5/26/20: It should be obvious, even to his fans, that Mr. Trump is
enduring some of the most painful moments of his time in office. Not painful
for others. Trump doesn’t feel pain for others. Narcissism is the
foundation of his presidency and the sum of his character.
____________________
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
President Trump
____________________
What bothers Trump most is knowing that more and more Americans are coming to understand. He is a profoundly damaged human being and a lousy leader. In the harsh light of history, Trump is shriveling even as we watch.
This week, a president who never hesitates to go low, went low, lower, and finally, lowest.
The low came when Trump suggested that MSNBC morning host and former GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough was complicit in a murder. According to Trump, the death of Lori Klausutis, an aide who worked for Scarborough in 2001, remains “suspicious.”
(The coroner long ago ruled the death the result of natural causes.)
Ms. Klausutis’ husband asked Twitter to remove Trump’s
disgusting tweets on the topic. Then he wrote a letter, which The New York
Time published, saying that the president had taken the story of
his wife’s death and “perverted it for perceived political gain.”
Trump started taking heat, even from Republicans who still remember they have souls. “Birther” McEnany, whose soul long ago fled her body, was trotted out to explain to reporters. She said she didn’t know if the president had seen Mr. Klausutis’ letter. She did want everyone to know “our hearts are with Lori’s family at this time.” You knew as soon as those words spilled from her lips, that McEnany hadn’t given a thought to the Klausutis family in the past nineteen years, until Trump started tweeting.
When reporters questioned Trump later, he said, no, he didn’t feel bad about spreading the conspiracy theory. “A lot of people have been saying that [emphasis added],” he claimed.
Well…there was him…
And?
*
THAT WAS a new Trump low. But on Wednesday he sank lower. On Twitter, Trump retweeted some cowboy-looking dude telling a gathering, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
Ha, ha! So humorous! What next: “The only good Indians is a dead Indian?” What could go wrong?
But there it was. The President of the United States was offering tacit approval for a man suggesting that the nation would be better off if someone killed the 31% of Americans who call themselves Democrats.
How do you go lower than that? You tweet even more sh*t. In the wake of the tragic death of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of white Minneapolis police, the city erupted in protest – and then rioting. How, then did Trump decide to help? First, he attacked Mayor Jacob Frey.
And, here, let us pause a moment to revisit other times Trump has responded to tragedy by attacking those who have suffered, rather than displaying the slightest shreds of human kindness. One might be reminded of the time Trump called the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, “an ingrate,” after her city and island were smashed by hurricanes. Her sin was failing to praise him highly enough.
Or the time he attacked the Chicago police superintendent in the wake of a bloody weekend of shootings.
Or the time he called the mayor of London “a stone cold loser” in the wake of a rash of terrorist-related stabbings.
Or the time he went to El Paso after a mass shooting, and at a hospital, where he was supposed to be comforting the wounded, decided to brag about how big his crowds were at a recent rally.
In other words, Trump has gone low many times before, and lower many times, also. Now, with an American city in flames, he tweeted twice.
First:
I can’t stand back &
watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of
leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act
together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard
& get the job done right.....
Then:
....These THUGS are
dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke
to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way.
Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the
shooting starts. Thank you!
Once again, you have the essence of a despicable human being. For Trump, all people out that night – not just the looters, but people really protesting – were the same. They were “THUGS.”
Next, you have the bombastic claim of a man terminally ill with narcissism, “I won’t let it happen.”
Then the simplistic solution: “Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Finally: End with an incongruous: “Thank you.”
Let’s be clear. Looting is inexcusable. Burning down a Popeye’s Chicken and a Wendy’s isn’t advancing a coherent message. But when governments start shooting into crowds, history shows results are almost always bad. We know this from the Boston Massacre in 1770, from Sand Creek in 1864, from the Ludlow bloodbath in 1913, and the shooting at Kent State in 1970. We have seen the carnage during the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, at Sharpeville in 1960, at Tiananmen Square in 1989, and last year at Khartoum. Bullets fired into crowds hit innocent bystanders. Excessive force – for example, shooting a young man absconding from a looted store with a $100 pair of tennis shoes – is clearly not the answer, when the precipitating cause of the protests-rioting-looting was excessive force used on Floyd to begin.
Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t do nuance, or even human decency. He’s all macho posturing. It’s his image he treasures. Narcissism first. Narcissism last.
If shooting other Americans can elevate him in the eyes of
his base, he’s ready to start the shooting.
*
“I don’t know where it came from or where it originated.”
TRUMP STARTED taking heat immediately, and tried to walk his tone-deaf tweets back. That is, he denied what he had said. He didn’t mean he wanted to start shooting. “It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement,” he tweeted again. “It’s very simple, nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters, and those looking to cause trouble on social media.”
Yeah, causing trouble on social media!
Don’t you hate that.
When reporters asked him to
clarify his position on clearing the streets with gunfire, Trump played dumb.
“I’ve heard that phrase for a long time. I don’t know where it came from or
where it originated,” he said, a feigned look of innocence on his orange mug.
“Frankly, it means when there’s looting, people get shot and they die. And if
you look at what happened last night and the night before [there were shots
fired in two cities], you see that, it’s very common. And that’s the way that’s
meant.”
So: Trump didn’t really mean what Trump said he meant in his original tweets: “I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right.....These THUGS….when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”
That is: we (he and his soldiers) will be in control – and looting means his soldiers start shooting.
It’s pretty clear.
POSTSCRIPT: The “looting…shooting” phrase is thought to have originated with Eugene “Bull” Conner, the racist public safety commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama in the 60s. Conner delighted in such ploys as attacking African Americans with fire hoses and police dogs.
Also: truncheons. He really hated pesky “n------” who wanted to exercise their basic rights, including the right to vote.
Later, his slogan was picked up by Miami, Florida police Chief Walter Headley. As Headley saw it, a dose of lead would keep troublemakers under control. “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality [emphasis added],” he admitted.
Another big fan of shooting vs. looting was Governor George Wallace, who ran for president in 1968, basing his entire campaign on the idea that you should fight for “law and order.” For example, you could lead that fight by ignoring a court order and standing in the doorway when an African American student tried to gain entry to the University of Alabama.
Because “order” in the phrase “law and order” has different meanings
for different people.
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