Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 18 2020 03:26pm)
The St. John's Church photo op was a big mistake by Trump, the symbolism backfired badly on him, and his polls suggest that this moment was a turning point (for the worse) in his campaign. It was still only one occasion though. Neither Trump nor governors have ordered troops to violently quell peaceful protests across the country.
If you look at the Western history of the past 150 or so years, most countries which were firmly democratic would have reacted to the looting, arson and violence that was taking place in the wake of the BLM protests with more force than what the U.S. ended up using. One might argue that Trump is a proto-fascist who'd erect a dictatorship around himself if he could, but it's still a fact that institutions, the (still very free!!) media and public opinion immediately punished him very hard for this fascistic display.
Yes, indeed they did. I just think it's a mistake to say he "supported peaceful protests at first", and I agree that if he could he would be a proto-fascist that tries to send us down that path.
I think we're handling protests far better than were handled during, say, the civil rights era, in that we're not turning the fire hoses and dogs on the protesters. The current police brutality against minorities is a direct extension of that kind of abuse, in a directly linear and time dependent fashion.