The Guardian points out, in case we’d missed it, that the shooting of the week yesterday doesn’t make Trump look good. You don’t say.
Trump unequivocally condemned the shooting, telling a rally on Saturday evening in Wisconsin: “Our entire nation mourns the loss of life, prays for the wounded, and stands in solidarity with the Jewish community. We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate, which must be defeated.”
Oh stop. Trump read words that someone wrote for him. He doesn’t “forcefully condemn the evil of hate”; he stokes it every time he opens his mouth or taps his phone.
But the president stated last month, following a hate-inspired mass shooting that left 50 Muslim worshipers dead in Christchurch, New Zealand, that he did not believe white nationalism presented a growing threat.
“I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess,” Trump told reporters in March.
Of course he says that when asked. It’s a small group of people far far far away from him, on a tiny island in the Pacific somewhere, with Problems.
The shooter in Saturday’s attack in Poway, near San Diego, was named as a white 19 year-old man, John Earnest. Authorities were examining a series of online posts linked to the suspect that are littered with anti-Semitic and racist language.
Much as Trump’s tweets and speeches at rallies are, although he tends to rant about football players and asylum seekers more than people in synagogues.