The largely non-violent marches of tens of thousands of mainly young people are being crowded out in the public mind by images of violent confrontations with police and burning police cars and a glossing over of aggressive police tactics. This distortion of reality is the handiwork of the media, which runs to these confrontations like flies do to sh-t.

No one is happier with this media misrepresentation than Trump, Barr, and all. Feeling increasingly on the defensive, they would like nothing better than to change the national conversation from the legitimate, just, and accumulating grievances over racist policing as well as their gross mishandling of the pandemic sweeping the country and striking communities of color with particular ferocity to law and order and public safety.

We have seen this movie before, but I don’t think it will work this time.

I like Harold Meyerson’s analysis here, but I do have one complaint. He tends to frame it too narrowly at times. It’s true that a second Trump term would be for disaster to what he calls vulnerable communities. But it’s also the case that nearly everyone would be negatively impacted and the democratic ground on which to contest Trump and Trumpism would be narrow indeed for all of us.

As we crossed the 100,000 death marker yesterday, Trump was noticeably and not surprisingly silent. He has no moral compass or sense of empathy. As John Prine would sing, “Some humans ain’t human, some humans ain’t kind” Trump is one of them. Biden, on the other hand, made remarks appropriate for this somber moment.

Needless to say, Trump and the Republican Party, aided by Fox and other right wing media outlets, are attempting to demagogically exploit the racist murder of George Floyd and the protest actions and mayhem surrounding it to regain some of their lost political momentum heading into this fall’s election.

“There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.” Speech of President Lyndon Johnson at the time of the passage of landmark civil rights legislation

Johnson, I believe, was, in effect, telling white people that they are the problem and have to step to the plate in the struggle to eradicate racism. Still the case.