Trump threatens rioters with military, Biden urges racial healing

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Trump's 'symbolic' trip to St. John's identified with religious people: Fleischer

Ari Fleischer weighs in on President Trump's visit to St. John's church after it was burned

In virtually everything he does, and the rioting across America is no exception, President Trump tries to project strength.

One of his favorite epithets is “weak,” which is what he accused many of the nation’s governors of being during a conference call. Whether he’s taking on the Democrats, the media, Twitter, the WHO, China or other targets, he’ll use tough rhetoric--sometimes over-the-top language--and let others debate legal niceties about the limits of his power.

Unfortunately for the man who just declared himself “your law-and-order president,” his message was undermined by having military police use smoke canisters against peaceful protesters across from the White House so he could visit a fire-damaged church. That the stroll to St. John’s Church, where Trump held up a Bible, was nothing more than a photo op was underscored by the fact that he made no attempt to enter the church or meet with its leaders, drawing a blast of outrage from Washington’s Episcopal bishop.

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The episode Monday evening played out on live television as the cable networks waited for Trump’s announced appearance in the Rose Garden. That was delayed as the federal police dispersed the crowd in Lafayette Park, who were planning to leave anyway because of a 7 p.m. curfew imposed by the city. CNN and MSNBC ran split-screen images during Trump’s speech, showing the chaos outside the executive mansion.

Trump was widely denounced, by commentators and Democrats for authoritarian behavior and a misuse of the military. HuffPost, which despises the president, ran a banner headline deriding a “FASCIST PHOTO OP.”

Trump got the images he wanted, but at a price. (He visited a Catholic shrine devoted to John Paul II yesterday, prompting journalistic reminders that his polling support among evangelical and Catholic voters has recently slipped.)

The president is reported to have been upset at the media’s disdain when the Secret Service ordered him into a bunker during White House protests, a move he must have seen as projecting weakness. In a Washington Post poll that had Joe Biden leading the race, Trump still scored a bit better with 50 percent saying he’s a strong leader and 49 percent disagreeing, compared to 43 percent backing that description of Biden and 49 percent disagreeing.

What happened in the Rose Garden may mark a turning point in Trump’s effort to fully reclaim the mantle of strength. Tough talk proved useless during the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of 105,000 Americans after the president initially spent weeks downplaying the threat (though he did threaten to override the governors to force the reopening of houses of worship).

And while Trump made several expressions of sympathy after the brutal killing of George Floyd, projecting empathy has never come easily to him.

But Trump was in his element when he declared that “our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others.” And when he said “these are not acts of peaceful protest.  These are acts of domestic terror.”

If you think that’s not a powerful message--while hardly unifying--you haven’t been watching television. Stores are being smashed and looted from New York’s Fifth Avenue to Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade. Police officers have been shot in St. Louis and Las Vegas, run over by cars in New York and Buffalo, and a protester was shot by police in Austin. There are burning cars and buildings in city after city.

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There is a sense that society is out of control, and people are understandably scared. Most demonstrators are peaceful, but the looters and arsonists have inflicted huge damage, ignoring a plea from Terrence Floyd that violence won’t bring his brother back.

That’s why Trump is threatening to use the military if local officials can’t regain control--and why the violent extremists have played into his hands.

What a striking contrast when Biden yesterday spoke in Philadelphia, an address carried live by the three cable news networks.

He took the obligatory stance by saying “there is no place for violence,” that the riots are damaging businesses built by people of color, and that the country needs to distinguish “between peaceful protest and opportunistic violent destruction.”

But the former vice president, who won the nomination with African-American votes, described the community as having “a knee on its neck” for a long time, with millions saying to themselves, “I can’t breathe.” He said it was time to confront “systemic racism.”

Biden took a shot at Trump brandishing the Bible in front of the church--“I just wished he opened it once in awhile”--and called for police reform and a national oversight commission.

“I won’t traffic in fear and division,” he said. “I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds.”

Now I happen to believe you can simultaneously support healing racial divisions and cracking down on rioters. But each candidate is playing to his base in a hugely polarized country as cities are smoldering.

It may all come down to whether the president or his opponent are seen as stronger--and which challenge is viewed as the most dire.