Virginia Heffernan is a regular columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where this article appeared.
President Trump’s zeal for rally mode is rising almost as steeply as coronavirus cases in Tulsa, Okla., where his campaign plans to hold a little get-together on Saturday. The weather in Tulsa is expected to be muggy and nearly 90 degrees, with a high chance of thunder and lightning.
You don’t say.
“Bad idea” doesn’t begin to capture how reckless and vicious it is to pack an arena on a steamy night with thousands of rambunctious hotheads in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak.
The disease, which has killed some 120,000 Americans so far, rips through populations fastest when people are crowded indoors and shouting for extended periods.
Check, check, check, check. The Tulsa rally has it all…
This rally is really shaping up to be a teeming petri dish inside a wrecking ball inside a juggernaut.
And then there’s the sickening fact that Trump’s MAGA extravaganza is detonating in the midst of a two-day local celebration of Juneteenth, which this year marks the emancipation of enslaved Black people and coast-to-coast George Floyd protests.
These demonstrations and demands for police reform or abolition have garnered widespread support, even as Trump has repeatedly lied about who is protesting and what their aims are and earlier this month tried to put protests down with military force.
So on top of the strong possibility that the Tulsa rally could spread the coronavirus far and wide, confrontation and even violence might be in the offing. Black community leaders in Tulsa have warned that an appearance by Trump, whose racism is part of his allure, is a taunt.
For his part, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a popular Republican in a state that Trump won by 65.3% in 2016, has equivocated about the event almost since it was announced.
First, he invited Trump to visit Tulsa’s Greenwood District, the site of a 1921 race massacre in which white terrorists slaughtered hundreds of black residents with the help of local police and the National Guard, laying waste to what was then the nation’s wealthiest Black neighborhood.
Maybe Stitt thought the president would enjoy a history lesson, or that Tulsa’s Black leadership would want to meet the father of birtherism, the Muslim ban and internment camps for Latino children….
As for Trump’s decision to bring his racist campaign into a city with a history of deadly white terrorism during Juneteenth celebrations at the height of American racial tensions, Stitt was dismissive and lighthearted.
“We have great relationships in Oklahoma with all the different races.”
Sincere question: What are Trumpites even talking about when they say things like this? The Tulsa massacre was one of the worst racial atrocities in American history. The Oklahoma City bombing, in 1995, was the nation’s deadliest domestic terrorist attack; its mastermind, Timothy McVeigh, was a white supremacist.
More recently, in 2016, Black Lives Matter protests erupted when a white Tulsa police officer, Betty Jo Shelby, shot and killed an unarmed black motorist, Terence Crutcher, only to be found not guilty of manslaughter.
And on June 4, Tulsa police harassed, handcuffed and forcibly restrained two black teenagers for walking down the center of a quiet, traffic-free road. One officer sat on one of the boys, holding the back of his neck while pressing his face into the ground.
We have great relationships in Oklahoma with all the different races.
These guys can wish away the pandemic and police brutality, but both are systemic — and Saturday’s rally in Tulsa is a powder keg.
Stitt’s not going to wear a mask when he takes the stage to introduce Trump, he said on Thursday. He seemed excited to greet an arena full of Trump supporters.
Tulsa is certainly going to be the center of something this weekend. Presumably, the governor wants to breathe it all in.
If Trump keeps these rallies going, he puts his most avid supporters at risk.
I hope they ALL “French Kiss.”
Yvonne,
Screaming and shouting in a closed arena will send millions of particles into the air. For those not wearing a mask, the risk will be akin to that kiss.
Yes, indeed! What a fest. Will check infections in a few days.
America is #1 in infections. Guess that dump has sure “sealed” our place in the world of COVID-19.
It’s not just Oklahoma. Clemson’s football coach, Dabo Swinney, is one of those charlatans who has made generational wealth on the backs of his mostly Black football players, downgrades their humanity at every turn, and is convinced that God cares deeply about his team winning football games. He has been dismissive of common sense precautions and now ESPN reports 23 of his players and staff have tested positive for COVID-19. Imagine the hysteria if Dr. Fauci’s prediction that we may not have football at all this year comes true. What’s more important than football? (sarcastic rhetorical question for those who might not get it) https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/29336227/21-clemson-football-players-positive-covid-19-latest-testing
Trump has already refuted Dr. Fauci and pronounced that the NFL will play, no matter what Dr. Fauci says.
If they refuse to play, will the National Guard be called out to compel them to?
The members of the National Guard can suit up and take their places on the field.
I feel sorry for the National Guard troops forced to participate in this public display of poor judgment. I hope they don’t get sick and take Covid home to their families.
Trump just wants to be worshipped. His ego has been beaten, so I full expect him to go off the rails with his desire to play the poor victim of a really, very terrible, the worst in history actually, conspiracy to undermine his presidency.