NEW YORK. “Great people!” Never a compliment from Donald Trump to supporters has risked being so lethal to the President of the United States. The tenant of the White House posts a video on Twitter in which fans praise his victory, adding the comment “Great people!”, Fantastic people. The point is that among the slogans that rise from the crowd framed in that video fragment there is a clear “white power”, that of white supremacists. Thus another storm blows over the commander in chief, which seriously embarrasses his staff and the Republican party. So much so that the president is forced to make a quick reverse by canceling the message, before the umpteenth censorship by Twitter against hate content could arrive.
The scene of the controversial episode is The Villages, a city in the outback of Florida, in Sumter County, a destination for retirees and veterans who come from all over America, a community with an average age of over 67 years. It belongs to the red fief (republican color) of the Sunshine State, less than 200 km southwest of Jacksonville, home of the Grand Old Party Convention at the end of August. The two-minute video shows a procession of people aboard electric machines, such as those used on golf courses, who wear pro-Trump shirts and wield signs with the slogans symbolizing the president, such as “Make America Great Again”, ” Trump 2020 “and” America First “. A verbal scuffle breaks out with some counter-demonstrators, one of the Trumpian supporters hears distinctly shouting the racist slogan “white power”.
The defence
“The president has not heard the statement made in the video”, is the defense of the White House: “What the president had noticed – continues the note – was only the great enthusiasm of his many supporters”. An inattention therefore, but the explanation is not convincing, so much so that to raise the voice is Tim Scott, the only African American senator of the Republican party, who defines the video as “terrible”, stigmatizing the president’s choice to retweet it. “In the face of such situations there is only one thing to do: stand up and say this is not fair,” said Scott, who explicitly asked the president to delete videos and tweets. Joe Biden also tries to ride the story, at least to rekindle the spotlight on his election campaign which – according to many bipartisan judgments – is not received by most, and to make up for the repeated faults which he is victim during his interventions. “We are in the midst of a battle to choose who is the true soul of this country, and President Trump has chosen which side to be on – says the Democratic candidate – It is the same thing that the President did after Charlottesville”. The ultimate reference is to the protester killed by a car during an anti-fascist pacifist counter-march in 2017 organized in response to a demonstration by the extreme right.
The boycott
Meanwhile, the boycott of Corporate America against Facebook and other social media continues for the shortcomings shown in contrasting hate messages and instigations of violence by profiles active on the platforms. The controversial post of the president also ended in the viewfinder. The last to take sides yesterday was Starbucks, which joined the boycott of Coca Cola, Unilever, Verizon and a hundred other small and large companies. The initiative, launched as #StopHateforProfit (enough hatred for profit) by Naacp and other civil rights associations including Anti-Defamation League, Color Of Change, Free Press, wants to stop advertising campaigns on Facebook and other social networks throughout the month of July.
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