Until the jacketless jackass Jim Jordan showed porno films before AG Barr’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee, I thought Donald Trump was Joe Biden’s best weapon for winning the Presidency and for the Democrats sweeping both House of Congress in 2020.
Jordan’s junk film could not have been more self-destructive then if it were a grainy, hand-held video of former Ohio State Wrestling team Physician Richard Strauss sexually abusing nude wresters, while jittery Jim, the Assistant Wrestling Coach with a gym locker right next to Strauss’, stood by in silence. This time, the hyperactive hypocrite was hysterical about other forms of violence, that weren’t sexual.
As usual (except when it involved his legal duty to protect college wrestlers from a sexual predator), Jordan overdid it. Not only had he violated House rules by not pre-clearing the vile video with the Committee Chair 48-hours in advance, but he let the jerky, terribly pasted together piece of propaganda play on and on like some pre-pubescent version of the “Blair Witch Project.” Even Barr’s eternally bored-looking, bulbous face, oozed more boredom than ever as the repetitious visions of violence, by unidentified actors, only revealed the transparency of Trump’s stunt man’s latest stunt. The dry run for an uncut Trump Campaign video was backfiring almost as badly as Trump’s bullying, tear-gas drenched trek to St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, where he bobbled a Bible for a phony photo-op.
Turns out, we’ve seen this show many times before. We’ve seen it with Trump’s 20,000+ lies over the past four years; we’ve seen snippets of out-of-context violence show up in an amateurish Trump ad entitled “Joe Biden’s America;” we’ve witnessed a “Call 911” screed aimed at scaring senior citizens — who are more terrified of dying of COVID — over “defunding the police,” a phrase and policy which Biden rejects as strongly as he rejects violence. Even Fox News’ Chris Wallace accused Trump of lying about Biden’s position on the police funding issue, in a recent televised interview. None of those lie-laden messages, have done anything to raise Trump’s popularity. In fact, they’ve had the opposite effect: every national poll and every swing state polls shows Trump’s approval numbers dropping precipitously when it comes to handling race relations, “law & order,” issues of trust, and on his abject failure to confront the COVID pandemic.
In fact, at virtually the same moment Jordan’s was opening his trench mouth to flash Congress his violence-laden porn flick, the highly respected Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that a masked White Supremacist — known as “Umbrella Man” and a member of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood — was caught on film smashing windows and committed acts of violence during Black Lives Matter protests in Minneapolis, following the murder of George Floyd. A Minneapolis Police Sgt. reported on the White Supremacist provocateur’s acts of violence in an affidavit:
“This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city,” Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week. “Until the actions of… ‘Umbrella Man,’ the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this personcreated an atmosphere of hostility and tension…. this individual’s sole aim was to incite violence.”
Umbrella Man didn’t show up in Gym Jordan’s video orgasm, nor did the unidentified federal secret police caught on cell-phone cameras beating up a peaceful Navy Veteran with police batons, or rounding up unarmed mothers, and forcibly throwing them into black, unmarked vehicles in Portland. Could the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood have other Bro’s operating in Portland, Seattle or Louisville? How do we know who the members of the “unidentified” federal agents are operating in DC, or Portland or any other City?? Are the federal “secret police,” members of White Supremacist, Anti-Semitic militias of wannabe Stormtroopers? Mercenaries moonlighting from ICE or the Bureau of Prisons to do Bill Barr’s dirty work?
Those questions aren’t paranoia, but prudence; nor, do they excuse outright acts of violence by a few outliers from legitimate and peaceful demonstrators. The State’s Attorney’s of Baltimore and District Attorney of Philadelphia — the highest law enforcement officials in those cities — shared those concerns, in an Op Ed which appeared in the July 23 issue of the Washington Post:
“We were elected to prosecute violations of the law in our cities. We strongly believe that the actions in Oregon are illegal. Should the president proceed with his plan in our cities, his agents will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby for Baltimore City and DA Larry Krasner for Philadelphia went on:
“Desperate times produce desperate measures. President Trump, sliding in the polls, flailing as covid-19 cases surge, has sought a distraction by sending federal law enforcement officers into Portland, Ore. Scarier to us than even the Orwellian sight of federal agents in military fatigues assaulting citizens and bundling them into unmarked vehicles is that Trump has spoken of sending federal agents to Baltimore and Philadelphia.”
The tough law and order stand of those local law enforcement officials, echoed the words of Oregon’s State Attorney General who filed suit against the Trump Administration’s illegal actions:
“Should Trump send federal agents who engage in the same illegal vigilante activities, unlawfully assaulting and kidnapping people, they will face criminal charges from our offices”
No elected official of either party, in any town, city or State in the country condones acts of violence against people or property. Most are careful to distinguish peaceful, non-violent protest from acts of vandalism. Most respect the constitutional rights of their citizens expressing their right to free speech and go to great lengths to protect them. Many of the leaders of the cities and States targeted by Trump and Barr are Black, Latino or women, a fact of contemporary political life brought home during the COVID pandemic, as those communities were left to largely fend for themselves. Those hard-hit communities are not alone in the nation’s worst public health crisis in a century: the entire country is consumed with worry over mass death, as the 150,000th American died from COVID this week.
And it’s precisely because of that overwhelming focus, and how badly Trump has bungled the response to the pandemic, that the public isn’t buying the fraudulent cure he’s trying to sell on handling peaceful protest, race relations, violence, or just about anything else.
New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz writes in a July 27 Intelligencer article entitled “Trump’s Portland Policy Isn’t Backfiring The Way He Intended”:
“Trump’s culture war histrionics only reinforce the impression that he isn’t taking the coronavirus seriously…and he has done little during his first term in office to associate himself with orderliness…To the contrary…Trump has done just about everything in his power to make voters see him as an agent of chaos.
The most fundamental flaw in Trump’s gambit, though, is the brute fact that he is the sitting president. It is very difficult to persuade voters that putting you in the White House will end civil unrest when you are currently in the White House and there is civil unrest.”
Not even a double dose of Hydroxychloroquine or a big gulp of bleach will cure that.