an area affected by civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin on September
1, 2020. MANDEL NGAN / AFP
President Donald Trump Tuesday took his tough
law-and-order message to Kenosha, the latest US city roiled by the
police shooting of a black man, as he branded recent anti-racism
protests acts of “domestic terror” by violent mobs.
Trump has been hoping for months to shift the election battle
against Democrat Joe Biden from a referendum on his widely panned
coronavirus pandemic response, to what he sees as far more
comfortable territory of law and order.
And in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, in upheaval since a white
police officer shot 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in
front of his three young sons, the Republican found his mark.
“These are not acts of peaceful protest but really domestic
terror,” Trump said after touring damaged areas of the city,
describing multiple nights of angry demonstrations last week that
left two people dead.
Crowds lined the barricaded streets where the president’s
motorcade passed, with Trump supporters on one side and Black Lives
Matter protestors on the other, yelling at one another from a
distance and in sometimes tense face-to-face encounters.
“Thank you for saving our town,” read the sign of one supporter
along the road. “Not my president,” read another.
Under heavy security that blocked off the road, Trump visited a
burnt-out store where he told the owners “we’ll help you
rebuild.”
“These gentlemen did a fantastic job,” he said, in reference to
law enforcement units that quelled the violent protests.
“This is a great area, a great state,” Trump said, adding later
that his administration was committing at least $47 million to
Wisconsin law enforcement, small businesses and public safety
programs.
“We’ll get Kenosha back in shape,” he said.
Trump had suggested in Washington that a meeting with the Blake
family was possible during his high-profile trip, but it did not
materialize.
– ‘They choke’ –
A microcosm of the racial and ideological tensions of the Trump
era, Kenosha has seen Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and the
arrival of armed, white vigilantes, culminating in an incident in
which a 17-year-old militia enthusiast, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly
shot dead two people and badly injured another.
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speaks to the media as he makes his way to board Air Force One
before departing from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on
September 1, 2020, heading to Kenosha, Wisconsin to meet with law
enforcement officials and to survey the damage following civil
unrest in the city. MANDEL NGAN / AFP
Democrats and police-reform advocates view Kenosha as a symbol
of institutional racism.
They see Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter, as emblematic of
right-wing militias that are increasingly brazen about brandishing
weaponry in political settings.
Trump, however, came with a different priority: countering what
he has repeatedly described as the “anarchy” in Democratic-led
cities.
Trump has refused to condemn the growing presence of armed
vigilantes on the streets, calling the alleged killings by
Rittenhouse “an interesting situation.”
“We have to condemn the dangerous anti-police rhetoric,” he said
at a command centre set up in a Kenosha high school.
In an interview Monday, Trump likened police officers who err
when making split-second decisions to golfers who “choke” under
pressure.
“Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn’t you
have done something different?” he said. “But they choke. Just like
in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt.”
– Fanning ‘flames’ – Wisconsin’s governor and Kenosha’s mayor,
both Democrats, had urged Trump not to visit but he ignored their
pleas — and Biden has accused him of deliberately fomenting
violence for political gain.
“Trump failed once again to meet the moment, refusing to utter
the words that Wisconsinites and Americans across the country
needed to hear today from the president: a condemnation of violence
of all kinds, no matter who commits it,” the Biden campaign said in
a statement after the visit.
“Trump cannot bring himself to condemn the violence that he
himself is stoking,” the statement added. “We must come together to
reject the chaos Trump has inflamed.”
Trump for his part accuses Biden of weakness in addressing
violent protests in cities such as Kenosha and Portland, Oregon,
seeking to paint the Democrat as incapable of controlling the
party’s left-wing.
Trump’s visit came as new protests were planned in Los Angeles
following the fatal shooting by sheriff’s deputies of a black man,
identified as 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, after a violent
altercation.
Last week’s unrest in Kenosha rekindled a months-long surge of
protest against police violence and racism, unleashed by the death
of an unarmed African American, George Floyd, at the hands of
police in Minneapolis.
Watching from her front porch as police closed nearby streets in
Kenosha, resident Nicole Populorum took issue with Trump’s
statement that he saved her city from burning down by deploying the
National Guard.
“The community came together, so for him to say if it wasn’t for
him there would be no Kenosha is ignorant and insulting,” Populorum
said.
AFP
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