motherjones--2020-05-31--Will Urban Uprisings Help Trump? Actually, They Could Be His Undoing.

My career as a historian of white backlash might have begun the day that , as a teenager precociously obsessed with people like Abbie Hoffman , Tom Hayden , and Eldridge Cleaver , I asked my parents if they had any interesting stories to tell me about the 1960s .
The only one my mom could come up with was the day in 1967 , two years before I was born , when there were riots in the inner city of Milwaukee .
My parents invited all of their friends in our suburban neighborhood , who couldn ’ t go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the city , over for a pool party .
That was probably when I first became aware that there were two sides to the 1960s : the movements for social justice and the anti-authoritarian rage on one side , and on the other the people for whom such disorder spurred confusion and fear for their white-picket-fenced safety .
I later learned researching my book Nixonland that Milwaukee ’ s authoritarian mayor , Henry Maier , eventually declared a version of martial law so strict and fierce that mothers could not go out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Klansmen , however , weren ’ t hassled for defying the lockdown ; they rolled around town with shotguns poking out car windows .
The Milwaukee police burned down a house with a mentally disabled man inside .
They claimed it was a nest for a sniper .
The next year Mayor Maier was up for reelection .
He won with 80 percent of the vote .
People are thinking of stories like that now , during a week that school kids might study some day .
President Trump , after all , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeting something Miami ’ s racist police chief said during riots in 1968 : “ When the looting starts , the shooting starts.
” Conservative Republicans ( and right-wing Democrats ) have a long and sordid history of exploiting riots for political gain .
Richard Nixon knew what to do when , during a wave of urban uprisings in 1966 , Vice President Hubert Humphrey said that “ the National Guard is no answer to the problems of the slums.
” Humphrey predicted “ open violence in every major city and county in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improve—then added , exuberantly but injudiciously , that if he lived in a slum , “ I think you ’ d have more trouble than you have had already because I ’ ve got enough spark left in me to lead a mighty good revolt.
” Nixon took to the pages of a newsweekly for a guest editorial asking : “ Who is responsible for the breaking of law and order in this country ?
” Hubert Humphrey for one , he answered .
And Robert F. Kennedy , who had said—responding to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eisenhower that the 1965 Watts uprising stemmed from a “ policy of lawlessness ” —that “ there is no point in telling Negroes to obey the law .
To many Negroes the law is the enemy.
” Nixon was laying the groundwork for his 1968 presidential run .
When he originally began doing so , it seemed likely his main appeal to the electorate would resemble that from his last presidential campaign in 1960 : He was a statesman with deep foreign policy experience .
That he chose a different approach this time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a political neophyte : Ronald Reagan , who had just won a shocking upset in the California Republican gubernatorial primary with a law-and-order , white-backlash campaign .
So it was that in 1968 , after two more summers of fire and blood , running against none other than Hubert “ Mighty Good Revolt ” Humphrey , Nixon aimed straight for the amygdala of those frightened white suburbanites .
His most famous campaign commercial was a montage of riot scenes over a jittery , shrieking electronic soundtrack , the camera lingering on the naked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came Nixon ’ s voice : “ So I pledge to you , we will have order in the United States.
” It worked , and the lesson appeared plain enough : A politics of empathy of the sort that Humphrey and Kennedy had attempted—and Joe Biden is attempting now—is a political nonstarter .
It ’ s simply incorrect to argue that mass political violence inevitably spurs a backlash that benefits conservatives .
By 1970 , Nixon sought to nationalize that year ’ s congressional elections as a referendum on law and order—even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the cameras to capture .
A columnist reported , “ Nixon ’ s advance men this fall have carefully organized with local police to allow enough dissenters into the staging areas so the president will have his theme well illustrated.
” That this was a wrong , and overly simplistic , conclusion is suggested by another of that year ’ s election results—Bobby Kennedy ’ s .
Campaigning in a Black neighborhood in Indianapolis for the Democratic primary in Indiana , a racially diverse bellwether state , he received word of Martin Luther @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become public—before his audience knew .
So he broke the news to them in a tender , improvised rhetorical masterpiece in which , for the first time publicly , he reflected on the assassination of his brother and the pain of losing someone you love to violence .
The fact that Indianapolis was one of few big cities not to face rioting that day is often attributed to Kennedy ’ s speech .
And though the reasons are many and complex , and still debated today , he won the primary .
Once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no one heckled Nixon during a speech , his chief of staff , Bob Haldeman , gave protesters time to mass outside afterward , then had the president leap up on the hood of his limousine in their midst .
He was obliged with the expected hail of rocks while jutting out his chin and making his trademark two-handed V-salute , providing footage that made all the evening newscasts .
“ That ’ s what they hate to see !
” he exulted .
But Republicans that year underperformed expectations .
When disorder @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to blame the person in charge for the disorder—and , sometimes , punish those who exploit it for political gain .
It ’ s also not correct to argue that such disorder harms prospects for progressive change .
Sometimes , in fact , it has spurred it .
Political scientist David Srketny credits the urban disorders of the 1960s with moving corporations to commit to affirmative action .
Riots following the Rodney King beating are credited with spurring Congress to pass legislation granting federal oversight over police departments—a power that lasted until Jeff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general , rolled it back .
And the event that we now honor with Pride parades was not only a riot , but a particularly ugly one : the folks who set it off trapped cops raiding their bar , and then tried to burn it down .
But no one would deny Stonewall led to progressive change .
The politics of riots are complex , ambiguous—and especially , in our present circumstances , unpredictable .
Though it ’ s become commonplace to place Trump in a long lineage of right-wing racism-exploiters that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s also important to grasp the real discontinuities .
Unlike any Republican president before him , Trump is risking the consequences of being openly racist .
Nixon—and even , in his 1968 and 1972 presidential runs , George Wallace—at least paid lip service to the goal of racial justice .
That ’ s because even white people who regularly said and did things harmful to Black Americans didn ’ t want to believe that association with a particular candidate marked them as racist .
1980 was the worst year for riots since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deadly one following the acquittal of a police officer in a murder case in Miami , and one in Arkansas among Cuban refugees from the Mariel boat lift cooped up on a military base .
( Bill Clinton credits this partially for his gubernatorial loss that year . )
Yet the architects of Reagan ’ s campaign that year judged it vital for him to avoid the appearance of open racism .
So they made it a priority to have Reagan campaign before Black audiences—for instance before the Urban League at its annual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they knew they would only win a tiny fraction of Black voters .
“ We weren ’ t expecting to pick up any Black votes in New York , ” one adviser noted .
“ We just want to show moderates and liberals ” —if it were 2020 he would say “ suburban voters ” — “ that Reagan wasn ’ t anti-Black.
” The day before his Urban League appearance , as it happens , Reagan gave his infamous speech in Mississippi at the Neshoba County Fair , in which he championed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flags behind him .
He stood just a few miles from the site of the most infamous lynching of the 1960s , and in a place where barnstorming politicians had for decades deployed states ’ rights rhetoric as a synonym for racial dominance .
That speech is widely credited with setting the tenor for Reagan ’ s campaign , especially in the South .
But my research suggests things were more complicated .
The backlash to Reagan ’ s most explicit foray into race-baiting was so immediate and so intense , it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mistake .
One Mississippi GOP official , in fact , worried that Reagan ’ s rhetoric was so embarrassing to moderate white Mississippians that it might throw the state to Jimmy Carter .
It didn ’ t—but where Barry Goldwater got 87 percent of the vote in Mississippi in 1964 , in 1980 Reagan only edged Carter by one percent .
White Southerners , by 1980 , dearly wished to see themselves as “ colorblind.
” A racist dogwhistle that was too easily audible wasn ’ t useful .
So in Reagan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign put a Black state legislator up front at their rallies , including one broadcast on statewide TV , for maximal prominence in reaction shots of the crowd .
I ’ ve seen that trick pulled off at every Republican convention since—until , that is , 2016 .
It ’ s often said that Donald Trump takes the dogwhistle and turns it into a train whistle .
Looting , shooting : Sure , he , too , apes Reagan in attempting public appeals to African Americans , the better to soothe those suburban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black people ” does not appear to be doing the trick .
As Greg Sargent has noted in the Washington Post , Trump in 2018 turned up the volume on the train whistle— “ relentlessly painting nonwhite immigrants as criminals and murderers.
” What happened ?
The fallout of support among educated white suburbanites handed Republicans defeat after defeat .
Will the awful events in Minneapolis and Louisville and Atlanta and New York ( and who knows how long the list will be by weekend ’ s end ? )
, and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , beat out compassion , context , and empathy ?
Predictions are perilous .
But history suggests that , even among voters bunkered behind their picket fences , they might not .

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My career as a historian of white backlash might have begun the day that, as a teenager precociously obsessed with people like Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, and Eldridge Cleaver, I asked my parents if they had any interesting stories to tell me about the 1960s. The only one my mom could come up with was the day in 1967, two years before I was born, when there were riots in the inner city of Milwaukee. My parents invited all of their friends in our suburban neighborhood, who couldn’t go to work at the businesses they owned in the city, over for a pool party.
That was probably when I first became aware that there were two sides to the 1960s: the movements for social justice and the anti-authoritarian rage on one side, and on the other the people for whom such disorder spurred confusion and fear for their white-picket-fenced safety.
I later learned researching my book Nixonland that Milwaukee’s authoritarian mayor, Henry Maier, eventually declared a version of martial law so strict and fierce that mothers could not go out to buy milk for their children. Klansmen, however, weren’t hassled for defying the lockdown; they rolled around town with shotguns poking out car windows. The Milwaukee police burned down a house with a mentally disabled man inside. They claimed it was a nest for a sniper. The next year Mayor Maier was up for reelection. He won with 80 percent of the vote.
It’s simply incorrect to argue that mass political violence inevitably spurs a backlash that benefits conservatives.
People are thinking of stories like that now, during a week that school kids might study some day. President Trump, after all, responded to the uprising in Minneapolis by tweeting something Miami’s racist police chief said during riots in 1968: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Conservative Republicans (and right-wing Democrats) have a long and sordid history of exploiting riots for political gain. Richard Nixon knew what to do when, during a wave of urban uprisings in 1966, Vice President Hubert Humphrey said that “the National Guard is no answer to the problems of the slums.” Humphrey predicted “open violence in every major city and county in America” if conditions didn’t improve—then added, exuberantly but injudiciously, that if he lived in a slum, “I think you’d have more trouble than you have had already because I’ve got enough spark left in me to lead a mighty good revolt.”
Nixon took to the pages of a newsweekly for a guest editorial asking: “Who is responsible for the breaking of law and order in this country?” Hubert Humphrey for one, he answered. And Robert F. Kennedy, who had said—responding to a comment by former president Dwight D. Eisenhower that the 1965 Watts uprising stemmed from a “policy of lawlessness”—that “there is no point in telling Negroes to obey the law. To many Negroes the law is the enemy.”
Nixon was laying the groundwork for his 1968 presidential run. When he originally began doing so, it seemed likely his main appeal to the electorate would resemble that from his last presidential campaign in 1960: He was a statesman with deep foreign policy experience. That he chose a different approach this time was attributable to the tutelary example of a political neophyte: Ronald Reagan, who had just won a shocking upset in the California Republican gubernatorial primary with a law-and-order, white-backlash campaign.
So it was that in 1968, after two more summers of fire and blood, running against none other than Hubert “Mighty Good Revolt” Humphrey, Nixon aimed straight for the amygdala of those frightened white suburbanites. His most famous campaign commercial was a montage of riot scenes over a jittery, shrieking electronic soundtrack, the camera lingering on the naked white torso of a mannequin. Then came Nixon’s voice: “So I pledge to you, we will have order in the United States.”
It worked, and the lesson appeared plain enough: A politics of empathy of the sort that Humphrey and Kennedy had attempted—and Joe Biden is attempting now—is a political nonstarter.
It’s simply incorrect to argue that mass political violence inevitably spurs a backlash that benefits conservatives. By 1970, Nixon sought to nationalize that year’s congressional elections as a referendum on law and order—even intentionally spurring crowd violence against himself for the cameras to capture. A columnist reported, “Nixon’s advance men this fall have carefully organized with local police to allow enough dissenters into the staging areas so the president will have his theme well illustrated.”
When disorder is all around them, voters tend to blame the person in charge—and, sometimes, punish those who exploit the disorder for political gain.
That this was a wrong, and overly simplistic, conclusion is suggested by another of that year’s election results—Bobby Kennedy’s. Campaigning in a Black neighborhood in Indianapolis for the Democratic primary in Indiana, a racially diverse bellwether state, he received word of Martin Luther King’s assassination before it had become public—before his audience knew. So he broke the news to them in a tender, improvised rhetorical masterpiece in which, for the first time publicly, he reflected on the assassination of his brother and the pain of losing someone you love to violence. The fact that Indianapolis was one of few big cities not to face rioting that day is often attributed to Kennedy’s speech. And though the reasons are many and complex, and still debated today, he won the primary.
Once, in San Jose, disappointed that no one heckled Nixon during a speech, his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, gave protesters time to mass outside afterward, then had the president leap up on the hood of his limousine in their midst. He was obliged with the expected hail of rocks while jutting out his chin and making his trademark two-handed V-salute, providing footage that made all the evening newscasts. “That’s what they hate to see!” he exulted.
But Republicans that year underperformed expectations. When disorder is all around them, voters tend to blame the person in charge for the disorder—and, sometimes, punish those who exploit it for political gain.
It’s also not correct to argue that such disorder harms prospects for progressive change. Sometimes, in fact, it has spurred it. Political scientist David Skrentny credits the urban disorders of the 1960s with moving corporations to commit to affirmative action. Riots following the Rodney King beating are credited with spurring Congress to pass legislation granting federal oversight over police departments—a power that lasted until Jeff Sessions, as Trump’s attorney general, rolled it back. And the event that we now honor with Pride parades was not only a riot, but a particularly ugly one: the folks who set it off trapped cops raiding their bar, and then tried to burn it down. But no one would deny Stonewall led to progressive change.
The politics of riots are complex, ambiguous—and especially, in our present circumstances, unpredictable. Though it’s become commonplace to place Trump in a long lineage of right-wing racism-exploiters that runs through Nixon and Reagan, it’s also important to grasp the real discontinuities. Unlike any Republican president before him, Trump is risking the consequences of being openly racist. Nixon—and even, in his 1968 and 1972 presidential runs, George Wallace—at least paid lip service to the goal of racial justice. That’s because even white people who regularly said and did things harmful to Black Americans didn’t want to believe that association with a particular candidate marked them as racist.
1980 was the worst year for riots since the 1960s: There was a particularly deadly one following the acquittal of a police officer in a murder case in Miami, and one in Arkansas among Cuban refugees from the Mariel boat lift cooped up on a military base. (Bill Clinton credits this partially for his gubernatorial loss that year.) Yet the architects of Reagan’s campaign that year judged it vital for him to avoid the appearance of open racism.
The backlash to Reagan’s most explicit foray into race-baiting was so immediate and so intense, it was widely judged by Republican strategists as a mistake.
So they made it a priority to have Reagan campaign before Black audiences—for instance before the Urban League at its annual convention in New York, even though they knew they would only win a tiny fraction of Black voters. “We weren’t expecting to pick up any Black votes in New York,” one adviser noted. “We just want to show moderates and liberals”—if it were 2020 he would say “suburban voters”—“that Reagan wasn’t anti-Black.”
The day before his Urban League appearance, as it happens, Reagan gave his infamous speech in Mississippi at the Neshoba County Fair, in which he championed “states’ rights” with Confederate flags behind him. He stood just a few miles from the site of the most infamous lynching of the 1960s, and in a place where barnstorming politicians had for decades deployed states’ rights rhetoric as a synonym for racial dominance.
That speech is widely credited with setting the tenor for Reagan’s campaign, especially in the South. But my research suggests things were more complicated. The backlash to Reagan’s most explicit foray into race-baiting was so immediate and so intense, it was widely judged by Republican strategists as a mistake. One Mississippi GOP official, in fact, worried that Reagan’s rhetoric was so embarrassing to moderate white Mississippians that it might throw the state to Jimmy Carter.
It didn’t—but where Barry Goldwater got 87 percent of the vote in Mississippi in 1964, in 1980 Reagan only edged Carter by one percent. White Southerners, by 1980, dearly wished to see themselves as “colorblind.” A racist dogwhistle that was too easily audible wasn’t useful.
So in Reagan’s homestretch swing through Texas, the campaign put a Black state legislator up front at their rallies, including one broadcast on statewide TV, for maximal prominence in reaction shots of the crowd. I’ve seen that trick pulled off at every Republican convention since—until, that is, 2016.
It’s often said that Donald Trump takes the dogwhistle and turns it into a train whistle. Looting, shooting: Sure, he, too, apes Reagan in attempting public appeals to African Americans, the better to soothe those suburban whites. But “MAGA loves the black people” does not appear to be doing the trick.
As Greg Sargent has noted in the Washington Post, Trump in 2018 turned up the volume on the train whistle—“relentlessly painting nonwhite immigrants as criminals and murderers.” What happened? The fallout of support among educated white suburbanites handed Republicans defeat after defeat.
Will the awful events in Minneapolis and Louisville and Atlanta and New York (and who knows how long the list will be by weekend’s end?), and the president’s racist grunts in response, beat out compassion, context, and empathy? Predictions are perilous. But history suggests that, even among voters bunkered behind their picket fences, they might not.


motherjones--2020-06-01--The Reliably Racist Cherry-Picking of the Word “Riot”

As Minneapolis burns and President Trump fans the flames with tweets so incendiary that Twitter slapped warning labels on them , reporters and editors have rightly called out his racist rhetoric , all the while using coded language of another kind .
From “ rioters ” to “ looters , ” newsrooms across the country are turning to headlines and tropes historically used to single out and vilify communities of color protesting police brutality .
A CBS affiliate ran “ Riots ” in a headline about Minneapolis , as did Yahoo News and Reuters : “ Rioters.
” These words @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups that destroy private and public property to make a point , as the Boston Tea Party did ( a riot if ever there were ) , or to celebrate sports victories in the streets , as San Franciscans did when the Giants won in 2014 .
What triggers the word “ riot ” : the nature and impact of the violence or the people behind it ?
“ Riot vs. rebellion/uprising is all in the eye of the beholder .
This country was founded on acts of vandalism and property destruction , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s managing editor , tells me .
“ See the Boston Tea Party .
This was a fight for ‘ liberty ’ and ‘ freedom.
’ Who decides what these acts are called ?
Unfortunately , today , all too often it ’ s all-white or majority-white newsrooms.
” A few years ago , on the 50th anniversary of the Detroit rebellion—set off by a brutal police raid on an after-hours drinking spot and the shooting death of Black men as the city burned for nearly a week—I wrote a Splinter piece arguing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for naming certain clashes what they are—rebellion : “ Riot ” is a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd , and “ rebellion ” [ is ] resistance to authority or control , with some conditions : If no peace was in place to begin with , the disturbance-of-peace requirement for riot isn ’ t met and the action may be a rebellion instead—if it ’ s aimed at demanding rights .
“ Riot ” tells you next to nothing about cause , context , or goals .
“ Rebellion ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against something , for something , with emphasis on both subject and object .
“ Riot ” implies meaningless eruption , an isolated flare-up that ends when the violence stops , or a gust of empty destruction by “ punks ” or “ thugs ” —name your villain .
Take a tour of the “ riot ” archives : “ Riot ” isn ’ t the only word doing coded work in headlines .
Labels like it are never far behind : “ seething , ” “ simmering , ” “ boiling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under the surveillance , suspicion , and kneecaps of law enforcement : Did Nat Turner “ riot ” ?
Did the enslaved Americans at Stono “ riot ” ?
I asked the same questions then and I ’ m still waiting for historians ’ or linguists ’ “ yes , ” but haven ’ t heard it .
The sharpest objection to the distinction between “ riot ” and “ violent protest ” or “ rebellion ” readers made is that comparing Stono to Ferguson and Detroit is a historical anachronism , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get you Turnerlike history .
One reader wrote in : “ The Stono Rebellion actually took the fight to slaveholders , burnt plantations , attempted an escape .
Burning up stores in your own neighborhood is not a rebellion , it ’ s a riot.
” But while the stage and setting are different , are the stakes , structures , and institutional impact so different ?
Today ’ s overturned car signals a demand for an overturned system .
Denounce or endorse it , but describe it right .
All you get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thrown , window smashed , flame ignited .
“ Riot ” takes any political project or purpose and reduces it to directionless rage .
In Minneapolis , the fire this time is directed : at racist white police charged with murder , and entrenched power that authorizes it .
“ Riot ” doesn ’ t need a ban—there are riots—but the word ’ s uneven and inaccurate use is the problem .
And writing better headlines alone won ’ t solve it ; yes , “ violent protests ” is a better fit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sound liberal gets us nowhere .
It makes us Amy Cooper , telling 911 there ’ s a threatening “ African American ” man and thinking that polite language absolves us of racism in 2020 .
Linguist John McWhorter and writer Coleman Hughes are exactly right about this aspect of language .
Bayard Rustin was right about this too .
If a style guide is all we look at , and not a collective mirror , all our work is still ahead .
The media ’ s project now is not only to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand why .
What are your thoughts on the media coverage of Minneapolis ?
Weigh in below :

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
As Minneapolis burns and President Trump fans the flames with tweets so incendiary that Twitter slapped warning labels on them, reporters and editors have rightly called out his racist rhetoric, all the while using coded language of another kind.
From “rioters” to “looters,” newsrooms across the country are turning to headlines and tropes historically used to single out and vilify communities of color protesting police brutality. A CBS affiliate ran “Riots” in a headline about Minneapolis, as did Yahoo News and Reuters: “Rioters.” These words scarcely get used to describe largely white groups that destroy private and public property to make a point, as the Boston Tea Party did (a riot if ever there were), or to celebrate sports victories in the streets, as San Franciscans did when the Giants won in 2014.
What triggers the word “riot”: the nature and impact of the violence or the people behind it?
“Riot vs. rebellion/uprising is all in the eye of the beholder. This country was founded on acts of vandalism and property destruction,” Genetta Adams, The Root’s managing editor, tells me. “See the Boston Tea Party. This was a fight for ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom.’ Who decides what these acts are called? Unfortunately, today, all too often it’s all-white or majority-white newsrooms.”
In Minneapolis, the fire this time is directed: at racist white police charged with murder, and entrenched power that authorizes it.
A few years ago, on the 50th anniversary of the Detroit rebellion—set off by a brutal police raid on an after-hours drinking spot and the shooting death of Black men as the city burned for nearly a week—I wrote a Splinter piece arguing against defaulting to “riot” and for naming certain clashes what they are—uprising or rebellion:
“Riot” is a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd, and “rebellion” [is] resistance to authority or control, with some conditions: If no peace was in place to begin with, the disturbance-of-peace requirement for riot isn’t met and the action may be a rebellion instead—if it’s aimed at demanding rights. “Riot” tells you next to nothing about cause, context, or goals. “Rebellion” hints at each: A rebellion is against something, for something, with emphasis on both subject and object. “Riot” implies meaningless eruption, an isolated flare-up that ends when the violence stops, or a gust of empty destruction by “punks” or “thugs”—name your villain.
President Trump has named his: “THUGS.”
Take a tour of the “riot” archives:
“Riot” isn’t the only word doing coded work in headlines. Labels like it are never far behind: “seething,” “simmering,” “boiling,” adjectives aimed at protesters of color under the surveillance, suspicion, and kneecaps of law enforcement:
Did Nat Turner “riot”? Did the enslaved Americans at Stono “riot”? I asked the same questions then and I’m still waiting for historians’ or linguists’ “yes,” but haven’t heard it. The sharpest objection to the distinction between “riot” and “violent protest” or “rebellion” readers made is that comparing Stono to Ferguson and Detroit is a historical anachronism, and that smashing storefronts itself doesn’t get you Turnerlike history. That’s definitionally and historically true. One reader wrote in: “The Stono Rebellion actually took the fight to slaveholders, burnt plantations, attempted an escape. Burning up stores in your own neighborhood is not a rebellion, it’s a riot.”
If a style guide is all we look at, and not a collective mirror, all our work is still ahead.
While the stage and setting are different, are the stakes, structures, and institutional impact so different? In many ways, very. But today’s overturned car signals a demand for an overturned system. Denounce or endorse it, but describe it right. All you get from “riot” is violence—the bottle thrown, window smashed, flame ignited. “Riot” takes any political project or purpose and reduces it to directionless rage. In Minneapolis, the fire this time is directed: at racist white police charged with murder, and entrenched power that authorizes it.
“Riot” doesn’t need a ban, which would be an overcorrection—there are riots, and some of what’s going on around the country includes pockets of them—but the word’s uneven and inaccurate use tells us how the media has headlined this history. And writing better headlines alone won’t solve it; yes, “violent protests” is a better fit, but just mouthing leftist language to sound liberal gets us nowhere. It makes us Amy Cooper, telling 911 there’s a threatening “African American” man and thinking that polite language absolves us of racism in 2020. Linguist John McWhorter and writer Coleman Hughes are exactly right about this aspect of language. Bayard Rustin was right about this too. If a style guide is all we look at, and not a collective mirror, all our work is still ahead.
The media’s project now is not only to use terms purposefully and precisely, but understand why.
What are your thoughts on the media coverage of Minneapolis? Weigh in below:


motherjones--2020-06-01--A New Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory Claims COVID Contract Tracers Are Stealing Children

Public health officials , governors , and members of Congress all seem to agree that for the country to safely re-open for business and contain the spread of the new coronavirus , states and cities will need to roll out a massive new contact tracing program .
That ’ s the public health strategy designed to identify everyone who ’ s come in contact with someone testing positive for the virus to encourage them to quarantine .
“ [ T ] racing , tracing , tracing ” is one of the keys to opening the economy , House Speaker Nancy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ briefing in early May .
But lots of Americans have a very different view of contact tracing .
“ This is the next generation of brownshirts , ” declared Jack Robertson , on his far-right radio show Radio Free Redoubt , which he broadcasts from Spokane , Washington , under the pseudonym John Jacob Schmidt .
The program would be so invasive , Robertson assured his listeners , all restaurant patrons will have to provide their contact information as a condition of getting served in order to be tracked down later if someone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just going to have to give up going to restaurants , ” he lamented .
Robertson is not alone in his view that contact tracing is a vast government conspiracy to infringe on people ’ s rights , rather than a standard public health intervention that ’ s been used to mitigate infectious diseases from tuberculosis to STDs to Ebola .
Anti-vaccine activists , the John Birch Society , and many of those participating in “ re-open ” protests over the past month have declared their intention to resist any attempts to force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Reopen Virginia Facebook group recently posted a job announcement from the state public health department looking for 1,300 new contact tracers , with the caption , “ Evidently the Gestapo is hiring.
” Just in the past two weeks activists in Texas have formed a new group , Texans Against Contact Tracing , to oppose a new $ 295 million contract the state recently issued to hire hundreds of public health sleuths .
They rallied for a protest at the state capital on May 24 .
Even as Congress considers H.R .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Act sponsored by Rep. Bobby Rush ( D-Il . )
, which would devote $ 100 billion to helping states hire contact tracers , activists in the right-wing fever swamp have launched petitions and worked the phones to fight any expansion of this public health initiative .
As Virginia state senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase posted on Facebook recently , “ I will not be MASKED , TESTED , TRACKED , or CHIPPED to support this LIBERAL agenda.
” Failed California congressional candidate and Trump supporter DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero warned in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ scare the crap out of everyone , ” adding , “ President Trump , if you ’ re watching , you need to put a stop to this immediately.
” A “ dating , relationship and attraction coach ” and author of Making Love Great Again , she is so suspicious of the ulterior motives of contact tracing that she says she ’ s going to get a job as one and go undercover and get to the bottom of things .
“ What kind of soulless , pathetic person would take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sell out their fellow Americans ?
” she asked in a livestream May 19 .
“ Who would do that ?
But then I realized , well , Antifa has been out of work for a while and so has MS-13 , so maybe someone like them.
” If Tesoriero really wants to know how it all works , there ’ s no need to go undercover .
She could just take one of the online classes now available to help train the armies of contact tracers being hired by states to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s free !
The best-known one was created by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and has now trained more than 268,000 people .
I signed on for five hours of video instruction from Hopkins epidemiologist Emily Gurley , whose soothing voice walked me through the origins of the SARS Covid-2 virus and all its clinical manifestations and transmission patterns .
She covered the ethics of contact tracing and balancing individual rights with public health .
She laid out the nuts and bolts of how to make a tracing call @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on her math skills before she signs up—contact tracing involves more arithmetic than I had expected .
It ’ s not hard , but it can be confusing .
Tracers need to use exposure windows and infectious periods to work out how long someone needs to isolate themselves .
( I scored an embarrassing 75 percent on my first try at the quiz on calculating isolation times . )
About half the class is devoted to building trust and rapport with people so they ’ ll be more inclined to cooperate .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offer personal opinions , ” which may pose a special challenge for a MAGA relationship coach . )
Much of the work involves educating sick people and their contacts about why it ’ s so important to isolate themselves .
Far from the image spread by right-wing conspiracy theorists , contact tracers are a lot more like social workers than cops .
According to my class , a contact tracer must “ offer resources ” to people trying to self-quarantine , like referrals for medical care , or grocery deliveries , or housing—all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stay inside until they can ’ t infect anyone .
Overall , there ’ s nothing in the class that would qualify as a state secret , though perhaps it should have devoted some time to dealing with folks like Tesoriero , who won ’ t be too happy to receive a call from a contact tracer working for the health department .
Of course , even the Hopkins class would not dissuade those who already are inclined to believe that contact tracing is a form of tyranny and a massive violation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posting on Vimeo as FreedomLover1977 took the class and then made a 23-minute video about it entitled , “ Contact Tracing Scarier than You Imagined.
” It had been viewed more than 100,000 times by May 28 .
Opening with an ominous slide that reads , “ Contact tracing : they will find you , ” she promises , “ You ’ re going to be freaked out by the end of this video.
” Warning that law enforcement can access testing information and other data collected through contact tracing , she also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the power to force sick people to quarantine .
This is , of course , true and has been since the days of Typhoid Mary , but in the real world it virtually never happens .
What people like FreedomLover1977 don ’ t realize is that the problem with contact tracing isn ’ t that it might lead the government to send people into a quarantine facility , but that the government can ’ t send people into a quarantine facility , because such places don ’ t really exist in this country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking the Hopkins class , I imagined calling someone who lived packed like a sardine into substandard housing and trying to explain that they really need to quarantine somewhere with a separate bedroom and a private bathroom if they don ’ t want to kill Grandma .
In most parts of the country , a contact tracer would have absolutely nothing to offer such people except a sympathetic , “ I hear you , ” as outlined in Gurley ’ s “ Tips for Effective Communication ” class module .
Even if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hotel rooms for people to hunker down in until their infections passed , the health department is still unlikely to force anyone identified by a contact tracer to use them .
“ Local health authorities do have the authority to mandate isolation or quarantine , but they rarely use it because they know it will really discourage people from going to the doctor or getting tested , ” says Maria Courogen , branch director for disease containment at the Washington State public health department , who is overseeing that state ’ s contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ practice of that would result in negative consequences that won ’ t help us combat the disease.
” Nonetheless , fear-mongering and conspiracy theories around contact tracing have been given still more momentum by the news that Massachusetts and other states are working with the Boston-based nonprofit health care organization Partners in Health to staff up their contact tracing programs .
Co-founded in 1987 by Paul Farmer , PIH is best known for its work in Haiti combatting HIV and AIDS .
But recently , as it has gotten involved in contact tracing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become far more sinister for many conservatives and conspiracy theorists .
Why ?
Because the Clinton Foundation and George Soros have funded it .
Fort Russ News , the pro-Russian media arm of the Belgrade-based Center for Syncretic Studies , published one of the weirder pieces of misinformation about PIH and its contact tracing work in Massachusetts .
Its story entitled , “ Revealed : Massachusetts Contact Tracing NGO Part Of Clinton Pedophile Ring In Haiti , ” claimed PIH is “ connected to child abduction and pedophilia trafficking in Haiti via the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state as a Contact Tracing organization.
” This one doesn ’ t seem to have really have gone viral with the same intensity as the pizzagate conspiracy did years ago , but variations on it have bubbled up to the mainstream .
On May 21 , a local TV reporter asked Ohio Gov .
Mike DeWine ( R ) why the state was contracting with PIH , not because of its connections to the Clintons , but because its website says its vision is “ to rectify ‘ structural violence of capitalism.
’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of a larger social agenda for Partners In Health , ” Jack Windsor , a reporter with WMFD TV in Mansfield told the governor .
“ Can you tell us why you chose to partner with an organization that demonizes capitalism and seems to be rooted in liberation theology based on Marxist ideals ?
” DeWine explained patiently that ideology in this case didn ’ t matter .
“ What I ’ m interested in is getting things done , ” he said , pointing out that PIH has “ done this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States , but around the world .
They ’ re pretty darn good at it.
” Gurley , the Hopkins epidemiologist who taught my class , is baffled by all of the political resistance to contact tracing and the conspiracy theories about it .
“ Conspiracies usually have a goal , ” she said in an interview with Mother Jones .
“ I ’ m not quite sure what the goal of the conspiracy is.
” If you spend some time on the “ reopen ” protest Facebook groups , it becomes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believe one goal of contact-tracing is to take people ’ s children away .
For instance , a woman in the Reopen Maryland group , which boasts nearly 27,000 members , recently posted that her daughter is a nurse who works with COVID-19 patients and recently caught the virus herself .
The woman was caring for her grandchildren while her daughter was quarantined .
But , she wrote , “ [ T ] he fu..ing health department keeps calling me for my home address I refuse to give it to them in no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ information I ’ m sure they will find it out but I ’ m sick of all this bullshit that the government thinks they can put us through anyone else been through this we need to get open and back to normal this shot pisses me off invasion of privacy.
” “ Don ’ t give them shit they will come take the kids .
I wouldn ’ t even tell the doctor I thought I had it unless I was about to die and needed to go to the hospital , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she ’ d fire a warning shot with her Smith & Wesson at anyone who comes on her property and won ’ t leave .
She writes , “ DEFY all contact tracing efforts .
Not only will they track you , they will track any and every person you come into contact with for 10 minutes or more .
Turn off automatic updates , as they can download the tracing app WITHOUT your consent or knowledge .
This is complete over reach [ sic ] and it must be STOPPED AND THWARTED @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Hopkins contact tracing class , the first thing the health department case workers are supposed to do is confirm the address of the individual they ’ re calling—for good reason .
They don ’ t want to inadvertently give out confidential medical information to the wrong person .
Nonetheless , the post set off a firestorm in the group , generating more than 200 comments from people urging the woman to take the kids on the run , or at the very least to put some privacy settings on her Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of some representative responses : “ I have no doubt they would show up at the house and demand to test everyone , and if any adult tested positive they would put the kids into the social services system , ” wrote one woman , to which someone else responded , “ That is EXACTLY the plan !
!
!
DO NOT GIVE ANY INFO !
!
!
!
!
!
” The Massachusetts health department did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about whether its contact tracing program is tied to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in eastern Washington and Idaho about quarantine camps have been so rampant that the leaders of the Washington State public health department had to put out an official statement on May 15 debunking them .
“ We believe any facilities included in local health plans are most likely to be used by people who are willing to voluntarily isolate or quarantine but don ’ t have a safe place available to do so , ” they said .
So far , the conspiracy theories don ’ t seem to be affecting the contact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ department ’ s Maria Courogen .
“ People are generally interested in protecting their families , ” she says .
“ They tend to be cooperative.
” Like Gurley , she doesn ’ t see what all the fuss is about .
After all , complying with any part of contact tracing is entirely voluntary .
“ We give people the option of not answering the questions , ” she says .
“ Nothing happens if they decide to hang up on us .
”

Public health officials, governors, and members of Congress all seem to agree that for the country to safely re-open for business and contain the spread of the new coronavirus, states and cities will need to roll out a massive new contact tracing program. That’s the public health strategy designed to identify everyone who’s come in contact with someone testing positive for the virus to encourage them to quarantine. “[T]racing, tracing, tracing” is one of the keys to opening the economy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said at a briefing in early May.
But lots of Americans have a very different view of contact tracing. “This is the next generation of brownshirts,” declared Jack Robertson, on his far-right radio show Radio Free Redoubt, which he broadcasts from Spokane, Washington, under the pseudonym John Jacob Schmidt. The program would be so invasive, Robertson assured his listeners, all restaurant patrons will have to provide their contact information as a condition of getting served in order to be tracked down later if someone gets sick. “You’re just going to have to give up going to restaurants,” he lamented.
Robertson is not alone in his view that contact tracing is a vast government conspiracy to infringe on people’s rights, rather than a standard public health intervention that’s been used to mitigate infectious diseases from tuberculosis to STDs to Ebola. Anti-vaccine activists, the John Birch Society, and many of those participating in “re-open” protests over the past month have declared their intention to resist any attempts to force them to participate. One member of the Reopen Virginia Facebook group recently posted a job announcement from the state public health department looking for 1,300 new contact tracers, with the caption, “Evidently the Gestapo is hiring.” Just in the past two weeks activists in Texas have formed a new group, Texans Against Contact Tracing, to oppose a new $295 million contract the state recently issued to hire hundreds of public health sleuths. They rallied for a protest at the state capital on May 24.
Texans Rally At State Capitol In Protest Of Contact Tracing https://t.co/Y1JILkxY2a — America Rising (@AmericaRising7) May 23, 2020
Even as Congress considers H.R. 6666, the unfortunately numbered COVID-19 TRACE Act sponsored by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Il.), which would devote $100 billion to helping states hire contact tracers, activists in the right-wing fever swamp have launched petitions and worked the phones to fight any expansion of this public health initiative. As Virginia state senator and GOP gubernatorial candidate Amanda Chase posted on Facebook recently, “I will not be MASKED, TESTED, TRACKED, or CHIPPED to support this LIBERAL agenda.”
Failed California congressional candidate and Trump supporter DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero warned in a livestreamed video that contact tracers should “scare the crap out of everyone,” adding, “President Trump, if you’re watching, you need to put a stop to this immediately.” A “dating, relationship and attraction coach” and author of Making Love Great Again, she is so suspicious of the ulterior motives of contact tracing that she says she’s going to get a job as one and go undercover and get to the bottom of things. “What kind of soulless, pathetic person would take a job as a contact tracer and sell out their fellow Americans?” she asked in a livestream May 19. “Who would do that? But then I realized, well, Antifa has been out of work for a while and so has MS-13, so maybe someone like them.”
“What kind of soulless, pathetic person would take a job as a contact tracer and sell out their fellow Americans?”
If Tesoriero really wants to know how it all works, there’s no need to go undercover. She could just take one of the online classes now available to help train the armies of contact tracers being hired by states to help quell the pandemic. I did—it’s free! The best-known one was created by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and has now trained more than 268,000 people.
I signed on for five hours of video instruction from Hopkins epidemiologist Emily Gurley, whose soothing voice walked me through the origins of the SARS Covid-2 virus and all its clinical manifestations and transmission patterns. She covered the ethics of contact tracing and balancing individual rights with public health. She laid out the nuts and bolts of how to make a tracing call. Tesoriero may want to brush up on her math skills before she signs up—contact tracing involves more arithmetic than I had expected. It’s not hard, but it can be confusing. Tracers need to use exposure windows and infectious periods to work out how long someone needs to isolate themselves. (I scored an embarrassing 75 percent on my first try at the quiz on calculating isolation times.)
About half the class is devoted to building trust and rapport with people so they’ll be more inclined to cooperate. (Rule number one: “Do not offer personal opinions,” which may pose a special challenge for a MAGA relationship coach.) Much of the work involves educating sick people and their contacts about why it’s so important to isolate themselves. Far from the image spread by right-wing conspiracy theorists, contact tracers are a lot more like social workers than cops. According to my class, a contact tracer must “offer resources” to people trying to self-quarantine, like referrals for medical care, or grocery deliveries, or housing—all the things that would allow them to stay inside until they can’t infect anyone. Overall, there’s nothing in the class that would qualify as a state secret, though perhaps it should have devoted some time to dealing with folks like Tesoriero, who won’t be too happy to receive a call from a contact tracer working for the health department.
Of course, even the Hopkins class would not dissuade those who already are inclined to believe that contact tracing is a form of tyranny and a massive violation of Constitutional rights. A woman in California posting on Vimeo as FreedomLover1977 took the class and then made a 23-minute video about it entitled, “Contact Tracing Scarier than You Imagined.” It had been viewed more than 100,000 times by May 28. Opening with an ominous slide that reads, “Contact tracing: they will find you,” she promises, “You’re going to be freaked out by the end of this video.” Warning that law enforcement can access testing information and other data collected through contact tracing, she also notes darkly that public health authorities have the power to force sick people to quarantine. This is, of course, true and has been since the days of Typhoid Mary, but in the real world it virtually never happens.
I imagined calling someone who lived packed like a sardine into substandard housing and trying to explain that they really need to quarantine somewhere with a separate bedroom and a private bathroom if they don’t want to kill Grandma.
What people like FreedomLover1977 don’t realize is that the problem with contact tracing isn’t that it might lead the government to send people into a quarantine facility, but that the government can’t send people into a quarantine facility, because such places don’t really exist in this country. In fact, while I was taking the Hopkins class, I imagined calling someone who lived packed like a sardine into substandard housing and trying to explain that they really need to quarantine somewhere with a separate bedroom and a private bathroom if they don’t want to kill Grandma. In most parts of the country, a contact tracer would have absolutely nothing to offer such people except a sympathetic, “I hear you,” as outlined in Gurley’s “Tips for Effective Communication” class module.
Even if the US suddenly invested in huge numbers of hotel rooms for people to hunker down in until their infections passed, the health department is still unlikely to force anyone identified by a contact tracer to use them. “Local health authorities do have the authority to mandate isolation or quarantine, but they rarely use it because they know it will really discourage people from going to the doctor or getting tested,” says Maria Courogen, branch director for disease containment at the Washington State public health department, who is overseeing that state’s contact tracing efforts. “We know the practice of that would result in negative consequences that won’t help us combat the disease.”
Nonetheless, fear-mongering and conspiracy theories around contact tracing have been given still more momentum by the news that Massachusetts and other states are working with the Boston-based nonprofit health care organization Partners in Health to staff up their contact tracing programs. Co-founded in 1987 by Paul Farmer, PIH is best known for its work in Haiti combatting HIV and AIDS. But recently, as it has gotten involved in contact tracing during the coronavirus pandemic, PIH has become far more sinister for many conservatives and conspiracy theorists. Why? Because the Clinton Foundation and George Soros have funded it.
Fort Russ News, the pro-Russian media arm of the Belgrade-based Center for Syncretic Studies, published one of the weirder pieces of misinformation about PIH and its contact tracing work in Massachusetts. Its story entitled, “Revealed: Massachusetts Contact Tracing NGO Part Of Clinton Pedophile Ring In Haiti,” claimed PIH is “connected to child abduction and pedophilia trafficking in Haiti via the Clinton Foundation, to operate in the state as a Contact Tracing organization.” This one doesn’t seem to have really have gone viral with the same intensity as the pizzagate conspiracy did years ago, but variations on it have bubbled up to the mainstream.
On May 21, a local TV reporter asked Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) why the state was contracting with PIH, not because of its connections to the Clintons, but because its website says its vision is “to rectify ‘structural violence of capitalism.’”
“Contact tracing seems to be part of a larger social agenda for Partners In Health,” Jack Windsor, a reporter with WMFD TV in Mansfield told the governor. “Can you tell us why you chose to partner with an organization that demonizes capitalism and seems to be rooted in liberation theology based on Marxist ideals?” DeWine explained patiently that ideology in this case didn’t matter. “What I’m interested in is getting things done,” he said, pointing out that PIH has “done this type of work not only in the United States, but around the world. They’re pretty darn good at it.”
Gurley, the Hopkins epidemiologist who taught my class, is baffled by all of the political resistance to contact tracing and the conspiracy theories about it. “Conspiracies usually have a goal,” she said in an interview with Mother Jones. “I’m not quite sure what the goal of the conspiracy is.”
If you spend some time on the “reopen” protest Facebook groups, it becomes clear that a fair number of people believe one goal of contact-tracing is to take people’s children away. For instance, a woman in the Reopen Maryland group, which boasts nearly 27,000 members, recently posted that her daughter is a nurse who works with COVID-19 patients and recently caught the virus herself. The woman was caring for her grandchildren while her daughter was quarantined. But, she wrote, “[T]he fu..ing health department keeps calling me for my home address I refuse to give it to them in no way do they need to know this information I’m sure they will find it out but I’m sick of all this bullshit that the government thinks they can put us through anyone else been through this we need to get open and back to normal this shot pisses me off invasion of privacy.”
“Don’t give them shit they will come take the kids. I wouldn’t even tell the doctor I thought I had it unless I was about to die and needed to go to the hospital.”
“Don’t give them shit they will come take the kids. I wouldn’t even tell the doctor I thought I had it unless I was about to die and needed to go to the hospital,” counsels one poster. Another woman says she’d fire a warning shot with her Smith & Wesson at anyone who comes on her property and won’t leave. She writes, “DEFY all contact tracing efforts. Not only will they track you, they will track any and every person you come into contact with for 10 minutes or more. Turn off automatic updates, as they can download the tracing app WITHOUT your consent or knowledge. This is complete over reach [sic] and it must be STOPPED AND THWARTED!!!”
As I learned from the Hopkins contact tracing class, the first thing the health department case workers are supposed to do is confirm the address of the individual they’re calling—for good reason. They don’t want to inadvertently give out confidential medical information to the wrong person. Nonetheless, the post set off a firestorm in the group, generating more than 200 comments from people urging the woman to take the kids on the run, or at the very least to put some privacy settings on her Facebook page. Here’s a sampling of some representative responses: “I have no doubt they would show up at the house and demand to test everyone, and if any adult tested positive they would put the kids into the social services system,” wrote one woman, to which someone else responded, “That is EXACTLY the plan!!! DO NOT GIVE ANY INFO!!!!!!”
The Massachusetts health department did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about whether its contact tracing program is tied to a Clinton pedophile ring. But rumors in eastern Washington and Idaho about quarantine camps have been so rampant that the leaders of the Washington State public health department had to put out an official statement on May 15 debunking them. “We believe any facilities included in local health plans are most likely to be used by people who are willing to voluntarily isolate or quarantine but don’t have a safe place available to do so,” they said.
So far, the conspiracy theories don’t seem to be affecting the contact tracing work, says the Washington health department’s Maria Courogen. “People are generally interested in protecting their families,” she says. “They tend to be cooperative.” Like Gurley, she doesn’t see what all the fuss is about. After all, complying with any part of contact tracing is entirely voluntary. “We give people the option of not answering the questions,” she says. “Nothing happens if they decide to hang up on us.”


motherjones--2020-06-01--Police Tear-Gas Protesters Before a Trump Photo Op With a Bible

Police fired tear gas to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park , across the street from the White House , on Monday evening , just before President Trump delivered an address in which he threatened to deploy “ thousands and thousands of heavily armed military personnel and law enforcement officers ” to curb protests and enforce curfews .
Trump then proceeded to walk across the park to nearby St. John ’ s Episcopal Church , the site of a fire Sunday night , for a photo op in which he posed with a Bible .
“ I have strongly recommended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets , ” Trump said in his address from the White House Rose Garden .
“ Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled .
If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents , then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.
” Trump called the violent protests “ domestic acts of terror ” and highlighted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to use all federal resources in his power to protect “ the rights of law-abiding Americans , including your Second Amendment rights.
” When Trump arrived at the church , he held up the Bible awkwardly at different angles , posing for the cameras .
Asked if it was his Bible , he responded , “ It ’ s a Bible .
”

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Police fired tear gas to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House, on Monday evening, just before President Trump delivered an address in which he threatened to deploy “thousands and thousands of heavily armed military personnel and law enforcement officers” to curb protests and enforce curfews. Trump then proceeded to walk across the park to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church, the site of a fire Sunday night, for a photo op in which he posed with a Bible.
Here's the moment where police fired teargas into a crowd of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park, just minutes before Trump's address in the Rose Garden. pic.twitter.com/KPjxMKdDyx — Cameron Peters (@jcameronpeters) June 1, 2020
“I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets,” Trump said in his address from the White House Rose Garden. “Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled. If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Trump called the violent protests “domestic acts of terror” and highlighted “law and order,” promising to use all federal resources in his power to protect “the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.”
Tear gassing and rubber bullets to clear the White House protests half an hour before curfew. #protests2020 #blacklivesmatter #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #dcprotests pic.twitter.com/3I2AxGphFY — Michael Galant (@michael_galant) June 1, 2020
When Trump arrived at the church, he held up the Bible awkwardly at different angles, posing for the cameras. Asked if it was his Bible, he responded, “It’s a Bible.”


motherjones--2020-06-01--Mayors Won’t Even Denounce Police Violence at Police Violence Protests

At protests of police violence across the country this weekend , police were—again—violent .
In Salt Lake City , an armed officer pushed a man walking with a cane .
In La Mesa , California , a woman peacefully protesting was shot in the head with a rubber bullet and went to the hospital .
In Louisville , Kentucky , cops used tear gas during what a police official admitted was a “ peaceful protest.
” And , in the aftermath , politicians felt the need to clarify : Violence is unacceptable .
It can not represent their city .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ The violence from those who actually wear a badge and work for the cities—that barely merited a mention .
Instead , mayors across the country , straining to square their support for the cause with their distaste for the means and a need to placate powerful local interests , continued to press the case that “ rioting ” was strictly the purview of the protesters—and of outsiders , at that .
It was the old canard about “ outside agitators , ” and in this case it was true in ways the politicos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to live in the city they police .
They are the ultimate outside agitators .
In Raleigh , North Carolina—where a former mayoral candidate tweeted that she saw “ kids get tear gassed ” —the current mayor , Mary-Ann Baldwin , said in a statement that “ a small number of people…showed up with the intention of inciting violence and chaos.
” She is not referring to the police , who showed up with plastic shields , batons , and in an armored van .
These protesters , she said , “ do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ city , ” but presumably the cops who “ shot rubber bullets at protesters and journalists ” do .
That latter detail is from the The News & Observer , which nevertheless noted in its headline that “ looters ” left “ a trail of destruction.
” In Seattle , Mayor Jenny Durkan took a similar line .
Praising the peaceful protests , she pivoted , swiftly , to say that “ individuals who came to Seattle with the purpose of destruction ” do not “ define our city.
” In a tweet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a viral tweet that white men were at the center of violence in a viral tweet .
Cops , she meant ?
No , of course not : She meant anarchists and opportunistic leftists , neither of whom were present , for instance , in this viral video showing cops smashing up a downtown storefront .
It wasn ’ t an anarchist who maced a man trying to barge through a police line , nor was it an opportunistic leftist who “ would throw a flash bang or tear gas just randomly into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In New York City , when footage emerged of a police car mowing people over , Mayor Bill De Blasio said he was “ not going to blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation.
” A line was drawn in Louisville , at least .
Mayor Greg Fischer on Monday fired his police chief , Steve Conrad , after the shooting death of a beloved barbecue restaurant owner during the protests .
Two officers , who either were not wearing their body cameras or had not activated them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Conrad was set to retire later this month .
Police had already shot a reporter with rubber bullets as she broadcast ( for which they apologized ) and fired tear gas before curfew into a crowd that “ looked peaceful , ” admitted a police official .
None of that was deemed worthy of censure .
In Nashville , Mayor John Cooper said vandalism “ does not represent our city.
” But he doesn ’ t feel the need to call out a SWAT team who lobbed explosives at reporters .
Like his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right message for the wrong people .
“ If you mean our city harm , ” he tweeted , “ go home.
” Someone should put that on a protest sign .

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At protests of police violence across the country this weekend, police were—again—violent. In Salt Lake City, an armed officer pushed a man walking with a cane. In La Mesa, California, a woman peacefully protesting was shot in the head with a rubber bullet and went to the hospital. In Louisville, Kentucky, cops used tear gas during what a police official admitted was a “peaceful protest.”
And, in the aftermath, politicians felt the need to clarify: Violence is unacceptable. It cannot represent their city.
They meant violence from the protesters. The violence from those who actually wear a badge and work for the cities—that barely merited a mention.
Instead, mayors across the country, straining to square their support for the cause with their distaste for the means and a need to placate powerful local interests, continued to press the case that “rioting” was strictly the purview of the protesters—and of outsiders, at that. It was the old canard about “outside agitators,” and in this case it was true in ways the politicos did not intend: Cops tend not to live in the city they police. They are the ultimate outside agitators.
In Raleigh, North Carolina—where a former mayoral candidate tweeted that she saw “kids get tear gassed”—the current mayor, Mary-Ann Baldwin, said in a statement that “a small number of people…showed up with the intention of inciting violence and chaos.” She is not referring to the police, who showed up with plastic shields, batons, and in an armored van. These protesters, she said, “do not reflect who we are as a city,” but presumably the cops who “shot rubber bullets at protesters and journalists” do. That latter detail is from the The News & Observer, which nevertheless noted in its headline that “looters” left “a trail of destruction.”
In Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan took a similar line. Praising the peaceful protests, she pivoted, swiftly, to say that “individuals who came to Seattle with the purpose of destruction” do not “define our city.” In a tweet the next day, she noted in a viral tweet that white men were at the center of violence in a viral tweet. Cops, she meant? No, of course not: She meant anarchists and opportunistic leftists, neither of whom were present, for instance, in this viral video showing cops smashing up a downtown storefront. It wasn’t an anarchist who maced a man trying to barge through a police line, nor was it an opportunistic leftist who “would throw a flash bang or tear gas just randomly into the crowd.” Those were cops.
Individuals who came to Seattle with the purpose of destruction: We will not let your chaos define our city. The escalated incidents that took place during today’s demonstrations cannot, and will not, be allowed to continue. — Mayor Jenny Durkan (@MayorJenny) May 31, 2020
In New York City, when footage emerged of a police car mowing people over, Mayor Bill De Blasio said he was “not going to blame officers who are trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation.”
A line was drawn in Louisville, at least. Mayor Greg Fischer on Monday fired his police chief, Steve Conrad, after the shooting death of David McAtee, a beloved barbecue restaurant owner, during the protests. Two officers, who either were not wearing their body cameras or had not activated them, were placed on administrative leave. Conrad was set to retire later this month. Police had already shot a reporter with rubber bullets as she broadcast (for which they apologized) and fired tear gas before curfew into a crowd that “looked peaceful,” admitted a police official. None of that was deemed worthy of censure.
In Nashville, Mayor John Cooper said vandalism “does not represent our city.” But he doesn’t feel the need to call out a SWAT team who lobbed explosives at reporters.
SWAT just lobbed smoke and small explosives right at us pic.twitter.com/st9fpsFTTB — Stephen Elliott (@ElliottStephenB) May 31, 2020
Like his fellow mayors, Cooper also had the right message for the wrong people. “If you mean our city harm,” he tweeted, “go home.” Someone should put that on a protest sign.


motherjones--2020-06-01--Inside the Bizarre Misinformation Campaign About a Hoax Blackout In DC

In the late hours of Sunday and early Monday morning , as Washington , DC was in the throes of massive protests and police used teargas , rubber bullets , and what appeared to be flashbangs on demonstrators drawn out by the death of George Floyd , something confusing started happening online : the hashtag # DCBlackout started going viral on Twitter , accompanied by similar posts on Facebook and Reddit , claiming that sometime at around 1 am , internet service had gone down throughout the district , blocking people from using the internet or posting what was happening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no evidence that suggests that this actually happened .
Mother Jones reporters in DC who were using the internet at the time didn ’ t notice outages , and no media outlets noticed or confirmed this either .
Regardless , the claim spread .
Just as quickly as # DCBlackout was catching on , another wave of accounts started to push back .
Except instead of being good samaritan accounts trying to push back on disinformation , they appeared to be apart of a coordinated network of accounts working at once to spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as someone seeing # dcblackout trending , who lives and works in the DC metro area , and who has friends telecommuting into DC rn….. this hashtag looks like misinformation .
‘ No social media from DC ’ because we were asleep .
Stop scaring people .
# dcsafe , ” dozens of accounts posted .
As he was watching all of this play out , Darius Kazemi , an independent researcher and programmer with years of experience researching social media and bots , knew he was seeing something weird .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by stoking the fire on both sides , ” Kazemi , a former fellow at the Mozilla Foundation , explained on the phone .
While Kazemi caveated that there was still a lot he wasn ’ t sure of and that he didn ’ t have proof for any of his suspicions about motivations , he observed that many of the accounts , both those pushing # DCBlackout and refuting it , were engaged in what seemed to be coordinated behavior by all posting the same thing .
“ Whether it ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trolls ( individuals or groups of individuals organizing to create chaos ) , I can ’ t tell because the situation is rapidly evolving , ” Kazemi wrote in a tweet thread .
“ Also it ’ s very hard to tell what ‘ side ’ these accounts are on , as floating around I ’ ve seen claims , counterclaims , counter-counterclaims , and even counter-counter-counterclaims.
” He noted that some of the accounts appeared to have been potentially hacked , because they either posted the # dcblackout hashtag but quickly deleted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they didn ’ t mean to post about the supposed blackout and that they weren ’ t sure how they had .
Kazemi also said that many participating accounts appeared to have been created very recently—within the last month or so .
Besides the fact there was almost certainly no telecommunications or internet blackout last night , it ’ s unclear exactly what happened and who was pushing the disinformation .
However , Twitter confirmed that at least some of Kazemi ’ s suspicions were correct .
A company spokesperson told Mother @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been sustained with scam accounts , and that it is “ taking action proactively on any coordinated attempts to disrupt the public conversation around this issue ” and is “ actively investigating the hashtag # dcblackout and during that process have already suspended hundreds of spammy accounts that Tweeted using the hashtag .
”

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In the late hours of Sunday and early Monday morning, as Washington, DC, was in the throes of massive protests and police used teargas, rubber bullets, and what appeared to be flashbangs on demonstrators drawn out by the death of George Floyd, something confusing started happening online: the hashtag #DCBlackout started going viral on Twitter, accompanied by similar posts on Facebook and Reddit, claiming that sometime at around 1 am, internet service had gone down throughout the district, blocking people from using the internet or posting what was happening on social media.
There is almost no evidence that suggests that this actually happened. Mother Jones reporters in DC who were using the internet at the time didn’t notice outages, and no media outlets noticed or confirmed this either.
A lot of people are asking me about a possible #dcblackout. I’ve been out near the White House since 4 am and haven’t experienced any outage. My friend and colleague @ABC7HeatherGraf was covering the DC protests last night and was posting multiple updates. pic.twitter.com/ag1cuY3MOD — Victoria Sanchez (@VictoriaSanchez) June 1, 2020
I was texting during the supposed #dcblackout pic.twitter.com/HByb1aytE2 — Hunter Walker (@hunterw) June 1, 2020
Regardless, the claim spread. Just as quickly as #DCBlackout was catching on, another wave of accounts started to push back. Except instead of being good samaritan accounts trying to push back on disinformation, they appeared to be apart of a coordinated network of accounts working at once to spread the exact same message:
“Yeah…… as someone seeing #dcblackout trending, who lives and works in the DC metro area, and who has friends telecommuting into DC rn….. this hashtag looks like misinformation. ‘No social media from DC’ because we were asleep. Stop scaring people. #dcsafe,” dozens of accounts posted.
As he was watching all of this play out, Darius Kazemi, an independent researcher and programmer with years of experience researching social media and bots, knew he was seeing something weird.
“It seems like an operation to sow confusion by stoking the fire on both sides,” Kazemi, a former fellow at the Mozilla Foundation, explained on the phone. While Kazemi caveated that there was still a lot he wasn’t sure of and that he didn’t have proof for any of his suspicions about motivations, he observed that many of the accounts, both those pushing #DCBlackout and refuting it, were engaged in what seemed to be coordinated behavior by all posting the same thing.
“Whether it’s bots (meaning automated software) or trolls (individuals or groups of individuals organizing to create chaos), I can’t tell because the situation is rapidly evolving,” Kazemi wrote in a tweet thread. “Also it’s very hard to tell what ‘side’ these accounts are on, as floating around I’ve seen claims, counterclaims, counter-counterclaims, and even counter-counter-counterclaims.”
He noted that some of the accounts appeared to have been potentially hacked, because they either posted the #dcblackout hashtag but quickly deleted it, or posted accompanying messages saying that they didn’t mean to post about the supposed blackout and that they weren’t sure how they had. Kazemi also said that many participating accounts appeared to have been created very recently—within the last month or so.
Besides the fact there was almost certainly no telecommunications or internet blackout last night, it’s unclear exactly what happened and who was pushing the disinformation.
However, Twitter confirmed that at least some of Kazemi’s suspicions were correct. A company spokesperson told Mother Jones over email that the campaign had been sustained with scam accounts, and that it is “taking action proactively on any coordinated attempts to disrupt the public conversation around this issue” and is “actively investigating the hashtag #dcblackout and during that process have already suspended hundreds of spammy accounts that Tweeted using the hashtag.”


motherjones--2020-06-01--George Floyd Died of Asphyxia, Private Autopsy Finds

Two medical examiners hired by George Floyd ’ s family announced Monday that the Minneapolis man died last week of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression , rebutting the Hennepin County medical examiner ’ s initial findings blaming Floyd ’ s death on underlying health conditions .
“ Not only was the knee on George ’ s neck a cause of his death , but so was the weight of the other two police officers on his back , who not only prevented blood flow into his brain but also air flow , ” Antonio Romanucci , a lawyer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Only Derek Chauvin , the officer who kept his knee on Floyd ’ s neck for nearly nine minutes , has been charged in Floyd ’ s death .
Floyd ’ s family hired Dr. Allecia Wilson of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Baden , a former New York City medical examiner , to determine the cause of death .
Baden has previously conducted autopsies on Eric Garner , who died when police placed him in a chokehold in New York City in 2014 , and like Floyd told officers he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michael Brown , the 18-year-old black man shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson , Missouri the same year .
“ The autopsy shows that Mr. Floyd had no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death , ” Baden said , according to the New York Times .
“ This is confirmed by information provided to Dr. Wilson and myself by the family.
” The findings lie in stark contrast to the Hennepin County medical examiner ’ s initial conclusions , which seemed to absolve the officers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ losing consciousness under their weight .
“ The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation , ” the criminal complaint filed by the state against Chauvin stated .
“ Mr .
Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease .
The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police , his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.
” Video taken at the scene shows Floyd , a 46-year-old with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he can not breathe before losing consciousness and going limp , all while a police officer pressed a knee into his neck .
When the county ’ s autopsy findings are read alongside , they come off as a remarkable attempt at gaslighting : Who are you going to believe , the medical examiner or your lying eyes ?
The county medical examiner ’ s findings have been criticized by professionals beyond the team working with Floyd ’ s family .
“ I am extremely disappointed with , and pissed by the preliminary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ County Medical Examiner on the George Floyd case , ” medical examiner and frequent expert witness Bennet Omalu tweeted .
“ Professional buffoonery at its best.
” In a short blog post , Omalu added that “ Human beings frequently die from asphyxial injury of the brain without any physical injury to the neck following compression of the neck ” and that despite any other contributing factors , “ the manner of death would be a homicide.
” Neither autopsy teams has released a final report .
But it ’ s hard to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had multiple officers not pressed his neck and back onto the street pavement until he lost consciousness .

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Update 10am Tuesday: On Monday evening, the Hennepin County medical examiner released its full autopsy report on George Floyd. Unlike the county’s preliminary findings, the manner of death was listed as homicide. But the cause differed from the asphyxia finding of the private autopsy and continued to place more blame on underlying health conditions than the actions of the police officers: “Case of death: Cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”
Two medical examiners hired by George Floyd’s family announced Monday that the Minneapolis man died last week of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression, rebutting the Hennepin County medical examiner’s initial findings blaming Floyd’s death on underlying health conditions.
“Not only was the knee on George’s neck a cause of his death, but so was the weight of the other two police officers on his back, who not only prevented blood flow into his brain but also air flow,” Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for the family, said Monday. Only Derek Chauvin, the officer who kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes, has been charged in Floyd’s death.
Floyd’s family hired Dr. Allecia Wilson of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, to determine the cause of death. Baden has previously conducted autopsies on Eric Garner, who died when police placed him in a chokehold in New York City in 2014, and like Floyd told officers he could not breathe, as well as Michael Brown, the 18-year-old black man shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri the same year. “The autopsy shows that Mr. Floyd had no underlying medical problem that caused or contributed to his death,” Baden said, according to the New York Times. “This is confirmed by information provided to Dr. Wilson and myself by the family.”
“Professional buffoonery at its best.”
The findings lie in stark contrast to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s initial conclusions, which seemed to absolve the officers of wrongdoing even as video evidence showed Floyd losing consciousness under their weight. “The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation,” the criminal complaint filed by the state against Chauvin stated. “Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”
Video taken at the scene shows Floyd, a 46-year-old with a fit and slim physique, repeatedly claim he cannot breathe before losing consciousness and going limp, all while a police officer pressed a knee into his neck. When the county’s autopsy findings are read alongside, they come off as a remarkable attempt at gaslighting: Who are you going to believe, the medical examiner or your lying eyes?
The county medical examiner’s findings have been criticized by professionals beyond the team working with Floyd’s family. “I am extremely disappointed with, and pissed by the preliminary cause of death opinion of the Hennepin County Medical Examiner on the George Floyd case,” medical examiner and frequent expert witness Bennet Omalu tweeted. “Professional buffoonery at its best.” In a short blog post, Omalu added that “Human beings frequently die from asphyxial injury of the brain without any physical injury to the neck following compression of the neck” and that despite any other contributing factors, “the manner of death would be a homicide.”
Neither autopsy teams has released a final report. But it’s hard to believe that Floyd would be dead today had multiple officers not pressed his neck and back onto the street pavement until he lost consciousness.


motherjones--2020-06-01--You Can Get a Photo With Donald Trump for Only $580,600

As Donald Trump fumes and fulminates in the White House , amid a pandemic , economic calamity , and widespread civil unrest , he and his political team are not taking their eyes off the big picture : raising money for his reelection campaign .
With Americans across the nation protesting social inequities and violent policing—which Trump at times has encouraged—and with public health experts continuing to warn against large gatherings , the Trump campaign sent out an invitation for a megadollar fundraiser in Dallas on June 11 .
The admission fee : $ 580,600 .
For this , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Pricey ?
Well , this donation does cover a couple .
That ’ s right , for more than half a million bucks—with the money going to Trump ’ s campaign , the Republican National Committee , and an assortment of state GOP outfits—you can get a few seconds of face time with Trump and a pic to commemorate the moment .
The hosts for the event are…well , predictable .
No showbiz celebrities .
No sports heroes .
No popular influencers .
There ’ s the head of the RNC , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Jr. , and the chief fundraiser for the GOP , Todd Ricketts .
( Hicks , a buddy of Donald Trump Jr. , has used his connections to set up meetings for business associates with the Trump White House .
Ricketts , a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs , last year was accused of skipping out on his fair share of property taxes . )
Also on the hosts list : Kimberly Guilfoyle , chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee and constant companion of Trump Jr. , and campaign manager Brad Parscale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Trump campaign .
Though $ 500,000-plus for the chance to stand close to Trump seems high , this amount does not set a record .
In 2016 , the Trump campaign and the RNC held a fundraiser , once again in Dallas , with a top-dollar donation of $ 893,000 per couple .
But you could still get into the event for a contribution as measly as $ 5,400 for a twosome .
( The invitation for the coming Trump fundraiser does not offer such a poor-man ’ s option .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fundraiser at the Palm Beach estate of billionaire Nelson Peltz , also for $ 580,600 per couple .
Joe Biden , too , is trying to get into this big-money game .
The presumptive Democratic nominee ’ s campaign has worked out an arrangement with the Democratic National Committee and state parties to raise $ 620,600 apiece from wealthy donors to support his White House run and other Democratic candidates .
But Biden has yet to host an event with this sum as the ticket price .
Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-Mass .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ big-dollar event for the former vice president later this month , but the cost of admission has not been publicly reported .
Back to the Trump event : The invitation stirs a number of questions .
Will there be social distancing at this shindig ?
How close to Trump will half-a-mil donors be allowed to get for their photo with him ?
Will there be handshakes ?
Will guests be screened for the coronavirus before they are allowed into the event ?
Will they be tested before posing with Trump ?
Will they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will they have to take off a mask to be photographed with Trump ?
Mother Jones emailed one of the event ’ s organizers at the GOP about all this .
No reply , so far .
Though Trump these days is laying low in his besieged White House—he didn ’ t even get out to play golf this past weekend—he does have this big “ special evening ” to look forward to .
As of now , he doesn ’ t want to talk to Americans about the protests and the violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threatened by a deadly virus that has struck down over 100,000 souls .
But he will gladly hobnob with well-heeled swells who are willing to underwrite his presidency .
And he will flash his famous ( or infamous ) grimace-smile on the photo line—as long as you pay him big money to do so .
UPDATE : A spokesperson for the Trump campaign says the Secret Service and the White House medical unit will vet attendees for the event .
Trump ’ s donors will have to test negative for coronavirus that day @ @ @ @ @ @

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As Donald Trump fumes and fulminates in the White House, amid a pandemic, economic calamity, and widespread civil unrest, he and his political team are not taking their eyes off the big picture: raising money for his reelection campaign. With Americans across the nation protesting social inequities and violent policing—which Trump at times has encouraged—and with public health experts continuing to warn against large gatherings, the Trump campaign sent out an invitation for a megadollar fundraiser in Dallas on June 11.
The admission fee: $580,600. For this, you get dinner and a photo with Trump. Pricey? Well, this donation does cover a couple.
That’s right, for more than half a million bucks—with the money going to Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee, and an assortment of state GOP outfits—you can get a few seconds of face time with Trump and a pic to commemorate the moment.
The hosts for the event are…well, predictable. No showbiz celebrities. No sports heroes. No popular influencers. There’s the head of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, RNC co-chair Tommy Hicks Jr., and the chief fundraiser for the GOP, Todd Ricketts. (Hicks, a buddy of Donald Trump Jr., has used his connections to set up meetings for business associates with the Trump White House. Ricketts, a co-owner of the Chicago Cubs, last year was accused of skipping out on his fair share of property taxes.) Also on the hosts list: Kimberly Guilfoyle, chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee and constant companion of Trump Jr., and campaign manager Brad Parscale, who has gotten rich off donations to the Trump campaign.
Though $500,000-plus for the chance to stand close to Trump seems high, this amount does not set a record. In 2016, the Trump campaign and the RNC held a fundraiser, once again in Dallas, with a top-dollar donation of $893,000 per couple. But you could still get into the event for a contribution as measly as $5,400 for a twosome. (The invitation for the coming Trump fundraiser does not offer such a poor-man’s option.) In February, Trump held a fundraiser at the Palm Beach estate of billionaire Nelson Peltz, also for $580,600 per couple.
Joe Biden, too, is trying to get into this big-money game. The presumptive Democratic nominee’s campaign has worked out an arrangement with the Democratic National Committee and state parties to raise $620,600 apiece from wealthy donors to support his White House run and other Democratic candidates. But Biden has yet to host an event with this sum as the ticket price. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is scheduled to mount an online big-dollar event for the former vice president later this month, but the cost of admission has not been publicly reported.
Back to the Trump event: The invitation stirs a number of questions. Will there be social distancing at this shindig? How close to Trump will half-a-mil donors be allowed to get for their photo with him? Will there be handshakes? Will guests be screened for the coronavirus before they are allowed into the event? Will they be tested before posing with Trump? Will they have to wear a mask? Or will they have to take off a mask to be photographed with Trump?
Mother Jones emailed one of the event’s organizers at the GOP about all this. No reply, so far.
Though Trump these days is laying low in his besieged White House—he didn’t even get out to play golf this past weekend—he does have this big “special evening” to look forward to. As of now, he doesn’t want to talk to Americans about the protests and the violence occurring, while the nation is still threatened by a deadly virus that has struck down over 100,000 souls. But he will gladly hobnob with well-heeled swells who are willing to underwrite his presidency. And he will flash his famous (or infamous) grimace-smile on the photo line—as long as you pay him big money to do so.
UPDATE: A spokesperson for the Trump campaign says the Secret Service and the White House medical unit will vet attendees for the event. Trump’s donors will have to test negative for coronavirus that day and undergo a temperature screening.