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Lawn Order: Special Victims Unit
In some ways, Trump’s announcement that he plans to resume his usual campaign rallies — on Juneteenth, a landmark anniversary in the abolition of slavery; in Tulsa, Oklahoma, site of one of the worst racist massacres in American history; and without any precautions against spreading the coronavirus, which is killing people of color in record numbers — is a classic Trumpian ploy.
It’s a calculated outrage designed to infuriate the “libs” and monopolize the news cycle, the better to distract us from literally graver matters. (The recent announcement that they’re moving it 24 hours, to June 20th, hardly makes it better, except to show that they’re feeling the heat.)
But in other ways, it is a grotesque offense all its own, deeply connected to all those issues.
Trump himself doesn’t know Juneteenth from June Cleaver. But I’ll bet Stephen Miller does, and his greasy little rat fingerprints are all over this. The White House is doing this not out of thoughtless insensitivity but as deliberate and provocative hatemongering, in hopes of further energizing its white nationalist base.
(Not for nothing, Team Trump is requiring attendees to sign an ur-Trumpian waiver promising they won’t sue if they get covid and fucking die.)
