"When [previous presidents] needed the park cleared, the police set up wooden barriers, sent police cars to block off streets, and stationed officers at key locations to block passersby. That is what “clearing the park” used to look like — orderly, gentle, peaceful. Now, clearing the park for the president looked like body armor, sounded like gunfire and burned the back of my throat.
There were so many layers of irony, and hypocrisy. People were protesting the fact that their government had been enslaving, incarcerating, overlooking and brutalizing them for generations — and the government brutalized them again. Religious people, who were literally wiping away the protesters’ tears, were driven off the church property with brute force and fear. All so that Trump could use the church as a backdrop and wave the Bible like a prop. It was beyond offensive. It was sacrilege."
