Police know an arsonist will sometimes return to the fire he has set, to enjoy the commotion and savor the flames.
But arsonists don’t run up in full view of everybody and pour more gasoline to the fire.
That’s basically what Donald Trump did in Kenosha Tuesday. Though begged to stay away by the mayor of Kenosha, the governor of Wisconsin, and leaders in Illinois, Trump has an election to win. Since claiming he beat the COVID-19 pandemic that he in fact completely botched won’t work as the death toll rises, he’s shifting to his standard go-to move: whipping up fear. In 2016, it was Mexican rapists and South American refugee caravans. That’s old hat — the fearsome becomes familiar, which is why it’s much easier to go grocery shopping now than it was in April.
So Trump is fanning the flames of urban chaos, the riots that began after the killing of George Floyd, and continued in Kenosha after Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times a week ago Sunday.
Most leaders hurry to scenes of trouble intending to comfort and unify. But most leaders aren’t narcissistic sociopaths. Trump is deepening the divisions in America today, under the impression that he can disassociate himself from the bedlam happening on his watch and somehow pin it on his opponent, Joe Biden, while offering himself as the solution. He’s basically running against himself, promising he’ll do a better job in 2021 than he’s doing in 2020.
Toward that end, Trump toured burned-out blocks in Kenosha and met with business owners. Together they posed before the rubble, the business owners masked, Trump, of course, unmasked.
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