Where to begin?
People protested through the night “in at least 20 cities” from coast to coast, angered over the police killing of yet another unarmed black man, George Floyd, this week in Minneapolis. In New York, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis saw clashes between police and protesters. In Washington, D.C., the Secret Service put the White House on lockdown briefly as protesters there threw over temporary barricades.
Some police are acting out as are the usual handful of black-clad anarchists who use any protest as an excuse for wilding.
After weeks of COVID-19 shutdowns, an economy in distress, armed protests by anti-shutdown/anti-mask white protesters, and over 100,000 Americans dead (with more to come), America was already a tinderbox, Michelle Goldberg writes in the New York Times.
Anger erupted after months of non-leadership on the deadly pandemic from the White House. The novice president has expended more energy issuing angry tweets and dodging responsibility than in coordinating a national strategy. There is none. Donald Trump has blamed China, blue-state governors, and the World Health Organization. He’s touted phony miracle cures and taunted the press.
To Floyd’s family, to his community, or to nonwhites accustomed to patterns of discrimination deeply embedded in the structure of the culture, the acting president offers nothing. He has nothing to give. The last time he tried (under pressure in March), it was a disaster:
David Litt, who wrote speeches for Obama, posted: “As a former presidential speechwriter, my careful rhetorical analysis is that he’s gonna get us all killed.”
Now, with his poll numbers falling as the November election looms, Trump has fallen back on his old formula of weaponizing racial and ethnic tensions to keep his political base ginned up. Protests over the death of another unarmed black man at the hands of police is just what he needed. Republican leaders have fallen in line or fallen silent.
Trump is that familiar egotist who seeks political office to be somebody rather than to do something.
In this leadership vacuum, however, there are still voices of solace, voices of reason. Police chiefs in Atlanta and Dallas, both women, expressed empathy with protesters and offered support so long as protests remained peaceful.
Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields told protesters, “You have the right to be upset and scared and to want to yell.” Shields said, “I hear you. I’ve heard from so many people that cannot sleep, they’re terrified, they’re crying, they’re afraid for their children.” Too many officers were looking to use force to defuse the tensions. “And I’m not having that.”
“We’re giving you the streets. We’re giving you the sidewalks,” Dallas Police Chief Renee Hall told a protester after rocks were thrown at officers. “Y’all can walk all night long and we’re going to be out here to make sure nothing happens to you, but don’t hit my people.”
Former President Barack Obama issued a brief statement:
It’s natural to wish for life “to just get back to normal” as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us. But we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly “normal” — whether it’s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park.
This shouldn’t be “normal” in 2020 America. It can’t be “normal.” If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.
Former Vice President Joe Biden knows how it feels to lose family members:
The original sin of this country still stains our nation today, and sometimes we manage to overlook it. We just push forward with the thousand other tasks in our daily life, but it’s always there, and weeks like this, we see it plainly that we’re a country with an open wound. None of us can turn away. None of us can be silent. None of us can any longer, can we hear the words “I can’t breathe” and do nothing. We can’t fail victims, like what Martin Luther King called “the appalling silence of good people.”
Every day, African-Americans go about their lives with constant anxiety and trauma, wondering who will be next. Imagine if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter left the house, you feared for their safety from bad actors and bad police. Imagine if you had to have that talk with your child about not asserting your rights, taking the abuse handed out to them so, just so they can make it home. Imagine having police called on you just for sitting in Starbucks or renting an Airbnb or watching birds. This is the norm black people in this country deal with. They don’t have to imagine it. The anger and frustration and the exhaustion is undeniable.
But that’s not the promise of America. It’s long past time that we made the promise of this nation real for all people. You know, this is no time for incendiary tweets. It’s no time to encourage violence. This is a national crisis, and we need real leadership right now. Leadership that will bring everyone to the table so we can take measures to root out systemic racism. It’s time for us to take a hard look at the uncomfortable truths. It’s time for us to face that deep open wound we have in this nation.
The damaged psyche occupying the Oval Office has no time of that or for anyone but himself. He is not a leader. He doesn’t have it in him. But it’s worse than that.
“We now have a leadership that’s been crystal clear that it’s perfectly OK if we descend into utter civil war,” University of Michigan historian Heather Ann Thompson told Goldberg.
This week, Trump threatened military action against protesters, indicating he is, in fact, prepared to get people killed.
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For The Win, 3rd Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV mechanics guide at ForTheWin.us. This is what winning looks like.
Note: The pandemic will upend standard field tactics in 2020. If enough promising “improvisations” come my way by June, perhaps I can issue a COVID-19 supplement.