Donald Trump scheduled his first “congratulations for only killing 120,000 people … so far” rally to support police violence to be held in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19. Then he scheduled the RNC to take place in Jacksonville, Florida on August 27. Then he rolled back medical protections for LGBTQ Americans on June 12. That means that with just three events: Trump managed to hit the site of the most notorious mass-murder of Black Americans, on a date that many regard as “Black Independence Day;” Trump dropped the RNC on both the city and 60th anniversary of a white riot where Blacks were beaten bloody with baseball bats and ax handles, with many of them assaulted in the aisles of a church; and he removed protections from LGBTQ Americans on the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting. As many people have noted—that level of coincidence takes a lot of planning.
But now it appears that Trump has done something genuinely rare over the last three years. He has backed down. A bit. The volume of righteous anger and drumbeat of denunciations has forced Trump to move the date, if not the location, of his upcoming rally.
On Friday evening, Trump tweeted that “many of my African American friends and supporters” had urged him to move the date. It’s unclear just who these friends might be, as Trump actually made the announcement of the Tulsa site and June 19th date, during a meeting at the White House “with African American supporters, including Dr. Ben Carson, his secretary of Housing and Urban Development.” So … some other African American friends and supporters. That was part of what made the date and place for his rally so extra special.
But the fact that Trump backed down is itself extraordinary, given that his usual tendency to finding himself in a hole is to break out a full gross of shovels. Emphasis on gross.
Of course, Trump isn’t moving the rally away from Tulsa. And he hasn’t shown any sign of moving the RNC away from the 60th anniversary of “Ax Handle Saturday.” And he hasn’t missed his opportunity to celebrate Pride Month just as he has in past years—by stripping away rights. But at least he is not going to sit in an arena and spew racist hate on Juneteenth. He’ll wait until the day after Juneteeth. It will also be a whole two weeks after the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. So that’s … something.
None of this means that Trump is even one step closer to accepting the justice of the Black Lives Matters cause, or that he’s about to pull back from calling on police to commit even more violence, or that he’s going to stop bragging about how easily armed military can defeat unarmed protesters. As NBC News reports, Trump has made it clear that when it comes to the protests “These aren’t my voters.” He’s written off the entire Black community and anyone who has even a whit of empathy. Meaning that he can dismiss protesters, ignore their demands, and keep right on cheering for attacks and divisiveness.
If it seems like that should be raising concerns among Republicans, NBC also reports that some Republicans are telling Trump that he is ”not fighting back hard enough and is instead allowing protesters to drive his agenda.” So if you’ve been wondering why Trump would be talking about sending active military into Seattle to attack people who are handing out free food and building a community garden … that’s why. More violence is what Republicans want to see.
And, of course, when it comes to Trump’s Juneteenth+1 rally, the pre-event bragging has already built it into something really, really bigly, just huge. Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale says they’ve already handed out 300,000 tickets! The only problem with that is, the arena that Trump has booked seats … 19,000. No doubt Trump will stand on stage to say there are half a million people outside. Don’t be surprised if Trump claims the rally is actually bigger than the protests in Washington D.C. In fact, be surprised if he doesn’t.
For those who are wondering, Oklahoma reported 222 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday. Compared to some other states, that number seems low. However, it also happens to be the highest single-day count for Oklahoma since the pandemic began. It comes at the end of the highest week since the pandemic began. Like many more rural states that were relatively lightly affected in the first weeks of the coronavirus crisis, Oklahoma is only now seeing a distinct increase in cases, leading to not just the highest number of new cases, but the highest rate of hospitalization.
Just the right conditions to get together with thousands of people in a packed stadium who all refuse to wear masks. Remember: Racial hatred makes germs spread faster.