When a tsunami of despair and distress sweeps over the planet due to the Coronavirus outbreak, another tsunami of hate and angers sweeps over the United States. A 46-year-old black man died of asphyxiation after the police overpowered him in Minneapolis by kneeling on him for 8m 46sec – yes, eight minutes and 46 seconds. A White burly policeman pinned him down in full public view ignoring all cameras filming him. The dying man’s words were: I can’t breathe. This and Black Lives Matter is the leit motif of protests all across the States coast-to-coast for the ‘martyr’ George Floyd, by mobs of people unable to keep their emotions under control. TV screens are dotted with images of policemen pleading with protesters even as lumpen elements hurled Molotov cocktails at random.

Never in recent memory has the US been as polarized as now as President Donald Trump runs for a second term in elections scheduled for November this year in the midst of a pandemic the size and magnitude of which the world has never seen before.

What are the odds

One question comes to mind as the scientists round the world race against time to develop a vaccine for the invisible microbe which has killed thousands and thousands and threatens the very existence of the species, is how the riots, the arson and looting across the US will affect Mr Trump’s chances of retaining the White House.

 (People raise their hands and kneel down as they protest at the makeshift memorial in honour of George Floyd, on June 2, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. - Thousands of National Guard troops patrolled major US cities after protests over racism and police brutality boiled over into arson and looting, sending shock waves through the country. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP)

Death of the ‘Gentle Giant’

Known as the ‘Gentle Giant’, George Floyd – who was the father of a 6-year-old has become the face of minorities not just in the US but all over. It would be simplistic to dismiss the death of Floyd and the outrage following his brutal treatment as a white-black issue or something in between. The groundswell of support for the movement has come from people cutting across race and colour as if in a chorus. It speaks of how polarized and xenophobic the country is and the effects of the pandemic, frustration and the job losses. Antifa whose sworn enemy is the far right seems to have ceded space to looters, arsonists, miscreants whose targets are shops and showrooms,  carrying away flat-screen television sets, laptops, mobile phones, anything they could get their hands on! Did America need a protest on this scale at a time when the death toll due to the Coronavirus has topped the grim 108,000 mark?

No stranger to controversy

President Trump is no stranger to controversy and his bold, if somewhat knee-jerk statement, to call in the National Guard smacks of his struggle to come to terms with the reality. The battlelines were already drawn with his outlandish tweets and flippant statements on the line of treatment for Coronavirus, his preference for an anti-malariaa drug, his reluctance to wear face-protecting masks, posing with a Bible in front of a church after clearing the protesters, all speak of a man who clearly has not seen the writing on the wall. Stopping funding the WHO and unsolicited mediation offer in the India-China ‘stand-off’ and miscellaneous gaffes of every assortment. Would he welcome a third-party mediation in the internal crisis gripping his country?

 (Protesters burn trash bins, shared scooters and bicycles on June 2, 2020 after a demonstration against police violence and in memory of late US citizen George Floyd who died a week before after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck. - Incidents broke out Tuesday night in Paris on the sidelines of a banned demonstration of 20,000 people denouncing police violence. In the US several cities have deployed the guard in the face of angry protests against police brutality following the killing of unarmed black man George Floyd by police during an arrest in Minneapolis last week. Photo by Mohammad GHANNAM / AFP)

Till November come

This is the President of Law and Order as he calls himself pitted against a Democrat candidate who also does not exude much confidence. Revival of the economy and livelihood and restoring the 50 million jobs lost during the pandemic are concerns neither candidate seems to be worried overly about. There indeed is no magic wand  to wish away the problems nor a wand to bring about a miracle in the form of a panacea for the pandemic ravaging the world. What is needed is a United States to combat the crisis affecting the country and the world. Instead, the leaders seem to be sleep-walking.

Trump’s rival, the presumptive Presidential nominee from the Democratic party Joe Biden hasn’t crowned himself with glory either. He has barely moved out of the ‘basement’ twice in the past three months, say his critics. Age apart, the septuagenarian has not shown outstanding leadership by coming out with a Plan B or a solution to the crisis in the embattled country. It is turning out to be a Tom & Jerry situation, not holding out much hope for the US citizens or the world.



(The writer works as Senior Producer in ABP News- Digital)

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