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By C.J. Atkins
On the day following George Floyd’s lynching by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department, President Donald Trump announced an FBI investigation into what happened. Facing a mass public outcry against the backdrop of incontrovertible video evidence of Officer Derek Chauvin’s killing of Floyd, even Trump was compelled to say he’d do something. The charade of concern didn’t last long. By Friday morning, he was reviving the war cries of the segregationist South on Twitter.
Early Friday, Trump returned to publicly showcasing his racist instincts. In a series of tweets, he derided Minneapolis protesters as “THUGS”—using all caps to type out the code word often preferred by white supremacists who can no longer get away with using the N-word in public. As the 3rd Precinct’s headquarters burned on television, the president threatened to send in the military to “get the job done right” if the “Radical Left” mayor didn’t “get his act together.”
And what “job” did Trump want Mayor Jacob Frey to get done right? Apparently, the gunning down of Black protesters.
In chilling language, the president concluded his tweet: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts!”
Compare that to his response to the heavily-armed white nationalist militias that stormed state capitols over the last few weeks. Like the attendees at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., where Heather Heyer was killed, Trump said these gun-toting white demonstrators were “very good people.” He urged Michigan officials to “give a little” and “make a deal” with them over public health agencies’ stay-at-home orders.
When it comes to Black people demanding justice for another police killing, though, there is no deal to be made. Instead, the president says it’s time for...
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