Donald Trump Keeps Trying to Compare His Campaign Rallies to Black Lives Matter Protests

On Monday, Rep. Jim Jordan took to Twitter to feign (at least I hope he was feigning) indignant confusion over the “double standard” of criticism aimed at Donald Trump’s plan to resume his in-person campaign rallies, when, as he sees it, the recent protests against police brutality don’t receive the same condemnation from the media.

Normally, I would love to just ignore Jordan, Ohio’s worst anti-woman, anti-worker, accused sexual assault enabler currently working in Washington. But then Donald Trump retweeted Jordan and added his own accusation that the media is trying to “Covid shame” him and his supporters.

I mentioned that I hope Jordan and Trump and all the others pushing this question are feigning ignorance because the answer is beyond obvious to anyone approaching not from a completely bad-faith perspective.

On the most basic, logistical level, there’s the fact that Donald Trump tends to hold his rallies in crowded indoor arenas, where the coronavirus is likely to spread. Not only do the vast majority of the Black Lives Matter protests happen outdoors, but the protesters are overwhelmingly choosing to wear masks and socially distance whenever possible.

That might account for the growing amount of evidence that the protests are not responsible for furthering the spread of the virus.

On a human level, the protesters are fighting for a cause that they are willing to risk their health and safety for. They’re standing up to an oppressive system of policing that refuses to address decades of murders of people of color. Between some officers finally being charged with these deaths and a few cities finally discussing defunding and dismantling their police forces, they also maybe see those systems starting to show some cracks and they aren’t going to back down at this crucial moment.

What is Trump fighting for? The ability to fill an arena with a couple thousand white people and yell about Democrats trying to take away their haircuts and happy hours?

It says a lot about a person if they can’t see the difference.

(image: Brian Blanco/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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