in the US with good quality of life, some of which aren't on the radar.
Sure, Americans are going to be seen as undesirables because of our COVID19 infection rates among other things. And Canada and NZ have always been exceedingly selective with immigrants outside of the Commonwealth. Just thinking that a place where Trump could get laughed at instead of elected would be good.
Delete"I think dismissing him as a dolt is dangerous." I am not sure I completely agree. Dismissing him is dangerous, but he could still be a dolt. I am coming around to believing that he knows the base so well because it reflects his deepest self.
ReplyDeleteStill, as I told my wife yesterday when he attacked Twitter, "The Lone Ranger just attacked Silver; he said the big horse always was on the side of the Indians." When Twitter shaded his Tweet today for encouraging violence, I woke her up with, "Silver just bit the Lone Ranger on the thigh."
You know, Twitter has the power to throw its rider, too.
I guess I'd say he's evil and canny, not stupid.
DeleteJust finished reading Doctorow's Western, "Welcome to Hard Times." He makes it clear that venal sins like lust, drunkenness, greed, envy, etc. actually contribute to economic prosperity. It's what runs the saloon, the whorehouse, water and fuel utilities, the assay office, the general store, and keeps everyone in food, clothes, and shelter.
But it's Chaos, personified by the Bad Man from Bodie, that destroys everything.
Trump is pure chaos, and he is brilliant in the way he sows it, with contradictions, threats, intimidations, falsehoods, denials, etc. Can the country survive with that level of instability in the executive?
Just now he's denying that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" remark was harkening back to race riots of yore: “Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. I don’t want this to happen, and that’s what the expression put out last night means.”
DeleteHe is constantly activating his minions with ugly rhetoric while trying to.persuade those who object that they were too dumb to understand his actual intent. Expert gas-lighting.
For a moment I misread "...venal sins" as "venial sins". They sound like mortal sins to me, and so does sowing chaos.
DeleteJean, Your reading is always so appropriate.
DeleteKatherine, I don't want to get into theological slicing and dicing of sins. Doctorow is a New and doesn't present the story in terms of sin. But the glue that holds society together often consists of less-than-altruistic impulses. But when someone is bent on just shooting up the place, things fall apart. And Trump is a shooter-upper.
Delete*Jew. Geez Louise.
DeleteI actually find that our fellow Americans who are of African descent are amazingly law abiding citizens who still have an amazing amount of patience and high expectation of the system. If not, they would riot every day of the year. As for the rest of us, a riot every other day would not be unreasonable.
ReplyDeleteJean, one of our sons is actively trying to figure out a way to move to Spain. They have traveled a lot over the last 12 years - their 6 year old bi-racial son is on his second passport, and has been to 15 countries on 5 continents already. They want to raise their children in a country that has less of the insanity they see in our country. Safer in many ways, starting with the fact that they don't have a gun culture. We are encouraging them, as we believe, from knowing people in Europe and from many, many trips there over the years, that the overall quality of life is better there for middle class and the working class than here. The uber-rich are fine anywhere, but nobody in our family is in the 1%. For various reasons they have picked Spain. The challenge is to get a job - New Zealand is very closed to immigration as a general rule - if I am not mistaken, your son has not yet graduated from college. That would close a lot of the job market, at least the employers who would be willing to sponsor a non-citizen for immigration. Health care workers though are in big demand, and not all of those jobs require a university degree. There are other high demand jobs also. Canada – maybe. Your son is already used to living in a cold climate. ;)
ReplyDeleteI have told my son and his wife that if they are serious, both need to become certified in teaching English as a foreign language. The pay is lousy, but it's one of the easiest ways to get there and then to apply for permanent residency after a given time period. By then they should be fluent enough in Spanish to get better paying permanent jobs. My d-i-law speaks Spanish but is rusty. My son is conversant in French but not Spanish. I am encouraging them, especially since their children are bi-racial, which means their son will be seen as black by cops and white bullies.
African-American parents give their sons "the talk" when they get to middle school age, warning them that they could become targets of ordinary racists and cop racists, and training them in how to respond to different circumstances and even how to dress. No hoodies. When white parents mention "the talk" they are referring to the one about sex, not teaching their sons how to save their lives from a racist they encounter on the street, or when stopped by a cop while driving a car, or while bird-watching in Central Park. The son who wants to move to Spain was stopped several times when driving when he lived in Florida - for no reason at all - other than the fact that his closest friend was in the car with him. His closest friend is black. They would be told to get out while the car was searched, even though there was no 'probable cause" for the search. This never happened to him when he was alone or with a white friend. Not once. More than once when with his black friend. He is now an architect in Florida. He was stopped a year or so ago without reason and his car searched. The cop saw the architectural drawings in the back seat, grabbed them and asked him where he had gotten them. Had he stolen them from an office? He had to prove that he is an architect by showing his work ID that identified the firm. He was once detained for hours and questioned at an airport because someone thought he looked like a drug dealer. I was waiting for him at the airport (he was in college then) to give him a ride home. He was my son's closest friend from 8th grade on and he was almost another son to us. They didn't even let him call me for more than an hour as I'm trying to reach the airline to see if he had not made the plane. Racial profiling is a very real thing.
The racism never went away, it just went underground a little bit. Trump has re-awakened it with a vengeance, starting with Sessions dropping the DOJ investigations into several police forces accused of "excessive force" when dealing with African Americans. This was one of the very first things he did, with Trump's blessing of course. Before the great falling out.
Dave loved Portugal when he was in the Navy, which seems to be poorer than Spain but a bit more leftist. At one point they were recruiting younger immigrants touting that they never had racisim, never had fascism. Not sure that isn't a stretch, but it sure sounds nice!
ReplyDeleteI'm not really up on my 20th century Iberian Peninsula history, but I thought Salazar might qualify, if not precisely as a fascist, at least in the same general Venn diagram?
DeleteI'm sure you are right.
DeleteAnd Generalissimo Fransisco Franco has not been all that long ago. Spain is a relative newcomer to being a parliamentary monarchy.
DeleteI'm nor sure there is anyplace you can go to be sure of avoiding epidemics of stupid. Who would have expected Hungry and Poland, after all they have been through, to succumb so soon to the clown shows they have now? Costa Rica maybe. Denmark? Or one of the countries where it is too cold, for most of the year, to parade around outdoors in funny uniforms?
Delete"I'm nor sure there is anyplace you can go to be sure of avoiding epidemics of stupid." I think you're right, Tom. One just hopes they don't all get it at the same time.
DeleteI have 2 sets of friends who emigrated to Costa Rica a few years back. They rarely come back to the US, except to attend weddings and funerals of family. They love it there and both sets are still working.
DeleteOf course you can find stupid in many places. Hungary and Poland for sure. With the support of the Catholic Church, especially in Poland.
DeleteThe USA is among the top in stupid these days too . If trump is re-elected it will be sure evidence that the stupid has reached permanency, and that the quality of life here will continue to decline, especially for minorities. It will be time to bail if possible. I might suggest that my son and his wife take a vacation in Costa Rica. Excellent standard of living, excellent healthcare system, and much easier to move to than Spain. My ancestors moved here in the 19th century to work for better lives for their children and grandchildren. Now their descendants in the 21st century may need to move elsewhere for the good of their children and grandchildren.
Franco's fascist government prevailed with the strong support of the Catholic Church. A similar situation to that in Hungary and Poland now.
DeleteSpain is very secular these days, especially the younger generations - younger than 50. Many see a greater danger of fascism rising in this country than in most European countries. Read Madeleine Albright's book, and I also recommend two recent books by Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor. One is called "On Tyranny " - a quick read. The other is "the Road to Unfreedom"
Religion attaching itself to civil power has always been a poisonous brew. We need to be at least as concerned that separation of church and state is preserved as we are about religious freedom as defined by the culture warriors.
DeleteLeaders of top-down organizations tend to see people like themselves when they see dictators. I'm sure the Krupps and Thyssens looked down on the Austrian upstart but admired his leadership style. They ran companies where a few people decided in advance every move that would be made on the assembly line and every bathroom break that would be allowed to thousands of workers. They had to admire someone with the guts to run the country the way they run their business. As for bishops, number one, they thought they were Krupps by virtue of wisdom infused at their installation and, number two, they confused people who act like God with God, an easy mistake if your flunkies say, "Absolutely, Lord Copper" or "To a point, Lord Copper," every time you utter a commonplace.
DeleteTom, when you talk about the bishops, the present tense is appropriate as the past tense. It seems little has really changed.
DeleteAnne, Generalizations always sideswipe many good people. When Archbishop Halleran of Atlanta was on his death bed, Art Winter of NCR (no relation to Michael Sean Winters) visited him. Art mentioned that most of his peer group were time-servers at best, and Halleran objected that there were 12 or 15 good ones (out of about 180). He started naming some and then realized that was inappropriate, even for a dying archbishop, and stopped. Unfortunately, Art said, the ones he mentioned were all ones we already knew about.
DeleteOhhh, senior moment. The talking archbishop -- one of the good ones, or Art wouldn't have been there, was Paul Hallinan (d. 1968).
DeleteA dozen out of 180 - in 1968. How many now? The situation is even worse.
DeleteFrancis has appointed a couple of good bishops from what I read, but it seems that the US bishops as a group have sold their souls to prop up trump. They would do more propping if they could, as the RC clerical establishment has done in Poland, and Hungary. As they did in Spain. And even in Germany under Hitler. The concordat - leave the RCC alone and we’ll keep out of your way. Few “christian” leaders, Protestant or Catholic, in Germany risked their own well-being to follow Christ then. Not many Bonhoeffers. Play along to get along and close your eyes to the horrors.
The US bishops speak out loud and clear on abortion, insurance coverage for contraception Even wanting exemptions for private, profit-making companies, and for their rights to discriminate against gays. Every now and then they mumble something critical about the treatment of minorities, or about taking young children away from their parents at the border. Fortunately enough ordinary folk got riled up about that and forced a retreat.
The Catholic bishops in the US provide little moral leadership. Dolan went for the Faustian bargain in kissing up to trump and he is nor alone. Now a bishop is openly defying the lockdown rules in his state.
The bishops of the US are just another tool in the right-wing political toolbox, along with the Falwells, Grahams, and others in the evangelical “christian” world.
We are all sinners. The bishops' problem is that they don't have anyone authorized to remind them.
DeleteYes they are all sinners. We are all sinners.
DeleteBut in the case of the "leadership" of one of the most powerful institutions on earth, I choose not to support them financially - or by my presence in their pews.
I send my money to others - Catholic Relief Services, the Jesuit Refugee Service, local charities etc. But never another cent will go to a Catholic bishop. They have not repented of their sins - including the sins that led to horrific abuse of thousands of children and teenagers.
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DeletePolice in the US are mainly occupying forces. This dynamic is more obvious in minority neighborhoods. Eventually, whether ostensibly benevolent or not, the occupiers learn to hate the occupied and the occupied learn to hate the occupiers. I would say the message to those white people who are not in the 1% is, "Get out of line and that knee will be on YOUR neck". See what happened to Occupy Wall Street. A coordinated nationwide effort under a supposedly liberal Democratic president.
ReplyDeleteThey may not get these police off. Sometimes sacrifices must be made. Much preferable that they get off and enhance the formidibility and immunity of the police.
Contrast former President Obama's statement with those of Trump on the Floyd killing. What a statesman ought to sound like. Not that Obama did everything perfect, but so much better than now. Seems much longer ago than three and a half years.
ReplyDeleteRemember the presidential race. Apparently, the chaos in Minneapolis has thrown unwelcome light on Klobuchar's record as a prosecuter, easy on cops, hard on some citizens of color. It seems that reaching for higher office via the position of prosecutor is becoming something of a liability. Didn't help Kamala Harris either. Do Democratic female politicians have to prove they're tough? Do we need or want tough?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thedailybeast.com/team-biden-on-klobuchar-we-need-to-avoid-her
I don't think Klobuchar was ever Biden's top contender for veep even though she's a wannabee. I predict Stacey Abrams, I think he's wanted her all along.
DeleteI don't know if Democratic female politicians have to prove they're tough, but for sure prosecuting attorneys do. If that's not the image the Dems want, Joe had better not choose from among their ranks.
The only tactical reason for a Democratic candidate to avoid choosing a former prosecutor as a running mate is because it might impair her/his ability to secure the party's nomination. Once the candidate makes it through that gate, having a running mate with credible law-and-order credentials is at least a mild positive in the general election, at least with independents and conservatives.
DeleteIn Biden's case, it's generally conceded that he already has the nomination sewn up. So unless choosing Harris or Klobuchar would put his nomination in jeopardy, he might be smart to pick one of them, looking ahead to the general election.
It may depend on Biden's strategy. Personally, I think Abrams is one of those candidates who is inspiring and motivating to the Democratic base, but toxic to everyone else. So if Biden's strategy is a turnout strategy (I'll get more of my voters to the poll than you'll get of yours to the polls), then Abrams might be a good choice. But if Biden believes he needs to attract independents and peel off some 2016 Trump voters in order to win crucial swing states, then I don't think Abrams is a particularly good choice.
I also agree with those who consider Biden's choice more important than typically is the case, because of his age and his manifest decline in faculties.
Just one amateur opinion.
To the previous comment, I should add: so far, it seems that Biden is polling pretty well in swing states that cost Clinton the election in 2016. Does that work to Abrams' advantage or disadvantage? Again, I think it's relatively complicated. For the sake of discussion, let's suppose that Abrams would not be a particularly appealing running mate for the rust-belt blue collar whites who propelled Trump to victory four years ago. Biden's calculus would be: would Abrams as a running mate cost me sufficient votes that it would put the election in danger?
DeleteMy personal guess is that it wouldn't hurt his candidacy that much. At this point, I think the November election is Biden's to lose.
"I also agree with those who consider Biden's choice more important than typically is the case, because of his age and his manifest decline in faculties." I would be one of those people, and for that reason would prefer someone with more experience than Abrams. However the recent tragedies and subsequent unrest put a different light on appeal to law-and-order credentials.
DeleteFWIW, I'll take Biden's senior moments over the present incumbent's out of control ego, and what seems at times like a sepatation from reality.
How about Representative Val Denham (D.-FL), a former police chief....? Tom, what kind of rep. does she have with the locals?
DeleteIt's Val Demings. Chief of Police in Orlando for five years. No state government experience. Barely four years in the House of Representatives. = Pretty thin resumé. Probably some police brutality under her to come up and bite Joe. She came across as smart, well-prepared and quickiwitted in the impeachment inquiry. Not ready to step in and run the country.
DeleteThank you--Demings.
DeleteShe has this op-ed in today's Wash Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/29/my-fellow-brothers-sisters-blue-what-earth-are-you-doing/
Jim - I wish I agreed with you (that the election is Biden's to lose). It really depends on how well the reopening goes. If there is no new surge, if unemployment goes down and businesses begin to recover, he will claim all credit and insist that the country needs his "leadership" going forward because he did such a great job handling the pandemic. Some of our relatives believe he has done a great job, has shown great leadership. Guess what news station they watch?
ReplyDeleteSome observers have suggested that the main point of his tweet storm about twitter and his subsequent order trying to shut down the social media was a diversionary tactic. He didn't want people to be focusing on the 100,000 death mark.
He went golfing and urged everyone else to party over memorial day. No day of mourning here for COVID dead. Spain is having a 10 day period of mourning.
Just watched Billy Barr, who must have bellied up to the podium, intoning that the riots were programmed, directed and invented by outside agitators, in this case anarchist liberals. Outside agitators! Pass the Hadacol.
ReplyDeleteSince the engineers at our once local PBS station took a firm disliking to us, we watch Washington Week on Saturday. I felt my age when both Peter Baker of the NYTimes and WW host Bob Costas said the 1968 unpleasantness was before their time. Maybe Barr figures it has been long enough for mold to form on the "outside agitators" of yore so the righties can pull them out from under their beds, brush them down and launch them on the unsuspecting bozos yet one more time.
I remember the "outside agitators."
DeleteIt also gave me chills when Trump talked about siccing dogs on people. That whole series of tweets was laced with extra special awful deja vu.
And now Whitey's on the Moon, or at least Elon Musk, boy billionaire and LSD tripper, just blasted off a rocket.
Hey, Knock Musk if you will, the 'nauts rode to the rocket in a car "they" said would never work and if it worked would never sell. The astronauts were powered into space on a rocket than neatly returned itself to a barge waiting for it in the ocean so it can be reused. NASA never did that. Neither did Boeing.
DeleteNeither, for that matter, did Mark Zuckerberg.
Americans, or at least some of them, can do amazing things. I was told how a major hospital brought in a company that converted a cafeteria and other area into a COVID facility in three days. Architecture, plumbing, electricity, centralized oxygen lines. And it all worked from the get go. Just starting with a roof, walls and a floor. What if we actually started making our stuff here again?
DeleteYes, Musk can be nutty but at least he's trying to do cool, physical stuff. Better than silly casinos and resorts.