If you’ve been following anything that’s been going on in the US lately, you’re well aware that things are kinda getting out of control. Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, the country the world has had just about enough of the systemic racism that people of colour have had to go through.
With that in mind, demonstrations, protests and riots have broken out all across America. As you’d expect, not all of them have been peaceful. Sadly however, instead of making things better, US president Donald Trump has sought to use the unrest for his own political advantage.
The president, along with his top law enforcement leaders, have been pushing the narrative that all the violence caused during the protests are the responsibility of left-wing extremists alone. Yup. Just yesterday, Trump tweeted that a 75 year old man shoved to the ground by the cops was part of some sort of conspiracy theory.
Antifa seems to be the target of Trump’s blame for everything that’s wrong with the protests, with the president even going as far as to label what’s going on as acts of domestic terrorism. Normally, it would make sense to believe what the president has to say about what’s going on in his own country.
The problem is, the police (who happen to be on the ground, mind you) are contradicting what Trump is saying. In Trump’s defence some of the chaos being carried out has been caused by extremists. It’s just that these agitators range across the idealogical spectrum, with both left and right extremists getting in the mix.
That’s not even it. Intelligence gathers by federal law enforcement officials show that that local criminal groups, including gangs and neighborhood crews known for other criminal activity, have been the cause of a major part of the disorder.
According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, “The narrative that it’s all Antifa or all white supremacist is not accurate.” Shapiro, who has been investigating more than 50 cases of ATMs that were destroyed with explosives in the Philadelphia area, revealed that one of the men suspected of selling dynamite to be used on ATMs has a local criminal history but no known ties to extremist political groups.
In fact, Trump is looking increasingly stupid as the prosecutions rack up. Of the more than 50 people charged by the Justice Department in relation to unrest, you can count the number of people alleged to have a connection to any extremist group with one hand.
This is true across the United States. The unrest that’s been happening give criminals and gang members the perfect opportunity to cause trouble. Trump’s attempt at trying to paint himself as America’s saviour with his brand of “law & order” is slowly starting to become a wee bit too obvious.
