After inspecting the ruins of burnt businesses in Kenosha, Donald Trump assimilated, Tuesday, September 1, to "domestic terrorism" the violent demonstrations, which shook this city of Wisconsin, without naming Jacob Blake, an African-American seriously injured by the police.
63 days before the US presidential election, the United States appears deeply divided.
On the one hand, this apparent police blunder, filmed, has revived the wave of historic protest against racism.
On the other hand, the American president affirms that a "silent majority" wants to see, with him, the reestablishment of "law and order", which has become the main slogan of his re-election campaign.
"I really came today to thank the police," said Donald Trump in this city of Wisconsin, a state called to play a key role during the presidential election on November 3.
Describing acts of vandalism, the American president assured: "These are not acts of peaceful demonstrations but really of internal terrorism".
"Kenosha has been ravaged by anti-police and anti-American riots," he said.
"My Administration coordinated with the state and local authorities to very, very swiftly deploy the National Guard, surge federal law enforcement to Kenosha, and stop the violence."
We are ready to do the same in any city that wants help.
pic.twitter.com/vtoQkRvHfE
- The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 1, 2020
Earlier, the 45th President of the United States had inspected ruined buildings in this city of 100,000 people near the Great Lakes.
"We will help them," he promised to traders.
"These men did a great job," he added, pointing to the police.
But he did not spontaneously mention Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old African American seriously injured from seven bullets fired at him at close range, in front of his children, during an arrest in Kenosha on August 23.
Hospitalized, he has the lower half of his body paralyzed.
"Trump misses it once more"
Asked by journalists, Donald Trump admitted that he had not been able to speak to his mother.
"I hear that she is a very good woman," he said.
His Democratic presidential rival, Joe Biden, spoke to him last week by phone with relatives of Jacob Blake.
Trump once again misses the point, refusing to utter the words that Wisconsin people and Americans across the country needed to hear today from their president: a condemnation of all forms of violence, little whoever commits it, "Joe Biden said in a statement after Donald Trump's visit.
Tonight, President Trump declined to rebuke violence.
He wouldn't even repudiate one of his supporters who is charged with murder.
He is too weak, too scared of the hatred he has stirred to put an end to it.
- Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 1, 2020
"Trump cannot bring himself to condemn the violence that he himself stirs up," the Democratic candidate's statement also read.
Donald Trump "stirs the embers" of overflows, he had already accused Monday.
"He cannot stop the violence because for years he fomented it".
Police cars and armored vehicles were parked near Kenosha County Court House, the epicenter of protests and riots for a week.
Emblem of divisions crossing the country, Donald Trump greeted supporters who applauded him as his presidential convoy passed through the streets of Kenosha, while demonstrators from the "Black Lives Matter" movement hooted him .
The two groups exchanged invective.
After a visit of about two hours, Donald Trump resumed the route to the presidential plane Air Force One.
Supporter of far-right group killed in Portland
Some 300 "Black Lives Matter" protesters remained in a park near the courthouse while most of the President's supporters left the scene by mid-afternoon.
In Kenosha, tension peaked when a 17-year-old young man fired a semi-automatic rifle, under unclear circumstances, at three protesters, killing two.
His arrest the next day brought precarious calm to the small coastal town on Lake Michigan.
Donald Trump refused to condemn the actions of this young man, Kyle Rittenhouse, indicted for premeditated murder.
According to US media, he is a supporter of the president, a lover of weapons, and had joined militias supposed to "protect" Kenosha from rioters.
>> To read: Wave of self-proclaimed vigilantes in Trumpist America
The United States has been going through a historic movement of anger against racism since the death of George Floyd, an African-American suffocated by a white police officer on May 25 in Minneapolis.
Demonstrations largely peaceful have sometimes escalated.
And militias intervened.
In this already tense context, Aaron Danielson, a supporter of a small right-wing group called Patriot Prayer, was shot and killed on Saturday in Portland at the age of 39.
Donald Trump denounced Tuesday the death of this "pious man", "executed in the street".
In Los Angeles, calls for a demonstration on Tuesday were launched to denounce the death of a black man killed the day before by police, who claim he was armed with a pistol.
With AFP
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