After a Week of Troubles, Trump Pumps up the Rhetoric

This nation is in trouble.

And let’s be honest – not just the nation, but the world, as a whole, has gone spiraling off the tracks of sanity and goodness, for a long time.

But let’s just address what has happened to our beloved United States, for now.

In the last week, we’ve seen hate rear up and do so much damage in our land.

On Wednesday, 51 year old Gregory Bush entered a Kroger grocery store in Jeffersontown, Kentucky and at random, shot 69 year old Maurice Stallard, as he shopped with his grandson.

He then shot 67 year old Vickie Jones in the parking lot. A citizen with concealed carry permission engaged in a shootout with Bush, at that time, but Bush got away in his vehicle and was apprehended by police officers a short time later.

Was this a racially motivated attack?

Probably.

Surveillance footage shows that just minutes before going to the Kroger and randomly killing two black citizens, Bush, who is white, attempted to gain entry to a predominantly black church, nearby.

Video shows him aggressively pulling at the doors, that had been locked at the end of a midweek service. About ten people were still inside, at the time.

Then there is the case of Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man who was apprehended on Friday, after a week that saw a dozen perceived “enemies” of President Trump receive potentially explosive devices in the mail or by courier.

George Soros, Representative Maxine Waters, former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, as well as the CNN headquarters at the Time Warner Center in New York all received the suspicious packages.

Even the actor, Robert De Niro, who has been openly critical of Trump, received one.

Fingerprints on the package to Maxine Waters led authorities to Sayoc.

When he was captured, they also hauled away his white van, which was covered in an insane amount of what the media is calling “political propaganda.”

The windows, sides, and back of the van were covered in pro-Trump stickers and images, including a “CNN Sucks” sticker.

He was a real fan of President Trump and the MAGA way.

So were these devices sent to harm, or simply to intimidate?

It doesn’t matter. It was wrong. It was a politically motivated attack, and highlights the divisive ugliness of where our politics currently sit.

We haven’t even had the opportunity to digest, fully, how someone like Cesar Sayoc is created, before we were met with the horrors that Saturday brought.

Robert Bowers, a crazed conspiracy theorist, burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue, in the Squirrel Hill community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and killed 11 people, there for Shabbat services.

One of those people killed, tragically, was a 97 year old Holocaust survivor, Rose Mallinger.

She survived Hitler’s horrors, only to see her end on American soil, by someone who harbored the same, satanic ideology.

Bowers, apparently, was anti-immigrant, referring to the migrant caravan as an “invasion” and blaming Jews for aiding in the invasion of our nation.

And I’ve seen a lot of people trying to put him in the Trump camp. That’s just not accurate.

Bowers did not consider Trump an ally. He called Trump a “traitor,” feeling him too closely aligned with the Jewish cause.

He later told police, “All these Jews need to die.”

Hate has consumed him, and he’ll have a long time in prison to contemplate his actions. Hopefully, he changes his heart before the needle goes into his arm, because that’s surely what he’s facing.

I gave you the brief overview of last week’s horrors, to lead into our president’s Monday morning performance.

With so much happening, you’d think this would be the thing needed to steer Trump to more reflective, calm waters.

You’d think.

This is Donald Trump, we’re talking about. He was vile going into office, so why should he change? His base loves it when he goes low, because it puts him on their level. He has made it acceptable for them to give in to their most hateful instincts. He has made conspiracy theories and utter, next-level ignorance of anything outside of bumper stickers and internet memes in vogue.

Even after his rhetoric inspired someone to mail potentially explosive devices to at least one news agency, Trump tweeted out to his conscience-free supporters more fodder.

The president said in a pair of tweets that the “Fake News Media” is “the true Enemy of the People,” reviving a derisive term for the press less than a week after an explosive device was mailed to CNN’s New York City offices.

“There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

“That will do much to put out the flame of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony,” he added.

Trump’s continued attacks on the media, even after Cesar Sayoc says a lot about the sincerity of his words on Friday, when he referred to Sayoc’s acts as “despicable,” and even said we must never allow political violence to take root in America.

So if you don’t want political violence to take root, Mr. President, why do you keep planting the seeds with your words?

He said on Friday, he was committed to doing everything necessary to stop it, but by Monday, it’s back to business as usual, pointing to a free press as the “enemy” and even blaming them for the past week’s events.

Anyone who has paid attention knew to view the president’s words on Friday with skepticism, even while we hoped to see some change in him.

Still, the indicators were there that it was just talk.

Trump told reporters before departing for a rally last Friday that he felt he had been restrained in his rhetoric, rejecting calls to tone it down amid the bomb scares.

“I could really tone it up because, as you know, the media’s been extremely unfair to me and to the Republican Party,” Trump said.

See?

There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

….of Anger and Outrage and we will then be able to bring all sides together in Peace and Harmony. Fake News Must End!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

And for those on the left feeling these actions vindicate your side, you can knock it off. We can point to everything from the firebombing of a GOP headquarters in North Carolina in 2016, to ricin mailed to several Republican lawmakers in early October, and a host of lunatics screaming at Republicans in public places, disrupting the peace as proof that neither side can claim to be the more civil.

You’re all awful, and if you take offense to this, well, I’m sorry, but maybe you needed to be offended.

For now, however, Donald Trump is president, and we’ve never had a president so openly and often attempt to inflame the tensions that already exist among us.

We are in trouble, and our current political leadership is not helping.

We want to know what you think about the upcoming midterm elections. Vote in our poll below!