TRUMP INCITES VIOLENCE AGAINST MLB PROTESTORS

…Kyle Rittenhouse walking past Police vehicles after shooting three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trump’s visit to Kenosha will do nothing but fan the flames of local violence

The Democrats have rightfully accused President Donald Trump of inflaming racial tensions and inciting violence to benefit his re-election campaign.  He even had the gall to praise his supporters who had attacked the peaceful protesters in Portland, Oregon.  One of Trump supporters was killed overnight, and no one has been arrested in that killing.  Trump says he will travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid all the anger over the shooting of another Black man by local police.  The governor of Wisconsin, and the Mayor of Kenosha does not want Trump to show up this week in Kenosha.

As usual however, Trump unleashed a flurry of tweets and retweets the day after the man identified as his supporter, a member of a right-wing group, when a large caravan of Trump’s supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed in the city’s streets. Trumps tweets praised the caravan participants as “GREAT PATRIOTS!” in caps, as he of course, blamed the city’s Democratic mayor for the supporter’s death.

“The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order,” Trump later tweeted. “The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement [Biden] unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!”

Biden later lambasted Trump for his inciting the Portland riots and for his support of the caravan’s participants.

Trump has throughout the Summer falsely cast American cities as being under siege by Democrats that are violent and lawless, despite the fact that most of the demonstrations against racial injustice have been largely peaceful.

With about nine weeks until Election Day, some of his advisers see an aggressive “law and order” message as the best way for the president to turn voters against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.  They also believe this approach will regain the support of suburban women voters, who have for the most part, abandoned him. 

However, the Democrats accuse Trump of rooting for unrest and stoking further violence for political gain instead of seeking to ratchet down local tensions.

“He may think that war in our streets is good for his reelection chances, but that is not presidential leadership. or even basic human compassion,” Biden said in a statement responding to the shooting, in which he “unequivocally” condemned violence on all side, while accusing Trump of “recklessly encouraging” it.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, blamed Trump for all of the tensions.

“Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?” he asked at a televised news conference. “It is you who have created the hate and the division.”

Trump, who as usual, appeared to be watching TV, 24 hours a day.  He has responded with real-time tweets labeling Wheeler a “wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat.” While he’s the one that appears to be the “wacky, do nothing one”.

After a reporter told Portland Mayor Wheeler about the tweet, the mayor shot back, “I’d appreciate that the president either support us, or stay the hell out of the way.”

Trump has obviously placed the upcoming election between “law and order” and what he calls “anarchy”, and he has called the peaceful protesters “thugs” while sharply defending the local police. That theme was front-and-center at last week’s Republican National Convention (RNC), which used recent protest video footage to paint a violent picture of the future, if Biden denies Trump a second term.

Trump is expected to hit that “Law & Order” theme when he travels to Kenosha, where tensions are still raw after a police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in the back, seven times, leaving him paralyzed. The shooting has ignited new demonstrations against racial injustice and the police brutality.  This is only months after George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer that touched off a wider reckoning on race issues.

Trump will be meeting with law enforcement officers and according to the reports, he will be “surveying” the damage in the city, where businesses have been vandalized and some buildings burned by rioters & looters, not protesters..

But Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has asked Trump to reconsider visiting in a letter that apparently Trump is ignoring.

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“I, along with other community leaders, who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together,” Evers wrote this in the letter, obtained by The Associated Press.

Earlier, Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, also expressed concerns about the visit. “I don’t know how, given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful. And we absolutely don’t need that right now,” Barnes said in an interview with CNN.

Rep. Karen Bass, a California Democrat who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said Trump is “doing everything he can to fan the flames.”

“I think his visit has one purpose, and one purpose only. And that is to agitate things and to make things worse,” Bass said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is clear his campaign is all about law and order. It is a throwback to the past. And he’s going to do everything to disrupt law and order in this time period.”

A Trump staffer responded to the critics saying, “The only people to blame for the violence and riots in our streets are liberal politicians and their incompetent policies that have failed to get control of these destructive situations.”

Trump hadn’t said anything about the shooting for a number of day before he weighed in on Blake’s shooting, which was captured on cellphone video, and even then he had little to say.

“Well, I’m looking into it very strongly. I’ll be getting reports,” he said in an interview in New Hampshire. “It was not a good sight. I didn’t like the sight of it, certainly, and I think most people would agree with that.”

Trump offered similar words…“We’re looking at it very, very carefully”… when asked about Kyle Rittenhouse, the white 17-year-old who has been charged with fatally shooting two unarmed protesters and wounding a third in the night after he traveled to Kenosha, apparently, he has stated, “to defend the city from protesters”. The  Attorneys representing the teenager, Mr. Rittenhouse, who was videoed walking with his assault-style rifle, have said “he acted in self-defense’…against people without any firearms…?

But Trump on Sunday appeared to lend support to the teenager when he retweeted a series of messages that began, “Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.”

It must be noted that the young Rittenhouse was videoed in the front seat at a rally for Donald Trump.  He is a true, Trump believer.

The circumstances of Saturday night’s shooting in Portland remains unclear.  Video from the city shows sporadic fighting between the two groups, with Trump supporters firing paintball pellets at opponents and using “Bear spray,” as the counter-protesters threw things at the Trump caravan.

But most of what was thrown at the Trump supporters was eggs and spoiled fruit, nothing was seen as physically harmful.

Copyright G. Ater 2020