TRUMP THREATENS TO USE MILITARY FORCE
Calls on governors to ‘dominate’ streets as demonstrations continue across country Peaceful protesters in D.C. tear-gassed so president could walk to church for photo-op
WASHINGTON— In an unscheduled address on the White House lawn, President Donald Trump spoke just after 6:30 p.m. “I am your president of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
At virtually the same time as he said those words, federal officers under his command were deploying tear gas, flash-bang devices, and forcibly moving entirely peaceful protesters from the area around the park across the street so that when Trump finished speaking, he could parade across the square for a photo opportunity in front of historic St. John’s Church. As the White House
Press pool reporter observed, the sting of tear gas was still in the air, causing reporters to choke and cough, as Trump strode through the park.
The shocking move seemed to directly contradict what Trump had said, and seemed likely only to ramp up the explosively confrontational atmosphere of street protests in Washington and around the country. But the move perhaps aligned more closely with the theme of Trump’s speech taking a hard line against those demonstrating in the streets.
Beginning his speech by promising justice for the death of George Floyd and making nods to peaceful protest as a virtue, in the meat of his remarks he promised to deploy the military to immediately “end” the vandalism and conflict with authorities that had occurred during late-night protests in recent days, which he characterized as “acts of domestic terrorism.”
Trump called on governors to deploy the National Guard to “dominate” street demonstrators, promised to send the military to do the job if they would not, and said he was sending “thousands and thousands of soldiers” into the streets of Washington to maintain order.
“I want the organizers of this terror to be on notice that you will face severe criminal penalties,” Trump said.
Ironically, before the crowd was violently cleared to make way for Trump, the protest unfolding through the afternoon and evening outside Lafayette Square had been among the most peaceful since before the weekend.
Hundreds of people had gathered, with more arriving as the workday ended, chanting, “Take a knee” and “I can’t breathe” at police officers who stood casually with their shields down inside the park in the early evening sun. The protest had been peaceful and not at all tense.
Some protesters sang on the sidewalk, and three men put on a breakdancing demonstration on the sidewalk in front of the church across the street, where a fire had been started and extinguished Sunday night.
“I feel a shift in this country, I feel a change is coming soon,” said an African-American man from Washington named Diego. “Yesterday, I saw a 76-yearold woman who was an activist in the civil rights movement walking the streets. When I saw that, I decided to come out today. I didn’t want to look back on history and say I was just in my house watching it unfold. I want to be a part of that change.”
Afew dozen metres away, protesters had climbed atop a brick washroom building that had been burned in the confrontations of Sunday night’s protest — the charred structure accessible to protesters on the street side, guarded by riot police on the park side. A cheer went up among the crowd around 5 p.m. when, in response to chants, one of the police officers inside briefly knelt.
“People are tired. We are tired as a community,” Marchelle Hayes, an African-American woman from Maryland, said. “Everything that’s been built up is coming out. We’ve been in a pandemic, locked up, and to see somebody blatantly killed — time and time again — we’re tired as a community. Tired of being walked on, as if we did not build this country. We built this country, brick by brick.”
There was, by that stage, no evidence of the kind of disorder Trump claimed would be the focus of his crackdown. Much of the surrounding area, and many other areas of Washington, had seen stores boarded up after windows had been smashed late Sunday night.
Earlier in the day, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser had appealed for protesters to remain peaceful as she instituted a 7 p.m. curfew.
“We applaud the American spirit of protest, and especially protest to their federal government,” Bowser said. “However, we do not, and we will not allow the continued destruction of our hometown by people who are coming here to protest or by D.C. residents.”
At the protest, a young woman named Elena said the scenes of vandalism were not her primary concern. “I think non-violent protesting has not worked for hundreds and hundreds of years, and if rioting is what it takes for them to hear us, then OK. But I don’t think looting is right,” she said. “I’m here because I think what the cops are doing is wrong, and I think it’s important that white people come out and show support.”
Trump, apparently, heard the message she was speaking of sent by civil unrest here and across the country, and decided to put a stop to it. His public silence Sunday had been widely remarked upon after a report from The Associated Press that he had briefly been taken to a secure bunker in the White House, and another that his aides had given up on the idea of having him address the nation to appeal for calm, reportedly because he had no interest in appealing for unity.
His political opponents were making such appeals: presumed Democratic front-runner Joe Biden had talked about the potential for reform in the wake of the protests at a visit to a Black church in Delaware earlier Monday. “I think the public is getting to a place that it’s never been before in understanding a lot of this,” he said. And former president Barack Obama published an essay in which he advised protesters on how he thought their movement could lead to “real change” in the country, helping it to live up to its ideals. In his own speech, Trump made no direct mention of racial justice or police reform — though he did make a reference to the second amendment guaranteeing gun rights — and focused on a message portraying himself as the upholder of order. “Once order is restored we will help you, we will help your businesses, we will help your family,” he said.
Speaking to a reporter from the Washington Post immediately after Trump’s photo opportunity outside St. John’s Church, the Episcopal Bishop in charge of the church, The Right Rev. Mariann Budde, expressed outrage at the president’s clearing peaceful protesters with tear gas to “use one of our churches as a prop.”
“Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” Budde said.
As night fell on Washington, protesters remained in the streets despite the curfew and the heavy police, National Guard, and active duty Military Police presence.
It seems unlikely Trump’s words and actions will ease tensions with demonstrators outraged by abusive authority by police.
The Republican governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, said earlier in the day that the kind of talk of domination Trump was engaging in was not what the nation needed.
“At so many times during these past several weeks when the country needed compassion and leadership the most, it was simply nowhere to be found,” he said of Trump’s “incendiary” rhetoric, which he summed up as consisting of “bitterness, combativeness and self-interest.”
And he said that hours before Trump used tear gas to make way for a photo-op.