S*** the President Says – 8/12/2019

Ladies and gentlemen, behold, some s*** the president said during the previous week:

“The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy…Hate has no place in America.” 8/5/2019 national address on mass shootings.

This is a nice statement. Other than Donald Trump being a poor messenger, in my view, this is a perfectly fine statement after a horrific weekend of mass killings. He even mentioned white supremacy by name, which I think is important. The question is, can he keep up this presidential sentiment through any length of time?

“May God bless the memory of those who perished in Toledo.” 8/5/2019 national address on mass shootings.

Toledo? Toledo was not among last week’s mass shootings. Oh well. Everyone makes mistakes, I guess. Even those people whose job it is to read a written address to a grieving nation following a spate of violence in El Paso and Dayton. Truthfully, if these types of blunders were the only rightful criticism of Donald Trump, I would vote for him myself. These mistakes are embarrassing, but I don’t think they matter. Everyone is human.

This was published slightly before the president’s national address, but even here he is already thinking of concrete solutions to meet the national epidemic of gun violence. So far, so good! Now let’s see what’s at the end of this tweet.

Wait, what? I haven’t mentioned this just yet, but the El Paso shooter drove over nine hours to target El Paso specifically because he was inspired to shoot immigrants. Several lines from his manifesto were direct quotes from previous Trump speeches and after all, Donald Trump did begin his presidential campaign with an assumption that most Mexican immigrants are rapists and murderers. After this slaughter, tying gun control legislation to immigration reform is advancing this crazy shooter’s beliefs, is it not?

Oh my. Blaming the news media in part for mass shootings inspired by political ideology is wrong and sick, especially so soon after a man blamed Donald Trump’s speech explicitly in federal court for having mailed several bombs to people he saw on CNN.

Here, the Fox News President wonders why he caught any criticism after the El Paso shooting. It’s almost like if you spend three years calling immigrants rapists and murderers, claiming they stole our jobs, and speaking of them as an infestation or invasion that our political process is encouraging out of pure short-term political interest, people might think you have some ancillary role in a crazy murderer’s decision to take those words to heart and matters into his own hands. Yes, mass shootings happened while Obama was president. But his words never legitimized fringe theories encouraging violence.

Robert “Beto” O’Rourke grew up in El Paso and represented them in Congress for six years. He’s never claimed Hispanic heritage. O’Rourke called President Trump a racist following last week’s shootings, an opinion shared by a majority of Americans. Let’s note that after being called a racist, Trump’s response was to attack Beto personally rather than engage with the criticism in any way.

The president isn’t wrong here. Rage and conflict are exciting; sanity and competence are less so. Of all the criticisms one could accurately lob Trump’s way – corrupt, ineffective, racist, dishonest, criminal, un-American – you can’t call him boring. If this is our choice in November 2020, allow me to actually quote Mitch McConnell of all people: “Put me down in favor of boring.”

Yes, that’s the important part of the day you console a country under siege by gun violence. How the media portrayed the enthusiasm these grieving families showed you personally. While you visited them in the hospital. If there is one thing we can expect reliably from President Trump, it is for every possible news story to end up being about President Trump.

I’ve accidentally flipped to the wrong channel. Everyone has. If you watch for the whole hour, though, that’s on you.

That’s our report for this week. Be sure to check out the links for more info on any particular topic and, as always, thanks for reading.