Trump has declared war on part of the United States

Isn’t America great? President Trump was having a very bad week before a Minneapolis cop murdered George Floyd. Trump had fabricated a conspiracy theory about mail-in voting. Who needs Russian bots to undermine American democracy when the president does it himself?

Then came the Floyd killing. Trump warned on Twitter that protesters at the White House could be “really badly hurt” by “some of the most vicious dogs and most ominous weapons I have ever seen.” Also on Saturday, Trump tweeted that it might be “MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE,” encouraging his followers to arrive for a confrontation.

Hoping that Donald Trump could try to heal the country is like hoping that Freddie Krueger could scrub up and assist during surgery. Trump has one playbook — divide and conquer. With the nation facing more civic peril than it has since the assassinations and riots of 1968, Trump fixates on his script.

As Trump sees it, chaos diverts attention from his administration’s inept COVID-19 response. As Trump was tossing conspiracy-theory chum to his base, American deaths from the virus were passing

100,000.

Trump once boasted that deaths might not pass 50,000, which would affirm his decisive action. Then he said 75,000. Now he won’t offer predictions of any kind. Administration officials won’t issue economic forecasts for this year. The president who had planned to run on a solid economy wants to avoid any truths about damage from the virus that he first ignored and still tries to wish away.

With the Floyd murder, Trump’s diversionary tactic is to blame “anarchists” for the violence that has accompanied some protests. Those with standing on this issue — such as Floyd’s brother — have properly criticized arsonists and looters. The president does not have such standing.

Trump began his presidential campaign with the racist lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. In August 2017, Trump declared that “very fine people” were on both sides of demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., by white supremacists. A month later, Attorney General Jeff Sessions disbanded the Obama-era program that monitored police departments for, among other things, racial prejudice.

Now, though, the man who has encouraged violence against protesters of any kind faces a reckoning. Police chiefs and sheriffs have condemned the Minneapolis officer. Seeking to show empathy, Trump invoked the similar words of Eric Garner — “I can’t breathe” — whom a New York City officer killed in 2014. But under Attorney General William Barr, Trump’s Justice Department declined to pursue a civil-rights case against the officer whose chokehold killed Garner.

Before the virus, Trump claimed to have restored American greatness in three short years. The last four months, however, have exposed the fraud behind the man and the boast.

Our COVID-19 death rate is three times that of Germany. All one needs to know about Trump’s dysfunctional response is that he deputized First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner to oversee testing and supply chains, with disastrous results.

Every well-minded George Floyd protester knows that COVID-19 damage has been far greater among Americans of color. Well-minded Americans also know that the damage has been greater among migrants whom Trump has raged against but on whom the country depends for food and service. His rush to reopen presumes that white Americans don’t care that more minorities will continue to get sick.

As with all demagogues, however, the problem is not Trump himself but his followers — Republicans who excuse what they never would from a Democrat. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., is the highest-ranking GOP elected official in the country. He said only of Trump’s weekend rants, “Those are not constructive tweets, without any question.”

Monday night, after National Guard troops used tear gas to roust peaceful protesters from in front of the White House, Trump finally appeared from isolation. He offered no calming words. He stood before St. John’s Episcopal Church, held up a Bible and called ours “the greatest country in the world.” It was blasphemy from a most un-Christian man.

At this unprecedented crisis point, it’s scary enough that Donald Trump can’t unite the country. It’s scarier that he doesn’t want to unite the country.