Trump went to Dallas on Thursday to soothe the wounded egos of racists and bigots who, like him, feel their national power slipping away as the tide seems to turn against them. No more Confederate flags at NASCAR? No more police choking Black people to death with impunity? White people losing their jobs just because they spit on strangers, literally and figuratively, hanging on to their imagined superiority with every racist gasp?
Trump won't stand for it! He made sure to let the racists and bigots know he will not allow anyone to call them racists and bigots. Not on his watch!
BLITZER: Laura, what does this tell you about his understanding of this very sensitive, potentially very historic moment we are going through.
COATES: Sounds absolutely tone deaf. Really, a response like he had from Charlottesville, maybe 3.0 at this point. Remember, Wolf, the idea of his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, one of his final acts as attorney general was to try to roll back the powerful consent decrees that were part of the Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice because he was afraid there would be a vilification of police officers. That somehow, if you acknowledged there was not only discriminatory practices, but a pattern of behavior and poor training, and a need for these consent decrees, that with one wide brush you would vilify an entire department or an entire industry. But instead, by acknowledging. that we do, in fact have systemic racism within our police systems, that's acknowledging that we do, in fact, have a need for a national standard, and for there to be a need for transparency and accountability. In many ways, he is very dismissive of why 50 states continue to protest as a visceral reaction to not only the symbolism of George Floyd, but the specific killing of that man, as well.
Laura Coates had it exactly right. Trump's entire M.O. revolves around denial and fantasy. To allow the consent decrees to continue, he'd have to admit and/or accept there was a problem with policing. Of course, that also involves admitting the Obama administration was correct about, well, ANYTHING, so that's the other reason it just had to go.
