By now everyone has seen Donald Trump’s tweet quoting ex Miami Mayor Walter E. Headley (Talk about a comeback to relevance). Trump’s use of violent rhetoric was such that Twitter censored the tweet, bravely taking a stand against the rhetoric they have platformed, grown and profited from for the past 10 years, cheered on by oblivious liberals with seemingly no sense of irony.
Trump’s words are quite clearly a threat of violence. Coming from the president, those words carry some level of weight; although, of course, Trump himself has no direct power or influence over the day to day operations of the police forces of American cities. His words are intended to set a tone, to set the bounds of what he, as president, considers acceptable and unacceptable action for the police to take. He’s very clearly marking himself on the side of capital and condemning the act of looting in the strongest terms.
In doing so, Trump continues to be the most honest president in US history. The death of George Floyd and subsequent community reaction has clear parallels to the reaction after the beating of Rodney King in LA, or Michael brown in Ferguson. In each of these cases, the agents of the state were acquitted for acts of violence against black citizens. In the 1992 LA riots over 60 people were killed by the national guard, essentially a sub section of the US army. President George Bush gave an address promising to “use whatever force is necessary to restore order” before swiftly moving onto talking about the need for civil rights and justice in America, disconnecting the two without recognising the link between them. Bush was honest about the need to restore order, but he paid lip service to the need for emancipation, even as forces under his direct control were slaughtering civilians in the LA streets.
Trump, by contrast, is honest about his refusal to recognise or even understand the demands of the demonstrators and doesn’t feel the need to use euphemism to describe what he wants state forces to do. He is comfortable with the language of killing, shooting, destroying, obliterating. These are words that are typically euphemised by those in power to mask the realities of the acts of state enforcement. Trump makes no such apology. He is honest about the agenda he serves, and honest about the means he uses to further that agenda. All US presidents have instructed their forces to maim and kill protesters, but only Trump has had the honesty to say it.
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