He’s just shy
Trump went to Pittsburgh even though many people there wanted him to stay away. That seems pretty typical of his callous narcissism. Yes, it seems to be part of a president’s job to assist with public mourning, but that gets complicated when the president spends a lot of time publicly inciting hatred against individuals and groups. He becomes a person you don’t want hanging around a funeral, especially a funeral for people murdered by someone shouting ethnic or religious hatred.
Trump is not a kind or generous or caring man. He’s the opposite. He’s angry, and greedy, and self-centered, and filled with hostility and aggression. He’s terrible in disasters, and it’s hard to imagine he’s any better at funerals of the type taking place in Pittsburgh. (When it’s his own relatives or friends maybe it’s a different story, maybe he can be more human then, but this isn’t that.) He shouldn’t go. He should have stayed away.
The White House gave no immediate explanation for why the president was determined to rush to the horror-stricken community over the objections of local leaders. But Mr. Trump has a heavy travel schedule filled with campaign rallies beginning on Wednesday, with at least one political appearance planned each day until Monday, the eve of the midterm congressional elections.
There again: that’s about him, not about them.
The stop is an opportunity for him to play the traditional role of consoler in chief that presidents often step into after a national tragedy. But in the wake of the shooting and a recent spate of mailed explosive devices, Mr. Trump has been reluctant to blunt his bitter political attacks, arguing that his supporters crave his incendiary rhetoric.
Reluctant to blunt his bitter political attacks? You might as well say the shooter was reluctant to aim his bullets at the ceiling. Trump isn’t reluctant to blunt, he’s determined to intensify. Trump isn’t just saying “Noooooo I don’t want to,” he’s screaming his hatred and contempt every few hours.
And of course his supporters have such an elevated sense of entitlement that they believe they deserve whatever they crave.
Can the pundits shut up now about how awful Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment was? She was too kind.
Getting asked to not attend funerals is a bit of a thing with him, isn’t it?
Well as far as I’m concerned, he’s perfectly welcome to attend his own funeral.
He can attend my funeral, too, if he wants. I’m not going to be there. And it probably will just be a cremation, without any real major ritual, since I, and my closest relatives, tend not to like ritual. So let him come. Everyone else will stay away, grieve privately in their own way, and he can sit all by himself beside an incinerator.
@1: Is the media still talking about that? The “basket of deplorables” is a topic that makes me especially crazy.
I agree completely that Clinton should never have said that. Politically, it was totally reckless.
BUT!
This is what she said right after, and this never gets quoted: “[T]hat other basket… are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change… Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”
AND!
She was right that about half of Trump supporters were horrible, horrible people. Surveys performed in 2016 by Reuters, YouGov, and Public Policy Polling found large percentages of Trump supporters believing in such bigoted propositions as “blacks are lazier than whites” (40%), “President Obama was not born in America” (59%), and “gays should be banned from entering the US” (31%).
She should never have said it, but she wasn’t wrong, and she wasn’t as condescending as everyone said they believed she was.
#5 Deplorables should get an additional connotation: insecure people.
When I heard about what Clinton said (probably a month after she said it) I thought how is that bad or even remotely offensive. I’ve done things in my life that are deplorable. I guess anyone could call me that. What about religious people being ignorant? They are. I’m also ignorant of a great number of things. It does not make me offended to be called ignorant or deplorable. But Trump and his fans are some of the most insecure and offendable people I’ve ever known in American history.
Well, that’s his best points covered. But what about his worst?
Our unwillingness to speak straight in the face of evil is exactly what ‘political correctness’ has wrought. Clinton’s ‘deplorable’ comment was a plain truth, and stated in quite moderate terms.
I’d rather Trump not attend my funeral, mostly because I want to witness his.
lol
He went there in order to gloat, didn’t he?
Oh, no, he went there to “punch back”. Because you always punch back when no one has punched you.
Only a chump waits to be punched before punching back.