The reason cable news people have been clamoring for President Trump to say something directly about the violent and destructive riots over the killing of George Floyd is because it makes their jobs easy to evaluate his “tone” and determine whether he was “presidential.”
The reason normal people have been clamoring for him to say something is because they’re terrified for their lives and for the lives of their families and friends.
After two days of watching major U.S. cities burn, the president finally said Monday at the White House that he was readying to deploy the military in order to gain some sense of control over the country.
Well, now that the weekend is over, I’m glad he could get around to that.
Trump said he was recommending elected state officials take the steps on their own to deploy their National Guards and that if they failed, he would do it himself to “quickly solve the problem for them.”
For anyone who’s been paying attention, that provocation isn’t so much a threat as it is an attempt to buy more time and avoid taking any responsibility. Trump has already acknowledged that the “Democrat mayors and governors” have neglected to “get tough” on the people who are wrecking their cities. Why, then, is he still looking to them?
He has the power to act. He acknowledged that, too, in saying that he was “taking swift and decisive action” in Washington, D.C., where I live, and where he said he was directing “thousands and thousands” of military personnel to stomp any violent rioting gearing up into our third day of terror here.
Trump is late to the game, but he made the right call. We’ll see if he really is the “law and order” president that he has always claimed to be.
