Peaceful protests continued unabated across the country and around the world. As Andy Ramos, 72, mayor of Alpine, Texas had it, “My generation, we did a lot of good, but we stagnated. We need a push in the butt and you guys are the ones who have to do it. You have to bring social change to this world.” One of the largest protests was in the nation’s capital, where new fences, concrete barriers and a force of unidentifiable guards have shrouded the White House, projecting a new symbolism of militarized defensiveness rather than openness and democracy. Roger Cohen did not pull his punches this week. “No, the point would be this: to assert with a great show of force, after the slow-motion murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, that the oppressive system that produced this act is not about to change and armed white male power in America is inviolable. That is Trump’s fundamental credo. His Bible-brandishing, American Gothic portrait this week outside St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington is one of the most disturbing portraits of psychopathic self-importance seen since 1933.”

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