In almost every area of politics, President Donald Trump is out of his league. In fact, he’s not even in the ballpark when it comes to everything outside of putting his Diet Coke on his Oval Office desk without a coaster. But there is one area where the president surpasses all of those before him: stoking the flames of hate.
Unlike leaders of the past who spoke in coded language, forcing their minions to decipher the hidden meaning, President Trump’s hate-filled messages have been crystal clear. Since taking office, he’s not only encouraged violence during his rallies, he’s called for violence while acting as if he’s not using his megaphone to rally the troops.
President Trump has attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on several occasions as he continues to paint one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress as anti-Jewish and anti-American.
Last week, conservatives took a speech that Omar gave on March 23 out of context in which she claimed that many Americans were using the attacks on 9/11 to hate all Muslims just because “some people did something.”
Well, that last part of Omar’s statement was enough for Trump’s base to go wild.
Now, death threats have increased at Omar’s office since Trump, the president of the United States, decided to tweet a video that showed clips of the 9/11 attacks and Omar’s comments.
That’s the video the president of the United States tweeted. The same guy who shortly after 9/11 boasted about having the tallest building in New York now that the World Trade Center had fallen; but most racists and xenophobes never let the truth get in the way of proposed violence and hate.
Since Trump shared the video on Twitter, Omar has seen a surge in death threats.
“I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life—many directly referencing or replying to the President’s video,” Omar tweeted in a statement. “I thank the Capitol Police, the FBI, the House Sergeant at Arms, and the Speaker of the House for their attention to these threats.”
This is Trump’s fault. This is the bullshit dance that he does in which he throws the (Twitter) rock and then hides his absurdly tiny hands. To hear Trump tell it, the rise of white nationalism isn’t a thing despite data showing that “white supremacists’ propaganda efforts increased 182 percent last year, with 1,187 distributions across the U.S. in 2018, up from 421 total incidents reported in 2017,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Trump continues to call journalists the enemy of the people despite a crazed gunman storming the Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland’s capital, Annapolis, and killing five journalists.
In fact, the president doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. Ever.
“I don’t think it’s the president that’s putting her in danger, I think it’s her ill-thought-out words that she used to describe the greatest terror attack on the history of United States soil which killed nearly 3,000 Americans,” Marc Lotter, Director of Strategic Communications for Trump’s 2020 campaign, said early Monday on CNN’s New Day when asked about the video Trump tweeted, the Hill reports.
“Make no mistake, no congressperson, no American should be threatened and no one is inciting violence,” Lotter added. “I think what they’re doing is showing outrage toward words that should have been better thought out.”
This is the game that the Trump administration plays and it’s potentially deadly. Trump does the act and then his minions run out and say that isn’t what he meant, but the damage has already been done. Trump’s got 59.7 million followers on Twitter and has often talked about how he loves having a direct line to his cult-like following. So what are the chances that they saw the tweet directly from their leader versus watching some talking head, who before this moment, I’ve never even heard of ... and I cover this stuff.
Lotter also added that he wasn’t going to ask Trump to take the tweet down noting: “I’m not going to tell the president what he should or should not do with his Twitter account.”
And that’s also the problem; because the child is running the White House without adult supervision, and no one can stop the hate-monger from posting his hate-filled messages.
It’s important that we think about this: A New York man was arrested for threatening to kill Omar earlier this month and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she has instructed the Capitol sergeant-at-arms to ensure Omar’s safety from people trying to do harm to her and who most likely lust over their first cousins and wear MAGA hats.