The legions that swept over the Republican Party in 2010 aren’t ascendant today—and they’ve scared a lot of other Republicans away.

As the ranks of the protesters against the murder of George Floyd grew to hundreds of thousands in the ensuing two weeks, the country saw the face of a young, racially diverse America determined to call out the racism shaping police misconduct. But those protesters were saying so much more. They were also calling out the racism at the heart of the deadly carnage from the pandemic and racism at the heart of the economic carnage. They were calling out a profoundly unequal America.

President Donald Trump was in a vengeful and dangerous mood. He was trapped in the White House, where the Secret Service sent him to a secure bunker; in return, he demanded a high fence be built around the White House compound. He demanded governors get tougher and claimed the right to use the U.S. armed forces to control domestic political protests. He told the country he was a “law and order” president and could use the “unlimited power” of the military. And on cue, his officers teargassed the peaceful protesters in Lafayette Square. An intimidating phalanx of police officers on horseback cleared the way for him to reach St. John’s Episcopal Church.

But most revealing was his tweet, “Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???” That was his call to his millions of followers to rally and defend his presidency.

The rallying to defend Trump was pathetic.

More than 2,000 miles from the White House, scores of residents armed with assault weapons did turn out to guard the streets of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, protecting against a rumored attack by “ANTIFA agitators” that, of course, never came. White nationalists outside Philadelphia conducted a mock police execution of George Floyd.

The full article can at The American Prospect