The president of the United States condemned the attempted bombing attacks on Democrats, claiming that “political violence has no place in the U.S.”
On Wednesday, law enforcement officials said “potential explosive devices” had been sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Other Democratic officials, including Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and California Rep. Maxine Waters, evacuated their offices after they too received suspicious packages.
CNN’s New York newsroom was also evacuated after receiving a package believed to have contained a homemade pipe bomb. And, just a day earlier, billionaire Democratic donor George Soros reportedly received a pipe bomb at his New York home.
So on Wednesday the most divisive and vile president to every sit his Diet Coke on the Oval Office desk without a coaster, used a bill-signing event to push a message of peace.
“I just want to tell you that in these times, we have to unify,” Trump said at an unrelated opioid bill-signing event at the White House, CNN reports. “We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that threats or acts of political violence have no place in the United States of America.
“It’s a very bipartisan statement,” he added. “This egregious conduct is abhorrent to everything we hold dear and sacred as Americans.”
First, we know that Trump didn’t write these words. Big words like “egregious” and “abhorrent” aren’t in his vocabulary.
Secondly, and arguably most importantly, Trump seems to forget that everyone targeted on the bombing suspect’s “Who We Don’t Like” list is someone that the president has not only personally verbally attacked but has attempted to destroy.
As it stands, suspicious packages were mailed to:
- The former Democratic nominee for the 2016 election and first place winner of the “Trump can’t keep my name out of his mouth award”—Hillary Clinton, whom Trump continuously calls “Crooked Hillary.”
- Coming in as a close second to the former Secretary of State is arguably the best president to ever president, Barack Obama.
- Auntie Maxine, whom Trump continuously blasted as a “low I.Q. individual” and threatened her after she called for people to continue to harass Trump administration officials.
- The suspicious package sent to Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was reportedly intended for former Attorney General Eric Holder, whom Trump recently called a “low-life.”
- And, finally, CNN, the news station that Trump has called “fake news” since his candidacy began, and the outlet he’s encouraged his followers at rallies to openly boo and harass.
So forgive the rest of the thinking world if Trump’s apology falls on the deafest of ears. He not only spearheaded a movement that has led to this inescapable reaction but he’s encouraged, incited, and damn near demanded this level of violence.
We’ve seen this phony reflective president before, after the newsroom shootings at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., where a gunman killed five journalists in June. At the time, Trump had declared the media the enemy of his presidency and had been talking up measures to prevent journalists from reporting on his administration.
After the shooting, Trump claimed that “journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs.”
It didn’t take long for Trump to start back in on the media, though. The death of five people taught him nothing. The introspective Trump was gone no less than a month later when he took to Twitter to write:
“I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!,” Politico reports.
How can he continuously paint people as his enemy and not expect his minions to do what anyone would do to their enemies? He has not simply painted Democrats as political opponents. He’s emboldened theories that they were complicit in child sex trafficking, murders and terrorism.
His white nationalist supporters even admitted that they took Trump’s Charlottesville “both sides” comments as an acknowledgment of his support.
So fuck this guy and that guy. Fuck the Trump that started this wrath and the one who’s trying to condemn it. As it stands, Trump has declared Democratic leadership, non-straight white men, and anyone else who brushes up against his presidency the wrong way the enemy of his administration. Have you seen his rallies? Those are the faces of hate. He encourages his crowd, literally builds them up to a lather of active hate. And these attempted bombings—all aimed at people that Trump has consistently targeted—are par for the course.
Just recently, Trump declared himself a “nationalist”— a foghorn for those who follow a separatist agenda.
Trump may not have created this hate, as killing and bombing shit is as American as killing and bombing shit, but he activates his minions with his countless rallies. He encourages this dissonance with his reckless rhetoric. He awakened the stagnant divisiveness of America’s lifeblood and the results are proving catastrophic. He’s a grown man who knows that words matter. He should’ve learned that in grade school. If the president of the United States can’t see that he’s lighting the spark that’s going to blow this all up then what hope do we have?
He may not have sent the bombs but he lit the fuse.