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| US President Donald Trump leaves the White House on foot to go to St John's Episcopal church across Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on June 1, 2020 (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) |
Conservatives pose like tough guys while mocking unprotected protesters with actual physical and moral courage
AMANDA MARCOTTE
JUNE 9, 2020 5:05PM (UTC)
We're now more than a week into the White House's attempts to rationalize Donald Trump's choice to tear gas peaceful protesters in order to clear the way for a photo op, and the excuses aren't getting any better. Officials can't even decide on one lie to tell, ping-ponging between denying the violence against protesters was that serious — the event was extensively documented — to claiming it was justified. The latest excuse from Attorney General Bill Barr, who previously tried to deny he ordered the action, somehow falls into both camps.
"[T]he President of the United States should be able to walk one block from the White House out to the church of presidents," Barr told Bret Baier on Fox News Monday night in an attempt to paint the use of painful force against peaceful protesters as simply necessary.
Even as he did this, Barr talked out of both sides of his mouth, claiming that it's "totally false" to say that the tear gassing was done in order to facilitate Trump's photo op, even though mere seconds before Barr had claimed that tear gassing to facilitate Trump's photo op was justified.
White House officials can't settle on a coherent narrative for a simple reason: Trump's decision to tear gas protesters exposed the lie behind his tough-guy preening, showing that he's actually a sniveling coward underneath.
Indeed, the entire right wing reaction to the protests has served as a lengthy demonstration of a central truth, which is all that right wing manly man bravado is an act put on by people who are, in fact, a bunch of weenies who pee themselves in fear at the sight of protesters in the streets.
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