My thesis is that police forces are not operated by the community at the Presidential level, and that I am getting enough campaigning for the President already, and that talking about Trump is changing the subject.
You may submit your anti-thesis.
Counterpoint: a fish rots from the head down.
Ok.
- An actual, physical, fish does not rot from the head: like most animals, it rots from the gut.
- Metaphorically, America is a democracy, and, like a fish, rots from the belly. George Floyd wasn’t killed by the President, he was killed by the voters, and people need to be looking at themselves and their communities, not at Washington.
Changing the subject to Trump is what people do when they have more interest in federal politics than in social reform.
I don’t blame Trump for killing Floyd, but I do blame him for stoking the fires of hate. He may not be a murderer, but he is an enabler.
My impression is that Trump himself has been trying to change the subject to Trump.
Regardless, any individual possessing significant political power and with something like Trump’s lengthy history of racist and fascistic posturings is fair game for protest, in my view.
A massive part of the conversation right now is fueled by Trump-motivated arguments.
He’s important because for many, agreeing with what he does is a priority. He may be an awful leader, but he is in fact a leader to many.
He’s not responsible for George Floyd, but he is responsible for shaping how America responds.
Who is “changing the subject to Trump”?
It is important to include Trump in the discussion, not because it isn’t true what you say about all the local levels being paramount in ending police brutality, but because the federal level is important, and because Trump is a symbol to and plays to those think police brutality is justified, while many Trump supporters like to pretend he also has no responsibility.
Trump Encouraging police brutality
Session’s pulls back from investigating police brutality
Research indicates consent decrees work, Sessions ends the practice anyway
A direct anti-thesis:
Point here is that Trump and henchmen injected themselves into the issue. It is important here to also notice that even the church where his photo op was made had their members expelled as if they had been also the protesters:
So yes, Trump and his administration has made it an issue and then there is what **naita **pointed out, vote the rascals out.
That does not help the Agent Orange :):
Agreed that it doesn’t have to be about the president.
Disagree that, due to the actions of the president, it is not.
He could have stayed out of it entirely.
He could have made heartfelt but empty gestures.
He could have done something to address the complaints of those protesting.
Instead, he chose to fan the flames and increase tensions.
Heh, I got the quote wrong in my last post, please remove the “So, yeah; rotten to the core…” bit, that was the final comment from me, not the article.
…yet.
I agree with this and add that Trump could be trying to make the future better. Assuming that a leader considered Floyd’s death to be unjust, that leader would likely try to do something that would make it less likely for it to happen again. Trump did none of this except call governors “jerks” for not cracking down.
Trump is a symbol and it is easier to hate symbols than to do anything constructive.
Municipal elections are mostly one party affairs that only attracts the most committed voters. The most committed voters are usually those who have the most to gain or lose. This means most of these elections are dominated by government worker unions and other special interests. The last Republican mayor of Minneapolis left office in 1961, in the last election the top 5 finishers were Democrats. They negotiated a contract with the police union that said complaints against officers were only put in the personnel file if they resulted in disciplinary action. So the officer involved in the Floyd death had 16 complaints against him but no action was taken to take him off the streets. The head of Minneapolins for a better police contract said “Because the city never disciplines anybody, any discipline is inconsistent with past practice. You can’t discipline now because you’ve never disciplined before. It’s a real Catch-22.””
Rather than focus attention on the people and policies that have caused the situation partisans would rather focus on Trump deciding to walk across Lafayette Park.
Pneumonia is just a symptom too. That doesn’t mean that you don’t take its threat to your safety and well being seriously, even while treating the underlying condition.
And no, Trump doesn’t need to be part of the conversation, but he has injected himself into it, and absorbed most of the air in the room.
you don’t need to be a partisan to see that it is a dangerous precedent to be shooting and tear gassing peaceful demonstrators, especially when that demonstration is condoned and being led by the rightful users of that property, who are also driven off.
To call it just a walk across Lafayette Park is to take an extremely partisan stance where you willfully ignore what happened during that walk.
I’ll agree that people should be more involved in their local politics than they are. Most people couldn’t even name their mayor or anyone on city council. I always tell people that politics is local. Your city council are the ones who plow your streets and fill your potholes, they have more of an impact on you than the president. Your vote is also substantially more powerful when it comes to local politics than national. I say go vote to vote on local stuff, and as long as you are there, may as well vote on the national stuff too.
How to get people more engaged in their local politics is a good question. I would say that the demonstrations outside of city halls against the actions of specific police departments would be a good start.
But like most complaints against Trump, clearing out the area for security reasons is par for the course.
Bill Clinton came to my hometown in 1997. He was landing at the airport, making a speech, travelling to a local high school 5 miles away, making another speech, then returning to the airport to leave.
In the days prior, the advance team showed up and checked the entire route for possible danger zones. They removed trash cans and mailboxes and anything else that could cause an issue.
The day of the visit, once the kids were at school, the entire roadway (which was the main street for two different towns) was closed down and no vehicles were allowed and no businesses were allowed to open. It was that way from 7am to about 4pm.
And just like what Trump was doing was a photo op, this was completely unnecessary to talk to a bunch of kids at a school in West Virginia.
If me or anyone else had been on that street we would have been rapidly told to move out of there and arrested if we did not. And if there were a bunch of people in the way engaging in peaceful protest, say of the Serbia bombings, do you think they would/should have just cancelled the event?
My issue is that if you do start cancelling things because of protests, then you invite more obstructive protests. Could/should the right have been able to stop any Bill Clinton appearance by simply showing up en masse and blocking the entrance? Or should people have to obey the law and if they don’t be forcibly removed, and by wholly non-lethal means?
I know, this is Trump, we hate him, so everything he does is wrong, but how is removing these protestors any different that removing everyone in my community from the public streets? Yes, they have a right to protest and I have a right to use the streets and sidewalks of my community and definitely have a right to have business and commerce.
Unless you have a cite that the government just fired tear gas into these protesters with no warning, they were disobeying a secret service directive by not dispersing. I further disagree that protestors who are blocking traffic are “peaceful.” It is against the law to obstruct traffic.
An important part of free speech is the right of the listener of that speech to ignore it and continue on his way. When there are hundreds or thousands of people in front of me not allowing me to drive to work, I don’t consider that peaceful.
To address the OP – this problem didn’t start with Trump, and it won’t end by replacing Trump. But there’s no possibility of progress with Trump (or someone like him) as President. This kind of thing, at the very least, needs an ally (or at least someone who’s not an active opponent) in the WH for any hope of progress to be made (or t least I can’t imagine how progress could be made with a hostile enemy in the WH). Not enough on its own, but still a necessary factor for progress.
Not mentioned: The lack of tear gas/pepper spray and rubber bullets to clear the way. The lack of an attack on peaceful protestors with no warning. The lack of the violent invasion of a church and the forced expulsion of the clergy.
Security of The President is necessary. Acting like a banana republic dictator is not.
Before Trump was elected, I worried about the impact that a Trump presidency would have on the civil rights of Americans. Here is what I had to say in July of 2016: