Yes but which anarchists and agitators?
Dana Milbank points out an inconsistency in Trump’s Lawnorder ideology:
Trump said Sunday that federal police have been mobilized in Portland, Ore., (against the wishes of state and local authorities) to “protect Federal property” from “anarchists and agitators” — two years after Trump pardoned two men serving sentences for arson that burned 139 acres of federal property in Oregon in a case that inspired armed militias to seize federal land.
Oh yes, that pardon for destroying that federal property. Remember that?
Over and over during a 41-day armed standoff that terrified many locals, leader Ammon Bundy listed his demands: hand ownership of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge over to local ranchers and free two men convicted of starting fires that spread to public land and imperiled the lives of firefighters. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump granted one of those wishes.
Trump pardoned Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son, Steven, 49, after U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, championed their case in a June 29 phone call with the president. Walden has long been a supporter of the Hammonds. During the 2016 standoff, Walden gave an impassioned speech in support of the Bundys’ cause.
“How do you have faith in a government that doesn’t ever listen to you?” Walden asked on the floor of the U.S. House. “To my friends across eastern Oregon, I will always fight for you. Hopefully the country, through this, understands we have a real problem in America, with how we manage our lands and how we are losing them.”
Who’s “we”? Whose is the “our”? What Walden is talking about is removing land from federal protection to hand it over to ranchers for $000,000,000. Free cattle food for ranchers, loss of wildlife refuges and parks and monuments for the rest of us.
Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities said Tuesday that President Trump “has once again sided with lawless extremists who believe that public land does not belong to all Americans.”
The extremists are extremists both in thinking public land should be used for their personal profit and for using illegal and sometimes violent means to make their point. But Trump pardons them and brutalizes anti-racist protesters.
It’s good to know where we are.
“We” is the weaselliest of weasel words in a politician’s lexicon. Some languages distinguish between an inclusive “we” (me, you, and perhaps some other(s)) and an exclusive “we” (me and some other(s), but not you), but English and other Indo-European languages don’t, and even in languages that make that distinction there’s inevitably going to be some imprecision in the referent. We speakers of English (or other languages) can of course specify whom we are referring to with “we” if the context doesn’t make the referent precise, but for politicians the imprecision can be the point. If you pressed Walden he might claim he was speaking for all Americans, but in context his target audience will likely hear it as “we the people of Eastern Oregon,” or “we white people”. (In fact, he could easily be switching between several references in a single sentence: “…we [American people] have a real problem in America, with how we [American people?/the government?] manage our [Americans’] lands and how we [American people?/people of Eastern Oregon?/white people?] are losing them.”)
Trump isn’t quite so subtle in his use of “we”, because Trump doesn’t know how to do subtle.
Actually, he probably means we to mean Real Americans©. Which he gets to define. Which means white male Republicans and their white wives.
#2
And a a few token Asian Brides.