BLM protesters and their supporters in Portland, Oregon, quickly pointed out Wednesday the huge disparity between Trump’s response to racial justice protests in the Pacific Northwest city and his encouragement of the violence in D.C.
On July 27, following his deployment of U.S. agents to quell weeks of demonstrations, Trump tweeted: “Anarchists, Agitators or Protestors who vandalize or damage our Federal Courthouse in Portland, or any Federal Buildings in any of our Cities or States, will be prosecuted under our recently re-enacted Statues and Monuments Act. MINIMUM TEN YEARS IN PRISON. Don’t do it!”
The thousands of Capitol building rioters, many who were egged on by the president’s speech at a Wednesday afternoon rally over his election loss, heard a much more compassionate message from their leader, albeit a defiant one.
“I know your pain, I know your hurt,” Trump said in a now-deleted video posted to his Twitter account. “You have to go home, now. ... We love you. You’re very special.”
On Thursday, President-elect Joe Biden noted the double standard, saying he had received a text message from his granddaughter, Finnegan, of a photo showing “military people in full military gear — scores of them lining the steps of the Lincoln Memorial” during a BLM protest last year.
“She said, ‘Pop, this isn’t fair,’ ” the president-elect recounted.
“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday ... they would have been treated very, very differently than a mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” Biden said.
“We all know that’s true. And it is unacceptable,” he added.
Former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also weighed in with expressions of consternation, some of them placing blame squarely on Trump.
Adding to the cruelty of it all, some observers have noted, is the Capitol building’s history. It was built with help from enslaved Africans, whose blood and sweat later allowed the union to meet there and strategize its battle against pro-slavery Confederates. On Wednesday, images emerged showing custodial staffers of color in the Capitol sweeping up the shards of glass and trash left behind by the rioters.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson said the people who violated the Capitol on Wednesday should not be seen as patriotic.
“This is not protesting or activism; this is an insurrection, an assault on our democracy and a coup incited by President Trump,” Johnson said.
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Associated Press writers Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon, and Padmananda Rama in Washington, and Michelle Price in Las Vegas contributed. Morrison is a member of the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team.