A racist White House doesn't want to talk about police shootings, because of course not

By Hunter 

This is my I'm not talking to you face.

On Wednesday the Baghdad Bob of the White House, played at the moment by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, until Donald Trump realizes that she, like Sean Spicer, does not actually possess the power to bend reality itself to fit his daily whims, was asked about the latest public developments in the ongoing series of police shootings of unarmed black American men.

Her answer was, ahem, widely noted.

“Certainly, a terrible incident. This is something that is a local matter. And that's something that we feel should be left up to the local authorities at this point in time,” Sanders replied.

Then Ryan asked Sanders about the lingering case of Eric Garner, the New York man who cried out “I can't breathe” in 2014 while in a chokehold administered by New York City police despite the department prohibiting the practice. [...]

“I'm not aware of any specific action. Once again, these will be local matters that should be left up to the local authorities,” Sanders said.

While this notion, that the videotaped nationwide evidence of black American men and boys facing death at the hands of police departments in situations and with a frequency that are not even remotely matched by similar incidents against white Americans, is a "local matter" for each police department and not worthy of the attention of the resident—while that is a roundly offensive notion, to be sure, you may take some comfort in remembering that everything Sarah Huckabee Sanders says is a lie to begin with. Her statements are not policy; her statements are merely the daily whistling of the wind.

To be sure, what Sanders means is that the administration is going to continue to refuse all meaningful comment on such police violence. This is to be expected.

First, Donald is a racist whose own history of demonizing non-white persons as “rapists” or guilty-no-matter-what-investigators-say is well known.

Second, his administration is a shipwreck of old, lower-tier Republican racists elevated into unexpected positions of power; each of them, like Jeff Sessions, has worked to expand police power and reduce police accountability as matter of actual policy.

Third, Donald does not want to talk about police shootings because saying anything even the slightest bit reasonable would give his core base of very shouty and distinctly white-nationalist infused supporters an election-year tummyache; the White House garbage fire faces a choice of saying what those supporters want Donald to say, which is that police should be executing more Americans for cheaper reasons, or shutting the hell up.

And Sarah Huckabee Sanders and anyone else still hoping for a career after Team Garbage Fire is very, very, very much of the hope that Donald will keep his mouth shut.