[POLITICO] Downtown buildings set ablaze by arsonists were still smoldering from the night before when Kirk Ingram started to paint an angel on his boarded-up store front.Ingram, a Democrat who runs a massage therapy business, said the war-zone images of his city on TV — armed people running through the streets, burned cars and broken windows — were bolstering President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
's get-tough message. Maybe a few uplifting murals could start to tell a different story about Kenosha, Ingram said Wednesday.
Trump has attempted to frame the
As this battleground state grapples with social unrest, some Democrats fear that the looting and rioting and festivities are feeding Trump’s argument that this is what life would be like under the so-called radical left. The worry is that especially among suburban swing voters, the more upheaval and violence they witness, the more their sympathy for peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters will wane.
"There’s no doubt it’s playing into Trump’s hands," said Paul Soglin, who served as mayor of Madison, on and off, for more than two decades. "There’s a significant number of undecided voters who are not ideological, and they can move very easily from Republican to the Democratic column and back again. They are, in effect, the people who decide elections. And they are very distraught about both the horrendous carnage created by coppers in murdering African Americans, and ... for the safety of their communities."
Trump, of course, is positioning himself as the antidote to urban unrest. "So let me be clear: The violence must stop, whether in Minneapolis, Portland or Kenosha," Vice President Mike Pence declared in his Republican convention speech Wednesday night, with Trump looking on. "We will have law and order on the streets of this country for every American of every race and creed and color."
Republicans had chided Joe
Foreign Policy Whiz KidBiden
...Candidate for president in 2020. I had the great honor of being arrested with our UN Ambassador on the streets of Soweto, trying to get to see him on Robbens Island...
and other Democrats for not calling out the violence in the aftermath of the Blake shooting. Biden immediately addressed the shooting, but didn’t condemn the ensuing violence until Wednesday in a video posted on social media.
Outrage in Wisconsin over the Blake shooting reverberated beyond the streets of Kenosha into the world of sports, when players for Milwaukee Bucks NBA team took the extraordinary step of boycotting a playoff game. The move set off a wave of other sports game cancellations, ensuring the Blake shooting and its aftermath would touch many more Americans.
On the ground in Kenosha, meanwhile, frustrations were palpable.
"The National Guard ought to be on the corners right now," fumed resident Ron Dooley, who said he was on his way to check whether his favorite diner had been burned down. "Look at this." he said pointing to blocks of boarded-up storefronts. "It looks like I’m in the slums of L.A."