Trump's visit to Kenosha stirs up race conflict

Protesters in Kenosha before Trump's visit.MANDEL NGAN / AFP

Despite the objections of local authorities, Donald Trump has decided to take his message of "law and order" to the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, the scene of the latest eruption of protests for racial justice that led to violent riots during three nights last week.

But his refusal to condemn the violence of his followers, added to a forceful counterattack by his rival as a Democrat, sow doubts in the strategy of seduction of the moderate voter by a president who, in the face of violent episodes, renounces the traditional role of calling for unity and heal wounds.

“I go there for the police and for the National Guard because they did a great job in Kenosha.

They put out the flame immediately, ”Trump said before boarding Air Force One and heading to Wisconsin.

Arriving in the city of 100,000 on the edge of Lake Michigan, he has visited the ruins of a building burned down during the riots and met with the owners of a vandalized furniture store.

On August 23, in Kenosha, African American Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a police officer, who remains hospitalized.

The event rekindled the flame of the racial justice protests that have swept the country this summer, following the death at the hands of George Floyd police.

During the first nights the scenes of vandalism and looting were repeated.

On Tuesday, after the call from citizen militias asking for armed people to put order in the city, a 17-year-old Trump supporter came forward with an assault rifle and was charged with six crimes, including two homicides.

On the eve of his visit to Kenosha, the president defended the young man, suggesting that he acted in self-defense.

In recent weeks, the president has made a strong hand against unrest the central message of his campaign.

Eager to divert attention from the coronavirus crisis, Trump is confident that the alarm over the alleged chaos that would reign in cities if Democrat Joe Biden wins in November, whom he baselessly accused last week of siding with the "anarchists" and the "troublemakers", it will penetrate a moderate electorate that seemed to escape it in recent months.

For the Democratic Governor of Wisconsin, Tony Evers, who deployed the National Guard to quell the unrest, Trump's visit can only fuel tensions that were already on the way to abate.

"I am concerned that their presence will only hinder our healing process," he wrote to the president in a letter Monday.

"I am concerned that their presence will only delay our work to overcome divisions and move forward together."

The mayor of Kenosha, also a Democrat John Antaramian, spoke in the same vein.

"You have a community that is in the process of trying to heal itself," he told a news conference Monday.

“A lot has happened in this community.

It just seems to me, like others, that it would be better for us to be able to join forces, allow the community to come together, and really heal the wounds ”.

But President Trump ignored the requests and denied that his visit could escalate tensions.

"Well, it could also increase enthusiasm and love and respect for our country," he said at a news conference on Monday.

At night, in an interview on Fox News, further heating up the visit, the president compared police officers who shoot at citizens to golfers who get nervous and miss an easy shot.

"They can do 10,000 good deeds, which is what they do, and one failure," he said.

"They get nervous, like in a golf championship, and miss a one meter putt."

Coinciding with the president's visit, a "community celebration" has taken place, organized by Blake's family at the scene where he was shot, promising "music, food, free haircuts, celebrity guests, and community cleanup."

The president had no plans to meet with Blake's relatives.

The celebration has rivaled the noise of the helicopters that have flown over Kenosha during the morning.

The police tanks have returned to the streets.

The president's visit has caused the closure of streets and the interruption of the train service that connects the city with Chicago.

Trump's visit to Kenosha has been a risky political move, which some Republicans fear could end up having a negative effect on their campaign.

His defense of a teenager accused of homicide, and his refusal to condemn violent acts perpetrated by the extreme right, weaken his position in that debate on security on which the president has bet his re-election.

Traditionally, presidents visiting cities battered by violence and conflict take a comforting role and make calls for unity.

But Trump's actions in the previous hours rather indicate his intention to turn the Kenosha events into a weapon of political division.

The alarm message and the portrait of Biden as a radical anti-police officer that he managed to convey with little response last week, with the city still shaken by riots, is not only losing effectiveness as its divisive component emerges, but is also being answered with force.

After unequivocally condemning the violent riots, his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, accused Trump of failing to stop violence that he has been "fomenting for years."

After the president's appearance, Biden released a statement in which he again lashed out at his rival for refusing to condemn the violence of his followers.

"He is unfit to be a resident, and his preference for more violence, rather than less, is clear," Biden said.

Subscribe here to the

weekly

about the elections in the United States.