Trump was not only stung Monday by reports that he had spent part of the weekend sheltering in the White House bunker. He was also embarrassed by Joe Biden’s continued displays of leadership in the midst of a national crisis provoked by the racist murder of George Floyd.
After venturing onto the streets to engage with protesters on Sunday, Biden spent Monday morning meeting with community leaders at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden’s approach—to acknowledge the ongoing injustices faced by the black community, to listen, to empathize, and to pledge his continued commitment to the cause of racial justice—is in marked contrast to Trump’s “dominate the protesters” approach.
For his own church visit, #BunkerBoyTrump was determined to show the world he was wearing his Big Boy Pants. So before he went to God’s house, he ordered the military to clear the streets of peaceful protesters using tear-gas and rubber bullets. In the process, he literally gassed priests from the church—and clergymen from other denominations—who were offering hospitality to the protesters.
Most Republicans immediately began rabidly tweeting about what a strong a powerful man Trump was. Except for former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who said the racist and morbidly obese President was trying “to mark his authority like a dog pissing on the side of a building.”
To a casual observer, the photo op may have looked pathetic and sad. (Trump was asked if he was holding “his Bible.” He said it was “a Bible.”) But Trump’s white supremacist fans may have seen something different in the carefully staged pose:
We are now five months and one day from an election Trump knows he will have to steal in order to keep himself, his family and his criminal accomplices out of prison. In the midst of a pandemic made worse by his incompetence, with 41 million unemployed in a crash that could have been averted, with racial injustice tearing the country apart, this weak, narcissistic, empathy-deficient, so-called President is trying to turn some “limited damage to the nursery room” at a DC church into 2020’s Reichstag Fire.
UPDATE:
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