Plunging to a new depth

Jun 4th, 2017 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog
Tags:

Philip Rucker at the Post underlines how disgustingly out of control and malevolent Trump is.

A traditional president would have reacted carefully to the London Bridge terrorist attack by instilling calm, being judicious about facts and appealing to the country’s better angels.

Donald Trump, of course, is no traditional president. He reacted impulsively to Saturday night’s carnage by stoking panic and fear, being indiscreet with details of the event and capitalizing on it to advocate for one of his more polarizing policies and to advance a personal feud.

He started by retweeting a brainless headline from the Drudge Report.

Before offering his condolences to the British people, the victims of three gruesome attacks in as many months, Trump pecked out a second tweet. “We need to be smart, vigilant and tough,” the president wrote, calling on U.S. courts to affirm his administration’s “travel ban” on people from six majority-Muslim nations.

After that he sent a “God bless!” But he took it back after a night’s sleep.

On Sunday morning, however, once the breadth of the horror in London was clear, Trump was back on Twitter. He criticized the city’s mayor — Sadiq Khan, a liberal Muslim and an old Trump foil — for not being tough enough protecting his citizens.

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” Trump tweeted.

Trump took Khan’s quote out of context. The mayor had urged Londoners, in a BBC interview that was replayed, not to be “alarmed” by an increased police presence in the city. He said that after condemning the “deliberate and cowardly attack” as “barbaric.”

That’s how our president helps out after a hideous terror attack – by lying about the mayor in order to attack him for not doing enough.

White House officials did not respond to questions about Trump’s response on Sunday.

With Trump spending another day at his private golf club in Sterling, Va., the White House’s social media director, Dan Scavino, revived an old Trump-Khan feud on Twitter and scolded the mayor to “WAKE UP!!!!”

Yes, he really did.

These people are the worst. They’re like drunken frat boys who have taken Sadism pills.

Chris Lu, who served as White House Cabinet secretary under President Obama, was aghast.

“The fact that the White House social media director is commenting before the national security leadership has spoken is yet another example of Trump’s ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ attitude towards handling international incidents,” Lu said.

Historian Robert Dallek said Trump is exhibiting an entirely new style of presidential leadership. “Trump rubs everything raw,” he said. “He makes it more acerbic, more contentious.”

Dallek, who has studied former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, who steered the country through Pearl Harbor, was unsparing in his critique of Trump’s response to the London attack.

“There’s something so petty about this man,” Dallek said. “What we’re dealing with is someone who is, and I think this is the best term, an egomaniac. Everything has to revolve around him — he knows better, he’s right, he one-ups everything.”

And it’s not because he’s “insecure” or has “low self-esteem.” It’s because he’s far too secure and has way too much self-esteem. Some people just are mean shits, and Donald Trump is one of them.

10 Responses to “Plunging to a new depth”