I woke up this morning to images of rioting on the streets of Chicago.

The murder of George Floyd has once again inflamed the passions of the community which resulted in protests on the streets. Some of those protests have transformed into violent rioting.

Since the beginning of the year protests have marred the efforts to contain the Coronavirus, but there are, in effect, two different styles of protest.

I’ve already written about the first style of protest. These were organised by right-wing organisations to pressure state governments to repeal lockdown orders. Collections of white men armed with deadly weapons surrounded and invaded state houses. The police showed considerable restraint by not arresting or killing anyone involved in these actions.

Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today. #mileg pic.twitter.com/voOZpPYWOs

— Senator Dayna Polehanki (@SenPolehanki) 30 April 2020

The second type of protest has nothing to do with COVID-19 at all. These were protests against the murder of unarmed black men by both police officers and civilians. It is a sad truth in America as a black man I have a far higher percentage of getting killed by the police in America, and while this study may just reinforce what people already felt, the past four years have only exacerbated the problem.

Since the beginning of the 2016 presidential election campaign, the United States of America has seemed intractably divided. The election of Barack Obama seemed to upset the “natural order of things” by putting a person of color in the White House. The response to that most progressive move was the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. His low-brow, barely literate antics seemed to play with a certain demographic of people while intriguing just enough to get them to vote for him. Despite losing the popular vote, he was elected into office where he based his presidency on the concept of “law and order” but, unsurprisingly, he has remained silent on abuses towards people of color. He is without a doubt, the worst person to be in the White House at this moment.

The United States of America has nearly a third of all global cases of COVID-19. The President's country is dying , en masse, from a highly contagious virus. His streets are burning from the rage of a people who fear for their lives and, in the midst of all this, he turns to Twitter to preach more hate to his devoted followers; telling them that he would have ordered the national guard attack the protesters as well. In these riots, as with all riots, the reason for the protesting is lost in the smoke. ANOTHER BLACK MAN WAS MURDERED BY THE POLICE. When Donald Trump was elected, I said that everything would be fine as long as you were rich, white and voted for him. Nothing in the past four years has changed my mind about that.

As the streets of his country burn, he stays silent. He would rather turn to social media than attempt to quell the fears of the minority community in America. He would rather tweet about the fake news media and spread conspiracy theories. There can no longer be a middle ground about his presidency. His inaction is as deliberate as his carefully scrawled out crazed tweets. He stokes racial division in the country in a shameful attempt to keep his extremist base happy, but his actions in this time could spiral America out of control. The police in several cities are attacking the press in unprecedented fashion. Minneapolis police, backed by the National Guard, attacked people at their homes as they quietly watched them parade down American streets and, all the while, the President of the United States seems to support all their actions. Within the political science community, presidentialism is seen as an unstable, risky endeavor for any country. The United States has always been the exception to the rule. I really hope that doesn't change.