Trump Tweet Backfires: Attacking 75-Year-Old Catholic White Male Victim of Police Brutality Will Cost Trump Elderly White Votes
June 10, 2020
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
Given the racism of Donald Trump and his followers, it would have been his incendiary style to condemn and slander a Black man being beaten by police (with the exception of George Floyd for political purposes), but by attacking a 75-year-old Buffalo white man caught on tape (see above and watch the entire clip) being seriously wounded by local police, Trump appears to be losing his twitter touch. This will gain him no white supremacy votes; on the contrary it likely will result in his losing some independent elderly white voters. He is already behind Biden in several polls that include the time since George Floyd’s killing on May 25.
But first, some context is in order.
Donald Trump uses Twitter like a crazed orchestra conductor, typing away with his stubby fingers as his baton to shock the media to cover him and stay away from news that exposes him, such as his massive and deadly Coronavirus obstructionism. Given the Stockholm Syndrome of the DC Press Corps, battered by his unrelenting bullying, he usually succeeds in throwing most of the media off the scent of the unseemly stories about his pernicious administration that they should be covering.
With the unprecedented and ever-growing uprising for justice for Blacks amidst a highly infectious pandemic, the unfolding scenes of outraged citizens willing to risk Coronavirus infections — and possibly death — while being pummeled, tear gassed and brutally treated in what has amounted to a national police riot is both perilous and inspiring. And polls show the majority of the nation agrees that #BlackLlivesMatter.
The most fundamental and disconcerting irony is that a surge of demands to protecting Black lives after the murder of George Floyd, amidst the long-standing racism of police, proved in its mostly peaceful protests that police brutality was widely utilized to try and suppress First Amendment rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Naturally, Trump has been busy as a rabid beaver trying to test market different positions and statements that could be to his political advantage. However, after well more than a week, Trump has not been able to make a foothold and is, indeed, falling further behind Biden in national polls. His “law and order” effort appears to no longer be the magic vote elixir it was for Nixon.
So, it came to be on June 9, Trump tweeted about a chilling case of two officers in a Buffalo Police elite unit shoving a 75-year-old white senior citizen backward on June 5. His head hit the ground and quickly rested in a pool of blood. The now suspended officers (along with their colleagues) indifferently passed by the limp victim, Martin Gugino, even though he was hemorrhaging blood from the head and his body was limp. Finally an officer calls for medical assistance. Gugino was taken to the hospital, where he is (at the time of this commentary) in critical condition.
Trump decided to go full Infowars against a boomer Catholic activist who had slowly and unthreateningly approached two police officers, only to be seriously injured by them. Trump insinuated Gugino is an antifa “provocateur” and was carrying out a “set up.”
You can see Trump’s Tweet below:
As the Washington Post Amber Phillips describes it,
Gugino is a local activist who focuses on affordable housing and human rights, reports The Washington Post’s Meryl Kornfield. Two police officers involved have been charged with assault.
But Tuesday morning, President Trump shared a totally different — and totally baseless — theory about this incident, which has become another searing symbol of police brutality: That Gugino faked part of his fall because he’s a member of antifa….
There is no evidence of that. Trump got it from pro-Trump TV network One America News which, as The Post’s Philip Bump breaks down, surmised the antifa connection because Gugino was holding a phone in his hand as he approached police.
Also, the reporter who [Trump got it from] ran it had worked for a Russian-funded outlet, raising questions about Russian disinformation making it to the president’s ear and onto his Twitter feed, again.
Ah yes, the Russian connection.
Police brutality against Blacks, white supremacy lynching and killing have been happening in America since before the nation gained independence. The emergence of ubiquitous cellphone recordings, however, have brought the brutality into the open. Before, police were assumed innocent, as they were supported by the policemen and women’s Omerta. The “blue wall of silence” prevented, most of the time, their expulsion from police forces and being convicted of violent crimes, particularly against Blacks.
Each of the two videos, George Floyd’s killing and the attack on Martin Gugino tell a story, one of nonchalant and determined killing and one of nonchalant and impulsive violence and indifference to life. These are extraordinarily disturbing and unsettling videos.
Watch and listen to the murder of George Floyd below.
The optics since May 25 are working against Donald Trump. As Trump well knows, the power of the optics of a crisis is immense, and that is exacerbated when violence is involved. This time, backing up police violence is not going Trump’s way. The individual stories of victims of police abuse are compelling and unjustifiable.
By accusing Martin Gugino of being involved in a One America News Network (OANN) Russian troll conspiracy theory, Trump lost a skirmish for the elderly white vote. It may be a sign of more impulsive and self-wounding tweets to come as he tries to improvise a campaign narrative from the chaos that surrounds him.