Being the son-in-law of a man who struggles to form a coherent answer to questions asked of him, it’s no surprise that Jared Kushner has adopted this sort of talent. In a short interview with CNBC, Kushner, a White House senior advisor, managed to portray everything wrong with how the Trump administration has handled and continues to handle the issues of this country. The passing along of responsibility, as well as pointing the finger at anyone but themselves, is extremely characteristic of an administration that thrives off of divisiveness.
When asked what he thought of several NBA teams’ refusal to play in protest of the shooting of Jacob Blake, Kushner responded with answers that were both familiar and exhausting.
“The Democrats have run these cities for a long time, and you have nothing but failure and broken promises,” Kushner said, completely ignoring the question and going off-topic.
This familiar cry of how the Democrats are the ones ruining the country only alienates the two parties from each other and ensures that nothing gets done.
In addition to consistently going off-topic, not once in the interview does Kushner bring up Black Lives Matter, or Jacob Blake, for whom the players are protesting for. Instead, he focuses solely on the NBA protesters, calling them lucky and saying “it’s nice” that they’re speaking up.
The trend of critiquing the protests, saying that they should do things differently, as well as outright mocking them is nothing new.
President Trump himself has called protesters “terrorists” and “disgraceful anarchists” in two different tweets. Just as Kushner made no mention of Jacob Blake, the administration almost never brings up the victims of police brutality.
This only serves to dehumanize the deaths, and turn it into an argument over whether or not the protests are morally correct. Pointing the finger in this way only serves to distract from the problems at hand, leading to those in charge doing nothing about them.
Despite their heavy criticism of protests and violence, the Trump administration does not offer any type of solution. In the interview, Kushner even ventured to say that he’d like for NBA players to “start moving into concrete solutions that are productive.”
This lack of responsibility is nothing new, as is seen in the administration’s handling of the COVID-19, but it is a huge issue.
The NBA players have shed more light on an already raging issue, and it is not their job to think of solutions for this country. That is what the government is for. This passing along of responsibility and blame only places more pressure onto movements like Black Lives Matter, when they are already fighting hard to make voices heard.
This interview is short, and seemingly innocuous, but it paints a much larger picture of the dangers of this administration. They are happy to sit back and watch as these issues tear the country apart, because they know that a divided nation is one in which Trump will get re-elected. Kushner utilizes the same talking points as Trump does — tearing down the protesters and pointing the finger at everyone else — because he knows that these things are effective in dividing people.
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