George Floyd protests: What riots mean for Trump’s re-election
Democrats are as good as egging on looters and rioters in a bid to blame Trump for decades of unrest and take the 2020 election. But they’ve picked the wrong president, writes Miranda Devine.
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Why are idiot protesters in Sydney and London taking to the streets in solidarity with Americans currently burning down their cities?
Why not protest against China, which wilfully inflicted a pandemic on the world and then took advantage of the crisis it created by moving on Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India?
China makes no secret of its plans for world domination. Would the protesters in Sydney’s Hyde Park rather a world dominated by America or by China?
The fact the answer is not clear from their actions should concern the rest of us.
If it feels like the End of Empire in America, as looters ransack stores in mid-town Manhattan, rioters lay siege to the White House and cities burn, it’s worth remembering who brought us here.
Five months before an election, this is the insurrection of the incendiary left, who have marched unopposed through the institutions for half a century, to teach a generation of Americans that their country – and especially their police – are irredeemably racist.
After Americans voted in the first black president in 2008 you would think that racial division might have been put to rest. But it only grew worse under Obama, who fanned the flames of black grievance at every opportunity.
Sixty per cent of Americans felt race relations were worse after Obama’s victory, polls showed, as the Democratic party manipulated identity politics for political advantage.
But suddenly Trump challenged the Democratic party stranglehold on the black vote, with minority unemployment at record lows before the pandemic and prominent black voices backing the so-called Blexit movement – blacks exiting the Democratic party.
So, where the Russia collusion conspiracy, impeachment, coronavirus deaths and the pandemic-inspired economic slowdown failed to destroy Trump, race riots are the last hope for a Democratic party saddled with the weakest of presidential candidates in Joe Biden.
The violence engulfing America has nothing to do with the death of George Floyd.
No one is defending the former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on Floyd for eight minutes until he died. Even his wife has left him. He and his colleagues were fired immediately, and he is in jail right now charged with third-degree murder.
But any peaceful protests in honour of Floyd were hijacked long ago. They have been used as cover by organised left-wing agitators, antifa fascists and opportunistic criminals.
Many of those arrested are dressed like special forces operatives with earpieces, masks, and backpacks stuffed with molotov cocktails, crowbars, hatchets and wire cutters. Videos abound on social media of these shadowy figures, always white men, systematically smashing store windows, but not looting, cutting through fences outside police stations, but not pushing them over.
Attorney-General Bill Barr described them as “anarchistic and far left extremists, using Antifa-like tactics … exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate and violent agenda”. On the weekend the President said he would designate Antifa a terrorist organisation.
Most of the cities hardest hit by riots have progressive Democratic mayors and governors. Many have black mayors and police chiefs.
They have systematically emasculated their police forces and emptied their jails and now they are reaping the whirlwind.
Democratic Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey was proud of his decision for police to evacuate the Third Precinct station, allowing it to be overrun by rioters and burned to the ground. For four nights criminals ransacked his city and terrorised its residents while the police were nowhere to be seen. His weakness allowed the contagion of violence to spread throughout America.
Over the past four days, cops have been savagely attacked in New York, with molotov cocktails and bricks, with scant support from their Demiocratic masters.
When one besieged officer was filmed on Sunday pulling his gun on rioters briefly without firing a shot, Mayor Bill de Blasio raged that the officer should be stripped of his badge, even though he didn’t know the facts of the incident.
The next day the police union tweeted a video of a cop being attacked with the caption “NYPD Cops defend yourselves, you are alone!”
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, while condemning President Trump’s exhortations for law and order, said the protests were “a beautiful thing … Wake up America, we’re killing people based on the colour of their skin.”
He perpetuates the myth of a systemically racist police force, knowing that studies show that white cops are no more likely than black or Hispanic cops to kill black people.
The NYPD itself is majority non-white – 30% Hispanic, 16% black and 9% Asian.
Cuomo and de Blasio, whose daughter was arrested with protesters on the weekend, have no interest in law and order. They cynically used the pandemic to release more than 1500 prisoners from jail, in an acceleration of their criminal justice “reforms” which already had sent NYC crime rates spiralling.
How many of those criminals joined the looting?
Finally on Monday, Trump decided enough was enough and declared he was “your President of law and order”.
If mayors and governors don’t quell the violence “ then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them” he said.
“We cannot allow the righteous cries and peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob,” he said. “These are not acts of peaceful protest. These are acts of domestic terror …
“The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities, and as their President, I will fight to keep them safe.”
He then walked across the road from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church which had been damaged by fire during the riots and posed holding a Bible for a provocative photo opportunity.
This enraged his Democratic enemies, who responded, not by decrying the violence, but by giving aid and comfort to the rioters.
They called him a “fascist” because police had forcefully cleared protesters away from around the White House with tear gas and rubber bullets before he emerged.
Biden, whose staff reportedly donated money to bail out the protesters in Minneapolis, wailed that Trump is “using the American military against the American people”.
At this stage, fed up Americans just want law and order restored.
The 1968 riots meant voters worried about social disorder chose Richard Nixon as president, so the 2020 riots likely will play in Trump’s favour.
But everything depends on whether he can keep his promise to quell the violence and rebuild the pandemic-ravaged economy.