Once again, we have seen a truly unbelievable hate crime committed, one that was horrifying enough to capture the attention of the world.
Once again, President Trump gives a response that leaves a lot of people scratching their heads, one that seems entirely inadequate.
Once again, Trump is again trying to convince everyone that white nationalism, which was given a jolt with his rise to the White House, is not a major problem, and consists of only a few people, a small number of malcontents.
Once again, predictably, Trump's political allies are trying to defend this man when he really cannot be defended, when it feels that he is trying to minimize of hide his own culpability in the obvious spike in violence and hate crimes.
Once again, Trump quickly forgot a huge disaster like this again, quickly turning his attentions to other, more pressing matters, like classlessly trashing a dead rival politician (John McCain) and whining in his tweets about being the victim of the Russia investigations. You know, just to prove how much of a class act he really is.
Trump acknowledged that there was a terrible mass shooting, and referred to it as an evil act. But he has done that before with mass shootings, ones that did not specifically target a group of people, like this. Of course, one can argue, with some legitimacy, that any mass shooting is an act of hate. Obviously it is. However, this was different, in the sense that it encouraged white supremacy, and set out against what many like-minded people would suggest is the Muslim invasion of the entire world. Many Americans seem to feel this same way, and some Americans were applauding this act.
Now, I am not claiming that Trump was doing so. But still, Trump made no mention that Muslims in particular were being singled out during this hate crime. And he also feigned ignorance about how the mass shooter stated that he viewed Trump as a symbol of white nationalist identity. Let me be clear on this point: Trump answered questions about this by claiming that he had not heard that, and never actually answered the question, really.
Then, of course, he tried to minimize concerns regarding a rise in white supremacists, claiming that he did not view it as a big problem, that it was just a small group of people.
If you ask Trump, or if you ask his supporters, they will quickly claim that Trump's responses to these tragedies were adequate. Some might even suggest that he handled it brilliantly, as they feel that everything that he does is brilliant.
For most of the rest of us, his response leaves a bad taste in our mouth.
But there have been other presidents, and many of them have handled situations like this significantly better, and were not too scared, or too dumb, or had too much of a conflict of interest, to actually answer difficult questions.
New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, handled the situation much better than Trump did. She recognized that this was an unbelievable hate crime with many dimensions to it. She is white, but she made no attempt to hide or minimize the hatred and paranoia among white supremacists that drove this man to do what he did. She also is going after those people - particularly the hate groups that began spreading the video in the first place - in order to make them legally at least partially responsible. And she did not simply offer thoughts and prayers, but actively sought to ban assault weapons like this, so future tragedies like this do not reoccur in her country.
Also, let's not forget, we have had American presidents in recent history who have handled themselves in a much better, frankly more professional and unifying manner following a tragedy. I was not a huge fan of Reagan, yet his speech to address the nation following the Challenger disaster was special. George W. Bush quickly made clear that Muslims should not be targeted following the September 11th attacks, that they as a group were not responsible. Clinton sounded like a real president in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City disaster, when he pulled no punches in discussing the hatred and irrational paranoia that was spreading among right wing extremists, which fueled the tragedy. And who could forget Obama tearing up after Sandy Hook?
These were politicians who certainly had their opponents. I myself was not a big fan of any of those men that I just mentioned. Yet, they were human beings, and they acted as such when faced with incredible horrors. We now have someone in the Oval Office who does not care about anything or anyone but himself, and so that bleeds through all too clearly when he speaks after horrific events like this. Maybe he and his supporters will bend over backwards to claim that his response is satisfying or covered all bases, but most people feel that something crucial is missing. Namely, an actual human reaction and response.
Below is a link to an article about how a decent president actually should handle a difficult and disturbing massive hate crime, like the one that the world just saw in New Zealand:
What a president should say after a hate-driven massacre Julian E. Zelizer-Profile-Image By Julian Zelizer, CNN Political Analyst Updated 9:24 PM ET, Fri March 15, 2019:
Once again, Trump quickly forgot a huge disaster like this again, quickly turning his attentions to other, more pressing matters, like classlessly trashing a dead rival politician (John McCain) and whining in his tweets about being the victim of the Russia investigations. You know, just to prove how much of a class act he really is.
Trump acknowledged that there was a terrible mass shooting, and referred to it as an evil act. But he has done that before with mass shootings, ones that did not specifically target a group of people, like this. Of course, one can argue, with some legitimacy, that any mass shooting is an act of hate. Obviously it is. However, this was different, in the sense that it encouraged white supremacy, and set out against what many like-minded people would suggest is the Muslim invasion of the entire world. Many Americans seem to feel this same way, and some Americans were applauding this act.
Now, I am not claiming that Trump was doing so. But still, Trump made no mention that Muslims in particular were being singled out during this hate crime. And he also feigned ignorance about how the mass shooter stated that he viewed Trump as a symbol of white nationalist identity. Let me be clear on this point: Trump answered questions about this by claiming that he had not heard that, and never actually answered the question, really.
Then, of course, he tried to minimize concerns regarding a rise in white supremacists, claiming that he did not view it as a big problem, that it was just a small group of people.
If you ask Trump, or if you ask his supporters, they will quickly claim that Trump's responses to these tragedies were adequate. Some might even suggest that he handled it brilliantly, as they feel that everything that he does is brilliant.
For most of the rest of us, his response leaves a bad taste in our mouth.
But there have been other presidents, and many of them have handled situations like this significantly better, and were not too scared, or too dumb, or had too much of a conflict of interest, to actually answer difficult questions.
New Zealand's prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, handled the situation much better than Trump did. She recognized that this was an unbelievable hate crime with many dimensions to it. She is white, but she made no attempt to hide or minimize the hatred and paranoia among white supremacists that drove this man to do what he did. She also is going after those people - particularly the hate groups that began spreading the video in the first place - in order to make them legally at least partially responsible. And she did not simply offer thoughts and prayers, but actively sought to ban assault weapons like this, so future tragedies like this do not reoccur in her country.
Also, let's not forget, we have had American presidents in recent history who have handled themselves in a much better, frankly more professional and unifying manner following a tragedy. I was not a huge fan of Reagan, yet his speech to address the nation following the Challenger disaster was special. George W. Bush quickly made clear that Muslims should not be targeted following the September 11th attacks, that they as a group were not responsible. Clinton sounded like a real president in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City disaster, when he pulled no punches in discussing the hatred and irrational paranoia that was spreading among right wing extremists, which fueled the tragedy. And who could forget Obama tearing up after Sandy Hook?
These were politicians who certainly had their opponents. I myself was not a big fan of any of those men that I just mentioned. Yet, they were human beings, and they acted as such when faced with incredible horrors. We now have someone in the Oval Office who does not care about anything or anyone but himself, and so that bleeds through all too clearly when he speaks after horrific events like this. Maybe he and his supporters will bend over backwards to claim that his response is satisfying or covered all bases, but most people feel that something crucial is missing. Namely, an actual human reaction and response.
Below is a link to an article about how a decent president actually should handle a difficult and disturbing massive hate crime, like the one that the world just saw in New Zealand:
What a president should say after a hate-driven massacre Julian E. Zelizer-Profile-Image By Julian Zelizer, CNN Political Analyst Updated 9:24 PM ET, Fri March 15, 2019:
No comments:
Post a Comment