A week ago tonight, May 25th, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by four policemen, one of whom, by placing his knee on the neck of a handcuffed and prostrate black man for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, caused blood to cease to flow to his brain and thereby brought about his death. And that was just the beginning.
8 minutes and 46 seconds
Long after Floyd stopped breathing and bystanders begged the cop to let him go the cop left his knee on Floyd’s neck. Murder, flat out murder. Murder in broad daylight. Murder in front of many witnesses. Murder under the lens of a phone camera which recorded the whole scene. Murder by a policeman.
It’s now June 8th, two weeks after Floyd’s death. The cop who killed him isn’t a cop anymore. Faced with 2nd degree murder he faced a judge today. The three other cops who were with him aren’t cops anymore, either. They, too, have been arrested and charged.
And the world has changed in the last two weeks. Parades and demonstrations take place daily, not just in the US, but around the world. Police departments have come under fire, some defunded (whatever that means). In the course of the many demonstrations police have run the behavioral gamut, some beating protestors with batons, some taking knees to show their sympathy and support of the protestors.
In the meantime the President of the United States, having the opportunity to provide a healing message, instead called for law and order and directed the governors to “dominate the streets,” then ran to hide in a bunker in the White House. First, however, he protected himself by surrounding the White House with fencing, which, of course, has now become an unwelcome (by him) art display
But before Trump retreated to his little bunker he possibly committed one of the more bizarre acts of his Presidency. Thinking that he not only needed to show strength, but that the Evangelicals, who are slowly leaving the sinking Trump liner, need to be brought back into the fold and be reminded of what a great religious mind he has, did the unthinkable. After declaring himself the law and order president he and AG Barr, had Lafayette Park cleared of peaceful protestors by the military using pepper spray and rubber bullets so that he could stand in front of a church holding a Bible upside down in an ill-advised photo op.
A man holding a book he’d never read in front of a building he’s never visited.
Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal bishop, described the scene to CNN and The Washington Post as an "abuse of sacred symbols" amid "a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus and everything that our churches stand for."
Budde told The Post that she "was not given even a courtesy call" that authorities would be clearing the area "with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop."
Another Episcopal minister echoed the Bishop' and said, “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."
And when Friday came and went with a very favorable economic report, Trump said,
“We all saw what happened last week. We can't let that happen," Trump said of Floyd, who was killed as a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. "Hopefully, George is looking down right now and saying, 'This is a great thing that's happening for our country.’”
The dead man, killed by cops, is having a great day in Heaven because people are mourning him, and more important, there is a favorable jobs report. You can’t make this stuff up.
So here’s a synopsis. Floyd is murdered. Protests take place in every state and in many other countries. Trump, in gated seclusion, hides in a bunker except when he’s sending in the military to prevent lawful protestors from protesting. The mayor of Washington DC has renamed the streets in front of the White House as “Black Lives Matter” Plaza. All Trump’s former Secretaries of Defense have condemned Trump for using the military against the country’s own citizens.
Hey, it’s only been two weeks. More to come.
And indeed it has. In one of the protests a 75 year old man was pushed to the ground by police His head hit the sidewalk, and he was bleeding, requiring hospitalization. There’s a video. You can see it for yourself. Here’s the man on the pavement.
And what did the tweeter-in-chief have to say?
Whenever he has a chance to say something not stupid he doesn’t.
So Trump held a rally last Saturday in Tulsa, jubilant because his campaign had received well over a million ticket requests. After surveying the 6200 mindless souls in the arena, and realizing that he’d been scammed by teenagers who had requested tickets as a prank, he dissembled his way through a 103 minute disjointed monologue, spending a good part of it proving that he can walk down a ramp without falling and drink a glass of water with one hand.
By all accounts it has been a disastrous week for him. He topped it off a night or two ago in an interview with sycophant Sean Hannity which went like this:
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
People who have been told that this is a bona fide question and answer exchange have gone to Snopes to verify its authenticity. Yes, Hannity asked him about his priority items. Yes, Trump answered as is recorded above. in that same interview Trump added this, “a pal had told him he has to be “the most perfect person” because he was not brought down by the Russia investigation.
“Isn’t that true?” Trump asked a small audience packed with enthusiastic fans.
Trump did not name the friend. But the praise certainly sits up there with the president’s own previous self-aggrandizing descriptions of himself as “an extremely stable genius” and “really smart.”
Trump has also in the past compared himself to a king.”
So this is where we are on June 27, 2020.
And here’s how we’ll celebrate the Fourth of July. America is a pariah. Americans can’t even leave their own country, as no other country will have us. Thank you, Mr. President.
