US, WASHINGTON (ORDO NEWS) — It became a disaster for the United States that when two national tragedies — the covid-19 crisis and the legacy of racism in the country — clashed this spring, the White House is hosted by an unstable man who is completely unsuitable for running the country.
President Donald Trump’s inability to cope with the pandemic has so far resulted in more than 112,000 deaths, one of the highest per capita deaths from covid-19 in the world , with coronavirus still spreading to previously unaffected areas. The public health crisis has also led to the worst economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Since the subsequent events unfolded harshly, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the American experiment – 244 years since the establishment of the state next month – is in serious danger, even greater than during the constitutional crisis caused by the Watergate scandal of the 1970s. The pandemic coincided with the latest event in a long series of atrocities related to racial discrimination, which caused an explosion in the country.
Millions of locked-up Americans watched over and over again the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in handcuffs, by four policemen from Minneapolis. One, Derek Chauvin, casually, for almost nine minutes, choked on Floyd’s knee until he lost consciousness; the other two sat on Floyd’s back, blocking oxygen even more to him; the fourth watched, holding back the shocked bystanders, when Floyd, struggling for life, shouted: “Please, I can not breathe.”
The murder of Floyd shocked the consciousness of the country. This assassination provided Americans with the true meaning of “police brutality.” After the people of the week were locked up due to the declared state of emergency and the rules of social distance and accumulated a huge supply of energy, they released it after a video recording Floyd’s death. Protests began in Minneapolis the next day and quickly spread throughout the country. They were attended by tens of thousands of people of all races and ages.
Demonstrators involved in violence, robbery and destruction of property (including arson of police cars) became a nightmare for Trump, whose policy depends on inciting the anger of his supporters. His rhetoric “law and order” was aimed at erasing the boundaries between aggressive protesters and a much larger number of peaceful protesters.
US Attorney General William Barr, as always, was ready to help Trump take advantage of the situation and gain more power. Since Washington, DC is not a state, Trump and Barra had the opportunity to impose their own decision. They used various state national guards, military units of federal agencies and, which especially upset the citizens, some unknown forces. Washington became an occupied city.
Trump pretends to be a tough guy and is authoritarian to the bone. However, when the protests swelled outside the White House, he decided or, as he claims, the time had come to “inspect” the president’s giant underground bunker. The White House itself has already turned into a bunker: during the chaos after the murder of Floyd, the height of the fence around its territory was almost doubled. True to his inclinations for provocations, Trump tweeted that if the demonstrators broke through this fence, “they would have let down the most vicious dogs and meet with the most sinister weapons that I have ever seen.”
The use of force to clear the Lafayette square opposite the White House from peaceful demonstrators, a violation of their rights, which Barr initially claimed responsibility, also shocked the national consciousness, which caused deep concern. Trump’s less brilliant advisers – the most famous, his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner – came up with a political trick: Trump walked across the square to the abandoned St. John’s Church, whose basement was set on fire. But they could not think of a further scenario: what will he do when he gets there. Trump awkwardly brandished the Bible, sometimes holding it upside down, for photographs that only put him in a bad light.
Moreover, Trump’s speech that he would flood America’s cities with active US troops was met with widespread antipathy and contempt. A cascade of former senior military officials, including James Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who until last year was Trump’s defense secretary, openly condemned the president. Mattis, who said he was “angry and shocked” at the idea of using troops to suppress demonstrations, said the Americans “witnessed the consequences of three years without proper leadership.”
But those who saw in such statements the collapse of the Trump presidency did not take into account the continued loyalty of the Republicans. Faced with a choice between Mattis and Trump, virtually all of the elected Republicans remained with the president. They defended him for so long, shared many of his views and became so dependent on him and his donors that they were not ready to break up with him, despite the fact that current polls suggest that he could fail the elections in November – and pull them along.
Despite the fact that a national rebellion against police racism will lead to some reforms, such as improved training and a ban on strangulation and asphyxiation of the neck, like the one that killed Floyd, only rethinking the role of the police, no matter how radical the results, can eliminate racism, the great stain left on America by the compromise of its founders with slavery.
Governments are powerless against the constant insults of those who live in America being black – empty taxis that refuse to stop, mistakes when hiring supermarkets, countless intentional and unintentional insults. Many of those who are now on the streets will not calm down if the result of this national spasm is not improving education, health care and employment opportunities for minorities – a fair attitude towards black people. What happens if it turns out that America does not honor its declared values again?
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.