Trump Would Never 'Get' Our Bump. Sad.

Monday, August 31, 2020

Three months ago, in the first week of June, State Auditor Suzanne Bump, then the president of the National Association of State Auditors, hosted a virtual conference of the association from her office at the Massachusetts State House. 

On the afternoon of the second full day of the conference, Wednesday, June 3, Bump could see, from her office window, a steady stream of protesters walking past the State House on Bowdoin Street, heading down the hill to Cambridge Street.  These were people outraged by the May 25 killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.  

The sight of the marchers moved her so much that she incorporated her reaction to it into her prepared, closing remarks to the conferees the next day.  Describing the scene on Bowdoin Street, Bump, who served in the legislature as a rep from Braintree for eight years and has been state auditor since 2011, said: 

"For nearly 30 minutes, they streamed by my office window.  The peaceful protesters, many white, mostly young, signs aloft, loudly chanting, many with arms upraised, marching for a righteous cause, filled my eyes with tears, and my heart with a jumble of sorrow, hope, guilt, concern, gratitude and resolve.  The knee that indifferently snuffed out the life of George Floyd also unleashed a nation's collective disgust at, and, I hope, determination to directly confront the stain that we have sought to ignore since the founding of our nation. Our persistent, institutionalized racism can no longer be glossed over."

Bump continued, "So many individuals through the years have made their contributions to the righting of society's and government's wrongs.  I have liked to think, and had even managed to convince myself, that I have been on the right side of the moral equation, with my work in my community, with my votes as a legislator, with my actions as the state's auditor, pointing out inconsistencies in the criminal justice system and in access to services, and more recently deficiencies in police training.

"Whatever good intentions have motivated me, whatever good I actually have done, I now recognize, simply has not been enough to fulfill my obligations to my sisters and brothers of color or my country."  [bold face added]

She emphasized that "I have it within my power as a human being to be a stronger voice, to lend a firmer hand.  I have it within my power as an employer to set still higher standards, to instill greater awareness, and to provide a better example.  I have it within my power as an elected official to contribute to a better understanding of the ways that our government institutions fail to recognize and repair the damage inflicted by centuries of injustice.  All those things and more, I can, must and will do." [bold face added]

I became aware of these comments through a blast email from Bump's office on Friday, June 5.  They made a favorable impression and I made a mental note to maybe include them in a future blog post. Then I pretty much forgot about them until they came to mind, unbidden, while watching Donald Trump accept the Republican re-nomination for the presidency this past Thursday night.   

In that norm-shattering campaign speech from the grounds of the White House, Trump had not one gentle word, not one respectful or conciliatory gesture, for the millions of Americans hurt and angered by the killings of Black men by police.  I didn't expect Trump to take the soul-searching approach of a Suzanne Bump to the problem, but I was hoping he might acknowledge,  at least in  passing, the anguish, the frustration, that so many of his fellow citizens are experiencing.

Instead, it was clear that Trump will do everything possible over the next several weeks to make Joe Biden and the Democrats, not racial injustice and inequality, the issue.  

"If you give power to Joe Biden," he said, "the radical left will defund police departments all across America.  They will pass federal legislation to reduce law enforcement nationwide.  They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon.  No one will be safe in Biden's America.  My administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement."

For their audacity and creativity, we have to give Trump and the Republican Party credit.  Their virtual convention was a masterpiece of positioning and communicating -- up there with the best TV infomercials of all time. I cannot explain that better than a letter-writer to The New York Times, Ramesh Harihara. In a piece published two days after the GOP convention, Harihara wrote:

"The Republican production effort was stellar -- from the quality of videos, to the locations, to the attempt to show President Trump as someone who welcomes immigrants and is not a racist, to painting Covid as something in the past, and the awesome fireworks and opera at the end.  As a marketer I admire professionals who can take a deeply troubled product, puff up your chest and make people forget the failures." 

Every day from now until Nov. 3, Trump is going to say and do something bold to make voters forget his failures and to focus instead on how awful life will be in "Biden's America." Tomorrow, for example, Trump's going to Kenosha, Wisconsin.  When there, do you think he'll be soothing, or stoking, the passions unleashed by the shooting, and paralyzing, by police of  Jacob Blake on Aug. 23?

When both the Democratic governor and lieutenant governor of Wisconsin made public appeals to Trump over the weekend, asking him not to come to Kenosha  -- "The city was on fire and we need healing, not a barrel of gasoline rolling in," said Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes -- I knew there was no way Trump would not go.  Gasoline is practically his middle name.

To stop Trump's forward progress coming out of the convention and to beat him on Nov. 3, Biden will have to show some stuff, he will have make some moves, like we've never seen from him before.  Worried Dems are right.



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