We were spell-bound Monday evening watching the television coverage of events around the American white house. We had heard recordings of what he had said to many of the U.S. state governors earlier in the day and dreaded how it might play out through the evening. This was the belligerent and threatening Donald Trump that we were watching.
We were rapidly coming to the conclusion that the man is intent in launching another American civil war. Though, he brought no honour to it. He is no Abraham Lincoln. He had military and massed police forces at the ready around the white house.
The police practiced their cotillion moves to the surprise of the few spectators come to see the events of the evening. The big surprise was the Secret Service and their back-up of city and park police using flash-bangs and tear gas to clear the most peaceful protest of the week in Lafayette Square.
It was not until Trump and his Men in Suits sallied from the white house through Lafayette Park and across to the boarded-up St. John’s Episcopal Church, that had been cleared of protesters. The ‘Hypocrite-in-Chief’ wanted a photo op of himself, in front of the church, holding an old Bible, he must have found in the white house. He is always thinking of the looming election these days. He needs that picture to impress the religious conservatives across the U.S. They like to think their Mr. Trump is at that church on Sundays instead of usually playing golf at one of his East Coast resorts.
But it was the anti-Christ in him that lead him to demand that the governors come down hard on the protestors. He wanted them to deploy the National Guard to ‘dominate’ street demonstrators. He told them, he would send in the army to do the job, if they did not.
For Canadians, the most telling scene of the following day was the question to prime minister Justin Trudeau outside the cuckoo clock at Rideau cottage. The media wanted to hear his reaction to the American president’s actions. He made them wait. You could easily imagine the range of thoughts as the PM considered possible answers. His answer was to never say the name of the problem.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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