Yesterday Anita Kumar reported that within minutes of Trumpanzee’s poorly-received address to the nation Monday, "his campaign aides began to mobilize. They cut a video of his speech. They promoted a black-and-white photo of him striding out of the White House to a partially burned church. One tweeted: 'Triumph. Leadership. Law and Order.'... Staffers are now embracing and promoting Trump’s threats to send the military into cities to help quell looting and vandalism in the hopes it will help the president win over seniors and suburban women, even if it comes at the expense of black voters."Reporting on the same topic, also for Politico David Siders noted that Trump will attempt to move the campaign away from being a referendum on his to a revitalization of the Silent Majority. "The lines of demarcation between the nation’s cities and their suburbs have faded in the decades since Richard M. Nixon courted the 'Silent Majority' that elected him to the White House. With his law-and-order, tough-on-protesters rhetoric, Donald Trump is betting his presidency it still exists... Trump’s approach to the violence and unrest that have gripped the nation’s big cities seems calibrated toward winning back [suburbs that have trended blue since he was elected], in the hopes that voters will recoil at the current images of chaos and looting-- as they did in the late 1960s-- and look to the White House for stability."Not everyone agrees with that strategy. James Miller, a former undersecretary of defense at the Pentagon resigned from his role on the Defense Advisory Board because of Defense Defense Secretary Mark Esper's visible support for law enforcement officers' clearing of protesters from Lafayette Square Monday. In a letter published by the Washington Post, Miller called Esper's support for suppressing the protest a violation of his oath of office.
When I joined the Board in early 2014, after leaving government service as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, I again swore an oath of office, one familiar to you, that includes the commitment to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States... and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”You recited that same oath on July 23, 2019, when you were sworn in as Secretary of Defense. On Monday, June 1, 2020, I believe that you violated that oath. Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets-- not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op. You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo.President Trump’s actions Monday night violated his oath to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as well as the First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble.” You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.Anyone who takes the oath of office must decide where he or she will draw the line: What are the things that they will refuse to do? Secretary Esper, you have served honorably for many years, in active and reserve military duty, as Secretary of the Army, and now as Secretary of Defense. You must have thought long and hard about where that line should be drawn. I must now ask: If last night’s blatant violations do not cross the line for you, what will?Unfortunately, it appears there may be few if any lines that President Trump is not willing to cross, so you will probably be faced with this terrible question again in the coming days. You may be asked to take, or to direct the men and women serving in the U.S. military to take, actions that further undermine the Constitution and harm Americans.As a concerned citizen, and as a former senior defense official who cares deeply about the military, I urge you to consider closely both your future actions and your future words. For example, some could interpret literally your suggestion to the nation’s governors Monday that they need to “dominate the battlespace.” I cannot believe that you see the United States as a “battlespace,” or that you believe our citizens must be “dominated.” Such language sends an extremely dangerous signal.You have made life-and-death decisions in combat overseas; soon you may be asked to make life-and-death decisions about using the military on American streets and against Americans. Where will you draw the line, and when will you draw it?
Trump had been urging Esper to use an 1807 law signed by Thomas Jefferson, the Insurrection Act, as an excuse for sending in the troops to clear the streets and bolstering Trump's image as "a tough guy," yes the same tough guy who was cowering in a bunker when some protestors were shouting at him through the White House fence. [You know how much this drives Trump up a wall; yesterday, he told NBC News that "I was there for a tiny, short period of time... it was more for an inspection."] Esper told NBC in an interview Tuesday night that those powers "don't need to be used. We have more than enough National Guard capacity out there. I say this not only as Secretary of Defense but also as a former soldier and a former member of the National Guard. The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act." I wonder how long it will take Trump to turn him into a punching bag among fascists promoting Trump.At least Trump seems to have gotten a potential award-winning song out of this whole mess. This brand new Courtney Jaye song is really beautiful, as long as you don't think about whom she is writing.Unfortunately, for Señor Trumpanzee, a new poll from Ipsos shows that a majority of Americans (64%) sympathize with the protestors and disapprove (55%) with how Trump has handled the unrest-- especially independents. In fact, just 67% of Republicans think Trump is handling the protests well. Only a third of Americans agree with how he's handling the situation. Voters see Trump as fanning the flames of violence and hatred and this poll showed Biden with a 10 point lead for November.Yesterday, Kos wrote that while Trump was cowering in his bunker, public support for Black Lives Matter was surging. They and Civiqs have tracked public attitudes around Black Lives Matter for three years. "Charlottesville catalyzed a slow and steady progression of support, as well as a gradual decline in opposition. Thus, prior to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, 42% supported the Black Lives Matter movement, 31% opposed, and 25% were indifferent. That all changed this past weekend, as the nation convulsed in anger at the systemic mistreatment of the Black community at the hands of the police. The nation’s hiding-in-a-bunker president, Donald Trump, has responded to the protests the only way he knows how-- by further stoking the fires of division, hatred, and violence. And we, as a country, don’t have a great deal of faith in the nation’s white population to process these events in a way that is positive and heals wounds. How could we? Only 37% of white Americans voted for Hillary Clinton! Yet our daily tracking poll shows that support isn’t just up, it’s way up. For the first time, the Black Lives Matter movement has majority support among white people. From the day that Arbery was killed to Monday, support for Black Lives Matter is up a net 15 points. And the weekend protests, despite the efforts of Trump and conservative media to paint them as threatening race riots, did nothing to arrest that growing support. Instead, support keeps growing. The protests are working. The movement even has majority support (39-30) among non-college whites-- Trump’s strongest demographics! It’s impossible to stress just how mind-blowing these numbers are, particularly given the glacial pace of public opinion on matters of race and justice. Here’s the net shift among some key demographics, from March 13, when Breonna Taylor was murdered, to yesterday:Don't miss this new ad-- a thing of beauty! This is a time for choosing... America or Trump!-- another brilliant ad from the Lincoln Project. I hope people are seeing this series of ads in swing states.
