By Betsy Morais and Alexandria Neason, CJR
AUGUST 10, 2020
... He does not wear a mask, though the world is fighting a deadly disease that spreads through respiratory droplets. He walks with his attorney general, his chief of staff, his secretary of defense, his press team, his daughter, and his son-in-law. They are not wearing masks either ... He stops in front of the church’s sign, whose black and white lettering reads “Sunday Services Online.” The services are online because covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has by this point killed more than a hundred thousand Americans ... It is the first day in June, and the sun shines in Washington ... His eyes are narrow — the look of a man who wants to look determined; the look of a man with sun in his eyes, so perhaps he cannot see.
Moments before he arrived at this spot, officers cleared the square of a crowd that had been protesting peacefully as part of an uprising against systemic racism, in particular police brutality targeting Black people ... But that day, the Congressional Budget Office projected that, over the next decade, without serious help from Washington to confront the losses caused by the pandemic, the US economy could become $15.7 trillion smaller ... The federal park police descended, in riot gear, firing off rubber pellets and spraying the area with tear gas. Puffs of smoke filled the air; legs went spiraling in all directions, arms waving. Fear, shouts, coughing ... The cameras rolled.
This is a snapshot of a presidential campaign season that has been unlike any other. The coronavirus has disrupted the usual election cycle routines — the bus rides, the stump speeches, the canvassing, and all the accompanying coverage ... He has since waged a campaign that is not so much against his political opponent as it is against the American people ... But in truth, the uprising tells the campaign story.
While officers in Washington met demonstrators with tear gas — a chemical agent so harmful that it was banned from warfare by signatories of the Geneva Conventions — the same was going on in Portland, Oregon ... Officers also beat up protesters and shot projectiles their way ... “We can be forgiven for believing the president is more interested in power than in principle, more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care” ...
... at the beginning of June, the Portland police were stocking up on military gear. KATU, an ABC affiliate in Portland, obtained records showing that the city’s police bureau spent nearly $50,000 on tear gas, pepper spray, and related items ... Then officers started spraying demonstrators with chemicals every night. By June 5 .. protesters filed a class action lawsuit against the city of Portland for “indiscriminate use” of tear gas. “We’re out screaming for justice for Black people and asking the state to stop its violence against us, and the City responds by using tear gas when we’re in the middle of a pandemic of respiratory disease” ...
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/election_trump_protests.php
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