Plus: Alice Marie Johnson’s RNC speech, Twitter bans bots pretending to be disillusioned black Democrats, and more…
Scenes inside and outside the White House gates last night presented a stark and jarring contrast. On one side, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence used the place—and, later, the Washington Monument—as a backdrop for their 2020 presidential campaign, bright with billboards and fireworks and filled with an unmasked crowd of the conservative political elite. Holding part of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on the White House lawn is unprecedented in American history; if it’s not illegal under rules meant to separate politics from governing, it is at least an unnerving display of a sort more familiar in autocratic regimes than in countries holding free elections. On the other side—in the square that has now been crowned Black Lives Matter Plaza and in the surrounding streets—crowds gathered to protest Trump and violent, unaccountable policing with chants, go-go music, and a determination to « take the noise straight to the White House » and « #DrownOutTrump, » as texts from the activist group Shut Down D. C. put it. As the evening began, the scene had « sort of an outdoor concert vibe, » as Reason’s Robby Soave put it. Videos show outpourings of pain and anger, too, but—though there were sporadic harsher confrontations later in the night (including a group confronting Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and someone throwing a bike at him)—the protests refrained from turning into a chaotic or violent scene like we’ve seen in Kenosha and Portland, while still reinforcing the unrest and protest alive on U. S. streets. Trump’s RNC speech wasn’t merely disorienting in contrast to the scene outside. It also struck a weird contrast with what’s going on in the country (and the larger world) right now. In the RNC’s world, the COVID-19 pandemic (when it was mentioned at all) was a story of how Trump’s quick thinking had saved countless lives, how the more than 180,000 who have died are just sad but inevitable casualties of China’s negligence, and how we’ve already reached a turning point, with a vaccine or « miracle » cure just around the corner. Trump is also making a huge bet here — that he can pretend the country has moved on from a pandemic that is still killing 1,000 Americans a day. https://t.co/aYBDknthfP Blake News (@blakehounshell) August 28, 2020 In this world, riots and crime spikes in certain cities are a preview of what would happen under a President Joe Biden, even though it’s Trump rather than Biden who’s been in power for nearly four years. (Crime and unrest were also sometimes blamed on Democratic city leaders, and positioned as a reason to vote Trump, despite the fact that neither president changes who is in charge of American cities and states.) Peaceful protests near the White House pic.twitter.com/fhy4L0ZN2K — Robby Soave (@robbysoave) August 28, 2020 Blowing up select places where protests have turned into looting and chaos, Trump and his team made it sound as if all of America is filled with some dangerous mix of antifa, communists, Black Lives Matter, and illegal immigrants running rampant on the streets and destroying America’s way of life.
