Trump's American Spring

WASHINGTON — President Trump put a nauseating new spin on Bible-bangin’ when he ordered flash grenades and tear gas to be lobbed at peaceful protesters outside of the White House so he could take a picture holding a Bible in front of a church. He has proven himself a Tartuffe of the highest order.

Amid the stampede, still ringing in my ears is the voice that cried out, to nobody in particular, that “There are kids here!” It was 6:30 p.m. on a gorgeous Monday. Surely, Trump’s base was thrilled to the marrow at the sight of him pawing the Good Book while, one block away, teenagers scrambled, even as the president’s own teenager presumably sat inside mere yards away — even as the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., said she was “outraged” by the gambit. (In an extraordinary press conference from the Pentagon on Wednesday morning, Defense Secretary Mark Esper affirmed that he was left in the dark about Trump’s intent to turn the show of force into a photo op, a plan that, according to The New York Times, was hatched in part by Ivanka and Hope Hicks. Esper also broke with the president by saying he didn’t support invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow Trump to deploy active-duty troops.)

“It’s a populist move when you hold a gun over your head or carry a bible, and so you see Trump as a full-bore populist in the mode of William Jennings Bryan right now,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

But by now, Trump must realize that, after four years, it is not just his own base he has been riling up. “Whether he leaves or stays, someone is going to be mad, there will still be rioting,” says an 18-year-old girl named Chloe at Sunday night’s protest, around 5 p.m., while things were still peaceable. Her shirt had a picture of a baby Biggie Smalls on it, and she sat on the roof of a maintenance structure in Lafayette Square that was covered in “Fuck Trump” and “Amerikka” graffiti. (Images of the president later walking in front of it on his way to the church are among the most defining of this whole episode). “If he is re-elected, the country will flip upside down — it’s going to be this, times 10,” Chloe says. Her friend Kai adds, “I don’t know how he got this far in the first place, but he needs to stop.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trumps-american-spring-washington-dc-geroge-floyd-protest-1009400/