Who Doth Protest Too Much?
by R. Owen Williams
Inconsistency and hypocrisy are characteristic of Donald J. Trump, but his recent contradictory position regarding the right to protest is shocking. How is it that the president adamantly supports the rights of protestors in Iran, but not those in America?
Well, not exactly.
On January 7, 2021, the day after the Jan 6 riots, President Trump distanced himself from the “heinous attack” of the mob who “infiltrated the Capitol.” It was, at the time, politically expedient to condemn the insurrectionists who, he insisted, “will pay.”
But four years and hundreds of prison sentences later, Trump came to see Jan 6 as “a day of love,” and he brazenly embraced the rioters as “patriotic Americans,” as stated on the White House website. As we saw, one of his first acts back in office was to pardon all of them, even the worst offenders who had been sentenced to over twenty years in federal prison. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/j6/ )
Not surprisingly, Trump is comfortable with protestors protesting in his favor. But protest the marauding of ICE agents? No dice. Trump calls that “domestic terrorism.”
Trump is turning the world upside down. Even his supporters know this to be true; indeed, they seem to like it. They think he is doing it for their benefit. Their people. Black Lives Matter protestors were “rioters”…Jan 6 rioters were “tourists.” Now his masked agents terrorize entire neighborhoods, forcibly enter homes, conduct warrantless searches, and apparently murder innocent bystanders, which Trump and his team call “law enforcement.”
We have all seen the video. It seems clear that ICE agents murdered a woman and then lied about it. The lie was magnified by both the Vice President and the President of the United States; we have all also seen those tweets and videos. Which begs the question: when will you have seen enough?
It is impossible to know at this juncture how many Iranian protestors have been killed, but AP News claims that the toll has surpassed 2,500 dead. And yet our bone-spurred tweeter-in-chief keeps egging them on, lending a hand on Truth Social: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING — TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” As if that were not reckless enough, Trump threw even more fuel on the fire: “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” Meanwhile, Congress has so far done little more than shudder at the prospect.
What happened to “America First” and Trump’s many promises to “stay the hell out” of unnecessary foreign entanglements? If you find it all overwhelming, hopelessly confusing, or downright nonsensical, then join the crowd. You might even, dare we say it, take to the streets. Protest.
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, famously quipped, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” variations of which are widely used by those who smell a rat.
Trump wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, he openly provokes Iranians to put their lives on the line in protests. We’ve already seen him put American lives on the line in DC, which we must assume he would be willing to do again. On the other hand, he criminalizes those who protest his antics. But, along the way, Trump violates the principles on which he purports to stand: equal protection of speech, consistency of civil liberties, and non-interventionism. He has gone well past hypocrisy to the normalization of state power used selectively against dissent. Even worse, rather than law enforcement, his actions—and those taken under his directive—degrade the rule of law.
Ultimately, whether Trump doth protest too much or at the wrong times, either way, I smell a rat.
Act II, Scene iii. Indeed, and from _Macbeth_, will these small hands ne’er wash clean” may be his wail in Hell when the fullness of time is concluded.
Have just watched a diatribe of words that seems every other was to blame everything on the prior occupant in the once pristine white Oval Office.
As he decides to place into the air like some sort of circus barker saying, lookie here” he stands at the podium speaking about the Minneapolis and Minnesota as he puts it “disgusting criminals” being arrested and apprehended by the “patriots of ICE”.
It’s rather rich stock full of hyperbole and hypocrisy as the pictures are held up for such a short time that some of these as he puts it “dangerous criminals, let out from mental institutions, allowed to come over with open borders” of course the blame game being perpetrated and taking a moment to see the crimes in white lettering below the photos of him displaying.
There were some with DUI charges, others with Domestic Abuse charges and the hypocrisy of it all was the ones that had Fraud then there were the few that had Sexual Assault and Child Sexual Abuse.
All the while the person standing at the podium spewing the multiverse of lies and fabrications from a 37-year old woman being shot in the face to being the savior of solving 8 wars, that either never really existed or are still currently continuing. This is the same person convicted of 34 counts of Fraud. Held liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation. Was close friends with a known child sex trafficker and sexual abuser. Who at this point is failing to release all the files of his close friend Epstein. Under the guise he was not allegedly involved with the same acts as his best friend. Leaving victims of the crimes again dealing with their open wounds.
Not even going to bother bringing up special counsel Jack Smith’s report of the culpability of the Felon.
Yes He Doth Protest Too Much..
Needing a delousing shower after this two hour long tirade.