Imagine if they were Muslims instead of white guys? It would not be safe for anyone looking like a Muslim to be walking the streets of America. That would include Sikhs who many think are Muslims. Trump’s decision keeping Muslims out of America would be hailed.
Imagine if they were African-Americans. We’d probably find ourselves returning to the days of Jim Crow and the mob lynching of blacks in the South in America. Less than 100 years ago lynching of blacks was done by white mobs with impunity. The federal government did nothing about it. How many knew that after WWI more than ten black soldiers wearing their uniforms were lynched? As recently as July 1946 in Georgia a lynching-type event occurred when two black couples were shot 60 times by a mob of thirty armed, unmasked white men none of whom were prosecuted.
Trump had a trifecta last week. His words were put into deeds on three occasions. They were done by the group that most identifies with him: white men.
In the show position is person described in a comment to this blog as “just a harmless nut.” That’s just the thing! Trump doesn’t discriminate when he talks between nuts and others. A harmless nut can be more easily convinced than perhaps another. This one was named Cesar Altieri Sayoc Jr., a 56-year-old white man. He attended Trump rallies and decorated his vehicle with pro-Trump signs. He also had signs showing people Trump calls enemies: CNN, Democratic Party leaders, government officials, and liberal activists in the cross-hairs of a rifle. This harmless nut sent out 14 packages that contained explosives. Nut indeed! Harmless, I suggest not. Motivated by Trump’s rhetoric. Of that there is little doubt.
The runner-up in the race is Gregory A. Bush, a 51-year-old white man, another nut. Believing the not too subtle racist message of Trump he shot at and murdered two blacks in their late sixties at a Kroger supermarket. No doubt it was a racist attack. He was observed banging on the door of the nearby black First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown trying to gain entrance. Failing that, he went to the supermarket to show his white credentials: “whites don’t shoot whites.” A racist crime but one inspired by the Trump white nationalist rhetoric.
Trump’s infamous statement after the Charlottesville white supremacist tiki torch march during which a young woman was killed, “Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. … You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people—on both sides.” That certainly was a signal to the white supremacist side. Rather than condemning them he mitigated their conduct.
Why,? Because they are his people. From David Duke onward to the Bikers for Trump, the Proud Boys, the Rise Above Movement, Patriot Prayer and the like which as noted these “groups don’t hesitate to invoke his presidency as validation for their belief systems.” Some of these far right all white movements began in 2016 as Trump spewed his hatred on the campaign trail. At a recent bike rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, an article noted: “one can go hours — or days — without seeing a person of color in the crowds here at one of the world’s largest biker rallies. In Sturgis, the definition of diversity is a white guy on a foreign bike.” Add to that they say: “the leader of this pack is Donald Trump.”
The winner of the race is another white man 46-year-old Robert Bowers. He murdered 11 and wounded six. What’s with these white guys? It was only a year ago Stephen Paddock a 64-year-old white guy murdered 58 people an injured over 800 others. One thing the trifecta group has in common is that they are big followers of the white supremacist movement which without a doubt has gained a big following thanks to Trump.
As for Bowers, he’s another nut, I guess. Another nut with guns. You know other countries have their nuts but they don’t have guns, only in America. Nor do they have these white supremacy movements which apparently are a legacy of the antebellum years in the South or the Jim Crow years. These are the conditions into which Trump talks.
Bowers like Gregory Bush went to a place of worship to do his attack. It was a synagogue on the Jewish Sabbath. Immediately prior to going there he tweeted: “HIAS [a Jewish American organization helping refugees] likes to bring invaders that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in.” Bowers said of HIAS that it “likes to bring in invaders that kill our people.”
Although Bowers said he doesn’t support Trump because he is not anti-Semitic enough, he certainly has been following Trump’s rhetoric. Trump over the last week has been pounding the caravan invasion message. Bowers anger at the Jews were that they were helping transport members of the migrant caravans coming up through Mexico. Those are the people who he considers as invaders. Those are people Trump recently has been demonizing.
This trifecta of terrorist attacks – that is what they should be called – took place over one week’s time as Trump ramps up his rhetoric against the groups that are the subject of these attacks. Trump may not explicitly come out against blacks or Jews but his white supremacist followers who have hatred for those groups get comfort from Trump’s overall rhetoric demeaning the other people.
It is Trump’s lies, his advocating violence, and abetting prejudices that have advanced hatred and evil. Trump has wrought the tearing apart of our nation and the murder of good people in their place of worship. He has loosed the nuts upon us. He has brought about manifest evil. His hands cannot be cleansed of this. “Out, damned spot! Out, I say” He must accept the blame for inspiring these events. “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” Words matter.
MAXINE WATERS
MAXINE WATERS
KEITH ELLISON
MAXINE WATERS
CALYPSO LOUIE FARRAKHAN ( listened to this fruity voiced guy named … Calypso Louie ….on Saturday nights when kid ..was not calling Jews vermin and termites then . )
MAXINE WATERS
KEITH ELLISON
MAXINE WATERS FIND THEIR OWN LEVEL
I don’t attempt to reason with crazy bag ladies , or Lefties.
DID YOU JUST DROP THIS TENNER, DEAR ?
There was no crime in America before Trump. There was no violence in Chicago. There were no gang killings. All was peace and harmony. There was no sin. Trump derangement syndrome is rampant in certain quarters. Trump did not cause these killings and how could he do something to stop more? Please inform. Enlighten us if you have a solution.
He can’t do anything. He has no power. I can’t think of a single thing a sitting president could do to improve anything. THEN WHY DO WE FUCKING HAVE ONE???????
Abe:
THE THERAPY WORKS !!!!!!!!!
Sorry for the CAPS, NC. John is right. The therapy does work.
The president, the president, the president. It’s we the people that have the responsibility to do something. If we waited for politicians to do something we would have nothing. Amateurs built this country. Total amateurs. Lots of questions. Few answers.
NC:
“Whataboutism” doesn’t solve problems. Trump’s rhetoric is the direct cause of these evil acts. My solution is really to get rid of Trump because he preaches hate. Just yesterday he’s back calling the media the enemy of the people a term liked by Joe Stalin and Mao. If we can’t get rid of him then he should stop calling good Americans enemies. That would be a start.
Matt :
Is …. enemies … one of the banned words ?
Got to check the list .
What you and your ilk want to do is circumscribe speech .
Selectively
This is why you have NO ANSWER EXCEPT AN ASININE ONE OF … “WHATABOUTISM ” … TO THE VIRULENT ANTI -SEMITISM OF FARRAKHAN.
You and your ilk refuse to call it out for what it is while at the same time you castigate others in the Republican Party for much less .
FARRAKHAN IS A MAWKISH PUNCH AND JEWRY SHOW EMBARRASSMENT TO HIS RACE, HIS PARTY, RELIGION, AND TO HUMANITY.
Your … WHATABOUTISM .. is a feeble deflection. Essentially you would like to label any political speech not approved by the Left as superfluous; easily dismissed by portmanteau words and empty cases . The sheer nihilism of your attitude that characterizes the logical rebuttal arguments of THE OTHER as ” WHATABOUTISM ” is really ….. MORALLY REVOLTING .
How about that ?!?
Trump is white trash America personified. Does not read that much , yet his voters could care less. Trump really got to the point with his hat, Make America Great Again. Might as well say, Make America White Again. Violence at his campaign rallys and he never disavows it. Who will beat him in 2020? The female Senators speak and I laugh out loud . As you get older you get much more jaded and it is not looking good for this country as far as national leadership goes.Any thoughts on the Massachusetts State Police? How does Charlie Baker ever run for President when he can nor even oversee his own State police? Or are law enforcement in the post 9/11 era beyond governing control?
Norwood,
Yes, the MAGA hats and slogans were aimed directly at people wanting to keep the white race in charge and all the others out of any positions of power. What white people fear most is that if blacks get in charge they will treat the whites like the whites treat the blacks. Too bad they were never treated as equals then we would not have these fears of losing control.
As for law enforcement, all politicians seem to beckon to their every wish. How else can you account for so many in the State Police earning close to 300,000 a year. The State Police have thrived under every governor so I can’t put that on Baker. The thing to worry about is Trump is now suggesting the law enforcement community should respond to his desires. Talking about that the other day someone suggested that fortunately in this country most law enforcement activity is at the local or state level and that prevents any president from gaining full control over it. For that, we are lucky because most in law enforcement are not going to let any president strip us of our rights.
I don’t know if Trump positively caused these killings but I do know that he could do something to help stop more killings. That, to me, is the sad part of this man holding the most powerful office in the world.
My father use to say that it was quite amazing that Schweitzer and Gandhi and Mother Teresa and Hitler and Stalin and Mussolini were all once tiny babies. Being bathed in a little basin and nursed by their mothers and passed from uncle to aunt to uncle on holidays. We all sit back and watch these angels and devils grow up and do their work and we don’t learn a fucking thing.
Matt: Sayoc would be offended by your referring to him as a ‘white man.’
His cousin told a reporter that Sayoc’s father is Filipino and his mother was Italian. The alleged bomber repeatedly claimed to be a Seminole Indian. So far there is no DNA-test information, but the Seminole say they have no record of him.
Henry:
I did notice his heritage that he was part Filipino – at least according to one of his cousins – but it seemed to me he thought himself a white man. I assume his claim of Native American heritage might have been something he learned from family lore like Elizabeth Warren. I’m not that up to date on the Seminoles but I’d be surprised if they had units of their tribe in the Philippines or Italia. As Elizabeth showed us you can be both white and Native American. Anyway, we’ell have to wait for more information from Sayoc to figure out what he really is.
As the media and the left go on and on about hateful rhetoric from President Donald Trump, they seem to have forgotten that their own rhetoric doesn’t help either. Not only Trump’s severed head dripping blood, or Eric Holder’s ‘kick em’ when they’re down,’ or Maxine Waters’ rants, or Antifa. or the Bernie Sanders worker nearly murdering pro-Trump congressman Scalise.
How about items like this fantasy story at The New York Times the day before the massacre in Pittsburgh that depicts the assassination of Trump:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/books/review/trumps-next-chapter.html
“Satanic Jews who have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.” Minister Louis Farrakhan, friend of Obama and Clinton. Hates Trump.
Henry:
I think there is a difference when a president speaks than some comedian.
Posts from the suspected Pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers. He hated Trump and thought Trump was controlled by Jews. This monster is an unhinged anti-Semitic terrorist.
https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1056208150670397446
Henry:
Bowers was motivated to attack the Jews in Pittsburgh because they were aiding those in Trump’s recently highlighted dreaded cavaran which has now occasioned the sending of 5,200 regular Army troops to the border along with blackhawk helicopters with night vision to protect our country from these people Trump describes as “invaders.”
For a supposed educated street,”southie”, guy you’re pretty sad.
White guy equals Trump’s fault.
how many “black guys” murdered whites, blacks, Hispanics etc in 8 years of Obama?
How many mass killings?
You know the answer: a lot.
And of course it wasn’t Obama’s fault.
Facts matter, as a prosecutor you should know that. But then again as a prosecutor in Massachusetts facts don’t really count, just opinions and political sides .
JS:
You get involved in the “whateaboutism” which prevents us from putting any blame on any person. Some people have equated the president’s talk with that of a comedian. Yes, as a Southie guy I learned two wrongs don’t make a right and if a guy on the corner wants to talk about white supremacy that differs substantially from a person in the Oval Office talking about it. White supremacy is an evil in our country when it suggests that the country is for whites and the others, Hispanics, blacks, Jews, Asians, are not welcome or are here because we whites tolerate them. White supremacy led to the many lynchings of blacks that occurred during the first part of the 20th century and the presidents of the country back then said nothing about them in the same way Trump seems to ignore what he encourages.
Obama didn’t preach hate. In fact, it was the opposite. It is hard to put any of the violence on him.
Trump preaches hate with his lies about Muslims and immigrants. Most recently suggesting the poor people in the cavarans are being infiltrated by Middle East people and M13 members and that we need to have the Army man our borders because this is an “invasion.” Facts do matter. One fact is Trump using the evil term used in the past by Joe Stalin and Mao, “enemy of the people,” to describe the news media. One fact is Trump’s encouraging of those “lock ’em up” chants, and calling Democrats not Americans (as we see with people wearing “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat T shirts), and Trump’s demeaning of those who actually protect us like our intelligence agencies and FBI.
Trump’s encouragement of violence against Democrats led to the MAGAbomber, Trump’s attack on the poor people coming north in groups for protection led to the synagogue murders, and Trump’s promotion of white supremacy led to the murders by the guy who couldn’t get into the black church. Saying words don’t matter is to ignore the reality of life. Why does Trump hold his rallies if words don’t matter; why did Hitler go on and preach his brand of hatred?