President Donald Trump yesterday pledged to take a hard line on anyone destroying or vandalising US historical monuments and threatened to use force on some protesters, as political activism against racial injustice sweeps the country and threatens his re-election chances.
“They’re not taking down our monuments,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I will have an executive order very shortly and all it’s going to really do is reinforce what’s already there, but in a more uniform way.”
Trump also yesterday announced via Twitter an authorisation “effective immediately” to arrest anyone caught hurting a commemoration to an armed services member on federal land, even though the government already had that power under the 2003 Veterans Memorial Act.
“There will be no exceptions!” he wrote yesterday.
Many statues and monuments targeted by crowds in recent weeks pay homage to the rebel Confederacy from the nation’s Civil War and are seen as tributes to those who perpetuated slavery.
The calls for their removal, along with massive Black Lives Matter protests earlier this month and local governments reforming police forces, were sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man killed in police custody.
Trump has been out of step with most of the country, blasting the protests even though a majority of Americans sympathize with them.
At his Saturday rally in Oklahoma he said an “unhinged left-wing mob” wants to “desecrate” what he described as “beautiful monuments.”
Mixed with his rocky response to the coronavirus that has killed more than 120,000 Americans and shaken the economy, the disconnect has put Trump behind former vice president Joe Biden, his presumptive challenger in the November 3 election, in opinion polls.
Late on Monday, protesters tried to topple a statue of former President Andrew Jackson facing the White House, scrawling “killer” on the base and pulling at ropes around the figure of Jackson on a horse. Police in riot gear drove the crowd back and formed a protective ring around the statue.
Trump told reporters “numerous people” were in jail for the attempt and the government is “looking at long-term sentences.”
Jackson, a onetime Army general, enslaved black people and is remembered for the Trail of Tears, a forced removal of Native Americans from the South that killed thousands.
Trump also wrote on Twitter he was ready to use force on protesters.
Earlier in the month he called in the National Guard and federal law enforcement to crack down on demonstrations near the White House, including using pepper spray and “flash bang” stun grenades to disperse peaceful protesters in front of St John’s Episcopal Church.
Protesters on Monday had declared a “Black House Autonomous Zone” — referencing a Seattle area known as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone or the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone — near the church, taking over Black Lives Matter Plaza.
“There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, DC, as long as I’m your President,” Trump tweeted yesterday. 
“If they try they will be met with serious force!”
Later in the day yesterday, Twitter enforced a rule against “abusive” content by labelling and hiding the tweet threatening to use force against protestors in the US capital.
The move appeared to be the first using that standard by Twitter against the president.
The platform has previously labelled Trump’s comments misleading and violating its standards on promoting violence.
The action by Twitter requires users to click through to read the Trump tweet, with a tag on the message that it “violated the Twitter rules about abusive behaviour” but that it would remain visible “in the public’s interest.”