It's the Incompetency, Stupid

Little man, diminished

I have yet to read anything that makes sense of the Presidential walk through Lafayette Park to stand in front of a boarded-up St. John's church and wave a Bible like he was holding a new product up for placement photographs:  "President Trump uses the new and improved B.I.B.L.E.!"  Those involved with it profess no knowledge of it, from Esper who says he didn't know where he was going when he left the White House (except to inspect a toilet?) to Barr, who says telling the assembled thugs (call 'em what they are) to roust the people from a public space was something he told them should be done, but he didn't tell them to do it?  I'm a lawyer and even I don't see the distinction there.  Anyway, all these stories point to one thing to me:  the incompetency, stupid.

Many articles came out (still are) claiming we are one pen stroke away from Fascism in America, and Trump will reveal himself the true heir to Hitler that he longs to be!  Except Esper told half the troops to go home and the Mayor of D.C. said the city wouldn't foot the bill for the National Guard to have rooms to sleep in (where did they end up, and who ended up paying?) and the Mayor trolled Trump last night and protestors have been peacefully assembling after curfew for three (probably four, soon), nights now (at least), and nothing has been done about it.  No one seems to appreciate that the only city over which Trump can exert military authority is Washington, D.C., and that pretty much because he can do it without a governor raising Cain about state soveriegnty or even pretending to invoke the Insurrection Act.  And even then the military has made the most unusual noises that it won't be used as Trump's Praetorian Guard (although a bunch of unmarked Federal law enforcment (?) officials apparently will).  So whence the takeover of America, prithee?

But the most telling detail of the short march to 16th street is what didn't happen, or rather, what wasn't prepared:

For one, it was the first time in history that a president has visited the church without prayer playing any role in the visit. No clergy were present, and no one even opened the Bible that Trump handled so awkwardly for the cameras. That stood out to Kevin Eckstrom, chief communications officer at the Washington National Cathedral, another Episcopal church in the capital with a long relationship to the presidency. “Presidents go to the cathedral all the time,” he said. “But they’re usually going to pray, to speak, or to offer a message of some sort. None of that was what we saw this week [at St. John’s]. What we saw was propaganda.” Eckstrom said that if the president had requested a visit to, say, read from Psalm 23, a well-known poem of comfort, the National Cathedral would likely have accommodated it.

Had anyone in the White House so much as done the advance work of picking up the phone, in other words:

Fisher said that St. John’s, too, would have been open to some kind of visit from the president this week under the right conditions. After all, the church has demonstrated an openness to symbolic appearances by presidents of both parties for more than 200 years. “It has always been a balancing act,” Fisher said. “I worry about that getting me in trouble because I don’t want to imply [that the relationship] is over. I don’t think that. But it’s a balancing act that has always taken work on both sides of the park.” Fisher said he has received no communication from the White House this week, either before or after the president’s unannounced visit.

Contempt?  It plays that way.  But I call it incompetence.  No one left in the White House thinks ten minutes ahead, because it doesn't occur to them that's what "administrations" do; that's the entire idea of administration.  They don't call the rector of the church because they don't think to, and then stories get told to backfill the exposure of their incompetence.  The first story on clearing Lafayette Park was that it was supposed to have been done a day earlier, but they had to scramble at the last minute and besides, people were throwing things, and the only response to a water bottle is a rubber bullet and a CS canister; at least.  Amirite?  This story is more damning than explaining, because if it was supposed to be cleared, who was in charge and why didn't they follow up, especially if it should have been done 24 hours earlier?  Far more likely Trump decided he had to "leave the White House" to prove he wasn't "Bunker Boi," and he decided it late in the afternoon of the fateful day.  People had been in the park all day (but it was supposed to be cleared!), which mean no order to clear it earlier was ever made.  Then somebody (Barr?  Likeliest suspect.) said "Clear it!" and somebody else said "How?" and the response was "NOW!"

So they did.  And did anybody get what they wanted?

Instead, law enforcement gassed peaceful protesters—including clergy members handing out water and supplies—so that the president could conduct a totally nonreligious performance of solidarity with Christians that managed to alienate the leaders of a church who see it as a part of their mission to get along with the president. It was a remarkable, and wholly unnecessary, act of aggression. Trump bulldozed the door to St. John’s when the key was sitting right in front of him. 

A key he wouldn't even look for and a door it never occurred to him to open.  He's your Law and Order President after all.  And he has to dominate.  If that's what you call it.