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Trump in Kenosha calls anti-racism protests ‘domestic terror’
KENOSHA, United States, Sept 2, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – President Donald Trump
Tuesday took his tough law and order message to Kenosha, the latest US city
roiled by the police shooting of a black man, as he branded recent anti-
racism protests acts of “domestic terror” by violent mobs.
Trump has been hoping for months to shift the election battle against
Democrat Joe Biden from a verdict on his widely panned coronavirus pandemic
response to what he sees as far more comfortable territory of law and order.
And in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, in upheaval since a white police
officer shot 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in front of his three
young sons, the Republican found his mark.
“These are not acts of peaceful protest but really domestic terror,” Trump
said after touring damage in the city, describing multiple nights of angry
demonstrations last week that left two people dead.
Crowds lined the barricaded streets where the president’s motorcade
passed, with Trump supporters on one side and Black Lives Matter protesters
on the other, yelling at one another from a distance and in sometimes tense
face-to-face encounters.
“Thank you for saving our town,” read the sign of one supporter along the
road. “Not my president,” read another.
Under heavy security that blocked off the road, Trump visited a burned out
store where he told the owners “we’ll help you rebuild.”
“These gentlemen did a fantastic job,” he said, in reference to law
enforcement units that quelled the violent protests.
“This is a great area, a great state,” Trump said, adding later that his
administration was committing at least $47 million to Wisconsin law
enforcement, small businesses and public safety programs.
“We’ll get Kenosha back in shape,” he said.
Trump suggested in Washington that a meeting with the Blake family was
possible during his high-profile trip but it did not materialize.
– ‘They choke’ –
A microcosm of the racial and ideological tensions of the Trump era,
Kenosha has seen Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and the arrival of
armed, white vigilantes, culminating in an incident in which a 17-year-old
militia enthusiast, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot dead two people and
badly injured another.
Democrats and police reform advocates view Kenosha as a symbol of
institutional racism.
They see Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter, as emblematic of right-wing
militias that are increasingly brazen about brandishing weaponry in political
settings.
Trump, however, came with a different priority: countering what he has
repeatedly described as the “anarchy” in Democratic-led cities.
Trump has refused to condemn the growing presence of armed vigilantes on
the streets, calling the alleged killings by Rittenhouse “an interesting
situation.”
“We have to condemn the dangerous anti-police rhetoric,” he said at a
command center set up in a Kenosha high school.
In an interview Monday Trump likened police officers who err when making
split decisions to golfers who “choke” under pressure.
“Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn’t you have done
something different?” he said. “But they choke. Just like in a golf
tournament, they miss a three-foot putt.”
– Fanning ‘flames’ –
Wisconsin’s governor and Kenosha’s mayor, both Democrats, had urged Trump
not to visit but he ignored their pleas — and Biden has accused him of
deliberately fomenting violence for political gain.
“We need a president who will lower the temperature and bring the country
together — not one who raises it and tears us further apart,” Biden tweeted
as the president flew into Kenosha.
Trump for his part accuses Biden of weakness in addressing violent
protests in cities like Kenosha and Portland, seeking to paint the Democrat
as incapable of controlling the party’s left wing
Trump’s visit came as new protests were planned in Los Angeles following
the fatal shooting by sheriff’s deputies of a black man, identified as 29-
year-old Dijon Kizzee, after a violent altercation.
Last week’s unrest in Kenosha rekindled a months-long surge of protest
against police violence and racism, unleashed by the death of an unarmed
African American, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
But watching from her front porch as police closed nearby streets in
Kenosha, resident Nicole Populorum took issue with Trump’s statement that he
saved her city from burning down by deploying the National Guard.
“The community came together, so for him to say if it wasn’t for him there
would be no Kenosha is ignorant and insulting,” Populorum said.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0843 hrs