Trump adds fuel to fire as racial tensions reach boiling point
“The lowlifes and losers are ripping you apart. Act fast!” US President Donald Trump decried protesters who refused to tolerate an unjust and racist system on Twitter Tuesday. Even if the President has made racist remarks many times in the past, the words he chose against the backdrop of the ongoing violent protests spreading across the US still shocked many people.
Protests triggered by the death of George Floyd have spread to at least 140 American cities, but it seems Trump has done little to appease the anger. Instead, he used tweets to hurl insults and threats, which has fueled rage and violence escalated as a result.
Calling protesters “lowlifes and losers,” Trump clearly was attempting to demoralize protesters while catering to his white supremacist electoral base. Can you imagine Trump using the same words to refer to right-wing protesters at white supremacist demonstrations?
The riots have highlighted the racial injustice in US society. People take to the streets to vent their anger and disappointment toward the country that has tacitly allowed racial discrimination.
But, sadly under US electoral politics, the Trump administration has no interest in hearing their voices or finding a solution to the ingrained social woes.
African American voters are key to the Democratic Party, while Trump relies largely on a white, workingclass base he energized in 2016. During the ongoing unrest, Trump cares more about how to embarrass and attack Democrats and woo white voters. He bashed Democrat-run cities, urging “Democrat Mayors and Governors” to “get tough” after riots broke out.
It’s difficult to tell when the riots will come to an end. But it’s almost certain that under the leadership of current US administration, especially within US electoral politics, it’s hard to find a real solution to address racial injustice.
Racial issue has become a Gordian knot for the US. Racial inequality is so deeply-rooted that even an African American president failed to address it. Racial equality didn’t improve during the tenure of former US president Barack Obama, but worsened. Under US electoral politics and given the country’s institutional and structural defects, the historical injustice and inequality cannot be fixed.
Repeated riots over racial issue have shown that the US’ racial equality policy has failed. When US strength was on the rise in the past, the country was able to allocate more resources to soothe ethnic minorities at the bottom.
But the US is declining, and, in the process, various conflicts have broken out compounded by the COVID-19 epidemic, which further constrained the US’ ability to launch reforms. The two political parties of the US has neither real interest nor the necessary resources to completely address the racial inequality.