When we needed a president to bring us together...

... he turned off the lights, hid in a bunker, and blamed not the racism that killed George Floyd, but those who were angry about it.

And then he told the nation's governors that they were weak for exhibiting more sensitivity and common sense than he did.

Finally, he ordered tear gas and rubber bullets* fired into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators protesting against racism so that he could go to a church and celebrate this entire sorry episode by waving, of all things, a Bible in front of us.

Here’s how this scene was viewed live in Australia. One of America’s closest and most dependable allies. Rendered speechless. Just watch. pic.twitter.com/IjOzgs3WYo

— Brett McGurk (@brett_mcgurk) June 2, 2020

Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark writes:

Trump didn't go into St. John's Church. He didn't even pretend to survey the damage at the church. He offered no words of solace. He just stood in front of the church and awkwardly held up a Bible.

Before he arrived, police expelled a priest and seminarian from the church's patio as part of their sweep. “They turned holy ground into a battleground,” said the Rev. Gini Gerbasi.

Afterward, DC's Episcopal bishop said she was outraged by the stunt. "The President did not pray when he came to St. John's, nor... did he acknowledge the agony of our country right now," Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde told CNN. "And I just want the world to know, that we in the diocese of Washington, following Jesus and his way of love ... we distance ourselves from the incendiary language of this President. We follow someone who lived a life of nonviolence and sacrificial love.

In fairness, the location of the Bible-waving- St. John's Episcopal Church- had been set on fire by rioters the night before. But as outrageous as that act of violence and sacrilege was, Mr. Trump's one-sided symbolism was clearly an attempt to change the subject from the killing of George Floyd by an officer of the Minneapolis police, and the 400 years of American racism that preceded it and occasioned the demonstrations. He did it by outrageously violating the constitutional rights of the demonstrators.

As was the case with his "fine people" remark when trying to shift part of the blame from the neo-Nazis who terrorized Charlottesville earlier in his administration to their victims, Mr. Trump saw fit to seize the occasion, not to reach out to genuinely aggrieved Americans, but to turn the very occasion of their grievance against them for his own political gain.

Never has the Oval Office been filled by a piece of work like Donald Trump.

Never in our history has the White House been occupied by as big a weakling as Donald Trump.

Never has an alpha male whined as much as Donald Trump.

Remember when we had a President? We may or may not have liked Obama or Bush. But they led.

Donald Trump hides and takes potshots from cover at the people who are trying to do the job he shirks.


*The President's supporters deny the use of tear gas and rubber bullets. So as not to quibble, therefore, perhaps we should concede the point and say that the constitutional rights of the demonstrators were merely violated by the use of pepper gas and smoke bombs. It seems that to Trumpworld, the First Amendment is of only secondary importance compared to the accurate description of the chemicals used to violate it.