President Trump plans to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday, even though he isn’t welcome. The Hill reports that both the governor of Wisconsin and the mayor of Kenosha have asked him not to come at this time, as the town is still reeling from the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the murder of two protesters by 17 year old Trump supporter Kyle Rittenhouse.
“I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state. I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing. I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together,” [Gov. Tony Evers] wrote.
…”Realistically, from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time,” Mayor John Antaramian (D) said on NPR’s “Weekend Edition.”
“All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come,” Antaramian added.
Their concern is well-founded, as Trump is not on a national healing tour. The New York Times described his weekend tweetstorm as “an especially intense barrage…embracing fringe conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated and that street protests are actually an organized coup d’état against him.”
In a concentrated predawn burst, the president posted or reposted 89 messages between 5:49 a.m. and 8:04 a.m. on Sunday on top of 18 the night before, many of them inflammatory comments or assertions about violent clashes in Portland, Ore., where a man wearing the hat of a far-right, pro-Trump group was shot and killed Saturday after a large group of Mr. Trump’s supporters traveled through the streets. He resumed on Sunday night.
In the blast of social media messages, Mr. Trump also embraced a call to imprison Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, threatened to send federal forces against demonstrators outside the White House, attacked CNN and NPR, embraced a supporter charged with murder, mocked his challenger, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and repeatedly assailed the mayor of Portland, even posting the mayor’s office telephone number so that supporters could call demanding his resignation.
The mayor of Portland responded appropriately by saying that Trump “has been perpetrating divisive and hateful language for four years — for him to now stand here and say that it’s unexpected and act as though he is shocked, is appalling to me.” He added, “I’d appreciate that either the president support us or stay the hell out of the way.”
With Trump, we’re never quite sure where the line is drawn between cynicism and insanity, so it’s not possible to know if he believes that “the real death toll from the coronavirus is only around 9,000 — not nearly 183,000,” or that “a well funded network of anarchists” are trying to take him down by causing disturbances in the streets. What we do know is that Trump sent those messages out this past weekend to his 86.5 million Twitter followers. There’s no reason to believe that he’s headed to Kenosha to calm the place down. That’s clear from the fact that he “liked” a Tweet stating that “Kyle Rittenhouse is a good example of why I decided to vote for Trump.”
As a reminder, Kyle Rittenhouse traveled 30 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois. He then confronted Black Lives Matter protesters with a “a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style .223 rifle.” As a minor, it was a violation of Wisconsin law for him to brandish such a weapon in public. Following a confrontation in a parking lot, he shot and killed an unarmed Joseph Rosenbaum, who reportedly had thrown a plastic bag at him. When a group gathered in an effort to disarm and detain him, he fired more shots, wounding Gaige Grosskreutz and killing Anthony Huber.
Apparently, Trump considers this boy a model supporter. It’s no wonder that elected officials think Trump’s presence will exacerbate the fallout they are trying to contain. As the New York Times reported on Thursday, increasing tensions is quite obviously a key component of his reelection strategy.
Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s departing counselor, said on Thursday that Mr. Trump stood to benefit politically from the kind of unrest that erupted this week in Kenosha, Wis., after the police shooting of an unarmed Black man, Jacob Blake.
“The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order,” Ms. Conway said on “Fox & Friends.”
If someone was coming to your community to boost chaos and anarchy and vandalism, would you welcome them?
Trump can’t help himself. Unfortunate for those communities, but it will also drive his advisors mad, as he will polarize it to the max and in the process nail the coffin of his own campaign. He’s already lost the support of the troops and Missouri is down to +11 from a republican biased poll.
Can the mayor and governor just refuse to provide any support for a visit? Like, nobody meets his plane at the airport besides security, and they make it clear he is unwelcome? All venues closed for public health reasons, and no publicity?
4.5
Given that the violence may benefit Trump, should people simply not show up to protest his presence?
Yes.
At this point, protests aren’t going to do anything but give Trump the an air of legitimacy.
It’s September of 2020. Anyone who is serious about “changing the system” needs to be laser-focused on GETTING OUT THE VOTE. There’s no better way to change how PD’s operate than getting control of the local/city/state government, while voting out the Fascist in the White House.
Not so sure about that. See Bidens speech today, I think he hung the violence around our leaders neck.
Biden can say whatever he wants. Voters see fires and get scared.
Good place for Biden to visit on Wednesday.
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5
It’s time for the protests on the street to end, and the protest at the voting booth to start. The protests are nothing but performative at this point, and giving Trump any semblance of legitimacy at this point is a massive mistake.
Do you want to start working on the myriad of problems?
Then Get Out The Vote.
Make sure you and your family/friends/neighbors/community are registered to vote, know when/where Early Voting starts, and coordinate transportation. Voting on Election Day is a bigger threat to your personal safety and your vote than anything else. Voting by mail is a toss-up, because Trump and his Camoshirts aren’t just talking about preventing mail-in ballots from being counted, Trump is actually doing everything in his power to prevent them from getting to you and getting counted.
Unless you are immunocompromised, VOTE IN PERSON. When people say “freedom ain’t free”, and “vote like your life depends on it”, it means that sometimes voting might require a sacrifice of 100% locked-behind-a-deadbolt safety. If getting COVID is worse than an outright Fascist gaining total control of the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch, then I’m not sure politics is a concern at all for you.
Just a thinking exercise. Do you believe elections in 2000 and 2004 were either stolen or votes suppressed?
If so, then make sure your vote is counted by going in-person, unless you’re literally immunocompromised. Because Republican Governors and Republican Secretaries of State know god damn well that they’ll be getting overt cover by the Fascists in the White House. Unless you watch your vote get tallied, you might as well consider it thrown in the trash. If you vote by mail because that’s the default method for your state, turn that fucker in at the precinct. Hand it to a person who gives a shit. Assume those Drop Boxes are compromised…otherwise you don’t think Trump and Friends are really all that bad.
Do not let these fucking polls showing Biden up by 6 in swing states lull you into thinking that 2020 isn’t Trump’s election to lose. He will, as he’s already stated and shown, do everything in his power and outside of his power to throw the election to himself. He knows that if he loses, he is liable for Federal and State crimes that will put him in prison. Why would he ever give up power?
This is a civil war, right now, in case you haven’t noticed. There are shots being fired. There are Camoshirts patrolling areas of their political opponents, intimidating, and worse. Right. Now.
You have to be prepared to do everything in your power to prevent the Fascists from winning the civil war. Are you willing to sacrifice anything to prevent Fascism Proper?
Heard tonight Biden is behind by two in Michigan. He stayed in hiding too long. But he had a good speech today, and he can continue to hang this around Trump’s neck, if he continues to not address the virus and the violence by ignoring white violence like Rittenhouse. But he needs to get out there in any case.
Heard from who?
Either CNN or MSNBC
538 has Trump up one on the 28th. That’s a change from Biden plus six on the 26th. It’s what happens when you hide out. ( Michigan)
Trafalgar Group has Biden down by 2 in Michigan. Trafalgar is run by a GOP consultant (Robert Cahaly). Nate Silver (538) has Trafalgar rated as C-.
I wouldn’t give this poll a second thought. It is a psy op put out to depress Democratic voters. There was little doubt this sort of thing was coming after the RNC ended last week. We will see more of this from GOP pollsters until November 3.
I really like to accept that but I suffered in 2016 so much, I don’t trust any lead.
We need to ignore the polls and GOTV like never before. I don’t care if a poll shows Biden ahead by 50 points, we need to act approach voting like he’s behind by 100.
Trump has to suffer an overwhelming defeat on 11/3 in order for us to begin to move on from this nightmare. Each one of us should be committed to not just voting ourselves, but getting at least 10 others to the polls.
The polls are entertainment; meanwhile, this election is as serious as its ever been. GOTV!
When I see Biden up by 6 in a swing state, I see it as tied. Trump up by 2 means it’s safe Trump. You can disagree with me, and I hope you’re right. But after 2016, I don’t expect right-wing authoritarians to be polled accurately. They’ll say whatever they think sounds good and do what they feel is good in the voting booth.
This is a good attitude to have if it encourages action. But generally the quality of the polling recently had been poor, and the national poll numbers actually shifted in favor of Biden in 538 today. Some noise is inevitable after the RNC. I think Joe has the right attack lines, and his visits will begin to show in the polls in two weeks. Too many people underestimated Biden in the primary, and they are doing it again.
We agree on that. Any lead by Trump is what scares me. This is why I want Joe to do more of what he did today. I hope he can keep it up.
Oh calm down. It’s no Linger June. June there were protests pretty much everywhere. Those are gone now. Now we’re limited to Portland and Kenosha and Maybe Louisville. It’s not actually spreading like it did in June. If there have been demonstrations elsewhere I haven’t heard about them erupting into to riots. I get that Trump will play it up that every city is the next Portland. But telling the Portland protesters to go home at this point is probably futile.
No one in Portland has ever heard from me, nor would they care if they did.
I’m calm, and I’m also well aware that the electorate is what matters now, and that continuing protests will not add one single vote to Biden or any other Democratic candidate. They will add votes to Trump and Republican candidates.
It isn’t about making a point anymore, it’s about defeating outright fascists. The protests have accomplished as much as they’re going to without actually controlling government.
Yes, give me a negative vote because the time for protests have ended as nothing of substance will result from protests, and we need to win this election.
The positive/negative anonymous voting is hilarious. You shouldn’t be able to up or downvote without it showing who it is.
Carry on.
I’d be inclined to let him come. Trump may always take the low road which Biden may be able to use. Maybe bait him starting with Joe Biden is looking to hang some of this around your neck. But Biden has to show up on like Wednesday and make nice with the officials and the police and give a nice speech saying at least none of the people protesting brought an AR15 with them thinking they were the enforcement police. And it’s the presidents job to bridge the gap between the rightful claims of the protestors and the police. Trump failed, as usual. Just a thought.
5
All this freaking out about the polls tightening and apparently nothing has changed in the race. Still Biden +7 on 538, remarkably stable. The crime is coming to YOU is not working based on the evidence and Biden was up on the question of who is trusted to keep communities safer according to a morning consult poll this morning. I don’t think there’s anything changing in this. It seems it all comes down to get out the vote at this point as ballots are being mailed out.
In no case where ever Trump supporters have shown up with guns, or where Trump deployed his federal goons, was the result calm. That’s because these people are there to cause trouble, not quell or prevent it. From the Michigan statehouse, to Portland, Seattle or DC, their presence made things worse, not better.
4.5