On the morning of August 3, 2019, a lone gunman killed 22 people and injured 24 others in El Paso, Texas.
On August 7, President Donald Trump flew to El Paso—allegedly to comfort the surviving victims of that massacre.
But what was officially intended to be a day of comforting the afflicted became one of Presidential egomania.
Trump initially praised the medical staff of the University Medical Center at El Paso: “The job you’ve done is incredible. They’re talking about you all over the world.”
But then he quickly pivoted to praise himself.
He said that he and his Democratic Presidential rival, Beto O’Rourke, had staged political rallies in El Paso earlier in February. And he mocked the relatively small size of the crowd that had attended the one by O’Rourke:
“I was here three months ago, we made a speech. That place was packed. …That was some crowd. And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people in a parking lot, they said his crowd was wonderful.”
Trump did not boast that he has still not paid the $569,204.63 his campaign owes to El Paso for police and public safety fees from that rally.
After mocking Beto O’Rourke, Trump referred to his earlier visit that day to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio.
Three days earlier, on the morning of August 4, another gun massacre had rocked Dayton. Ten people were killed, including the gunman, and 27 others were injured.
But empathy for the victims—dead and living—was far from Trump’s mind as he spoke with medical staffers in El Paso:
“We had an amazing day. As you know, we left Ohio. And the love and the respect for the office of the presidency, it was—I wish you could have been in there to see it. I wish you could have been in there.”
John Olilver, an English comedian, political commentator and television host, offered a scathing review of Trump’s behavior: “Look, we all know how much Trump struggles to do the bare minimum of being a president, but it’s still genuinely shocking just how much he struggles to do the bare minimum of being a fucking person.
John Oliver
“Just consider the thought process that happened there: He visited a hospital filled with victims of a mass shooting and thought to himself: ‘Remember that other time when I was the center of attention and it was better?’ And then he thought: ‘Do you think anyone else remembers that?’ Then he thought: ‘I should remind them, right?!’ Then he thought: ‘Great idea!'”
From the outset of his Presidency, Trump has routinely made himself the center of attention on what should have been a somber occasion.
The first time this happened was on January 21, 2017—the day after his inauguration.
He visited the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Virginia, to pay tribute to the men and women who discover—and counter—the deadly plots of America’s sworn enemies.
Now Trump stood before what, to CIA employees, was the agency’s most sacred site: The star-studded memorial wall honoring the 117 CIA officers who had fallen in the line of duty.
Donald Trump at the CIA
So Trump talked about—himself.
Here are the some excerpts:
….You know, when I was young and when I was—of course, I feel young. I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. Somebody said, are you young? I said, I think I’m young. You know, I was stopping— when we were in the final month of that campaign, four stops, five stops, seven stops. Speeches, speeches, in front of 25,000, 30,000 people, 15,000, 19,000 from stop to stop. I feel young….
* * * * *
And I was explaining about the numbers. We did a thing yesterday at the speech. Did everybody like the speech? I’ve been given good reviews. But we had a massive field of people. You saw them. Packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field.
I say, wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was—it looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there were practically nobody standing there.
Crowds at Obama (left) and Trump (right) Inaugurals
And they said, Donald Trump did not draw well. I said, it was almost raining, the rain should have scared them away, but God looked down and he said, we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.
* * * * *
So a reporter for Time magazine—and I have been on their cover, like, 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine. Like, if Tom Brady is on the cover, it’s one time, because he won the Super Bowl or something, right?
I’ve been on it for 15 times this year. I don’t think that’s a record….that can ever be broken. Do you agree with that? What do you think?
* * * * *
Former CIA director John Brennan thought Trump’s remarks were “despicable.”
That word is now widely being used to describe the man who, tweeted Beto O’Rourke, “helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible.”
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THE CONSTITUTION HAS A SURPRISE FOR TRUMP
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2020 at 12:06 amThe United States Constitution has a surprise for President Donald Trump—provided that Congress has the courage to enforce it.
The surprise comes in Article II, Section III.
Article II lays out the powers and responsibilities of the President of the United States. Section III states that, among these, is: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed….”
Opening page of the United States Constitution
That requirement certainly doesn’t square with the following behavior.
On April 15, Right-wing demonstrators launched “Operation Gridlock”, a protest against strict stay-at-home orders by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to curb the spread of Coronavirus. A host of demonstrators—many of them armed with high-powered weaponry—descended on the state capitol building in Lansing.
A group stood on the capitol steps brandishing signs that stated “Trump/Pence”, “Recall Whitmer”, “Heil Whitmer” and “Stop the Tyranny”, and chanted “Lock her up!”
On April 17, with governors across the nation implementing “stay-at-home” orders to curtail the spread of Coronavirus, Trump tweeted:
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”
“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
“LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”
It’s no coincidence that all of these states have Democratic governors. And his incendiary remarks followed Right-wing demonstrations against stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and other states.
Some protesters carried guns, wore Trump MAGA caps and brandished Confederate flags. They claimed to be defending constitutional freedoms. Egging them on have been Right-wing pundits on Fox News.
“These are people expressing their views,” Trump said at his April 17 White House Coronavirus task force briefing. “I see where they are and I see the way they’re working. They seem to be very responsible people to me, but they’ve been treated a little bit rough.”
He dismissed fears that, by crowding together, the protesters could become infected and spread COVID-19 to others.
“I think some things are too tough,” said Trump. “And if you look at some of the states you just mentioned, it’s too tough, not only in reference to this but what they’ve done in Virginia with respect to the Second Amendment is just a horrible thing … When you see what other states have done, I think I feel very comfortable.”
Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, responded on Twitter: “The president’s statements this morning encourage illegal and dangerous acts. He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting Covid-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to ‘liberate’ states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before.”
And Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman, said: “Republicans will turn a blind eye [and] too many in the press will focus on ‘tone’. But history books will say: in April of 2020, when the pandemic had already claimed 35,000 lives, the President of the United States incited people to storm their statehouses with AR-15s and AK-47s.”
On May 1, demonstrators—many of them heavily armed—again descended on the state capital in Lansing, protesting Whitmer’s extension of her emergency declaration that kept some businesses closed amidst the plague. And, once again, Trump sided with the protesters.
Gretchen Whitmer
“The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire,” Trump tweeted. “These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”
Trump has two hidden agendas for ending “stay-at-home” orders.
First, from the moment he took office on January 20, 2017, he has claimed credit for a booming economy—even though this was largely the work of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Now, with thousands of businesses shut down because of Coronavirus, that economy is essentially dead.
Coronavirus
Trump knows that Presidents who preside over faltering economies usually don’t win a second term. And Trump not only lusts to win a second term but—as he has repeatedly “joked”—become “President-for-Life.”
Second, Trump is desperate to return to his Nuremberg-style rallies. There he can hurl insults at virtually everyone and bask in the fanatical worship of his followers. These rallies act as fuel to his campaign.
His “White House Coronavirus briefings” have served as a watered-down substitute for those rallies. He must pretend they aren’t purely political. Worse, he must share the podium with others who know far more about the plague than he does.
So now he’ll go to any lengths to “reopen” the country–including the solicitation of violent resistance to the laws of governors he doesn’t like.
Earlier this year, Trump escaped removal from office because Senate Republicans refused to hold him accountable for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
But as Coronavirus continues to kill Americans in record numbers—almost 100,000 by May 26—even Republican members of Congress may decide to hold Trump accountable. Especially as the virus moves from Democratic states like New York and Illinois to Republican ones like Florida and South Carolina.
Encouraging violent resistance to the legally established laws of the United States is a crime. If enough Republicans decide to uphold the law rather than ignore it, the Trump Era will become in history what it has in politics: A dirty stain on the American memory.
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