It's getting so bad that even Republicans are starting to notice.
Trump’s decision to “give thanks” by spewing bigotry and
slurs is not a surprise. Even by his standards, though, his harangue was
despicable. It was also a disgusting effort to leverage for partisan ends the
shooting of National Guard members in Washington DC.
As his popularity and influence slips, Trump seems more and
more desperate. That makes him more reckless and in many ways more dangerous.
It also opens up opportunities for opposition, though — sometimes from
unexpected quarters.
The worst person you know is president
Trump’s awful rant was inspired in part by a shooting on the
Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving.
An Afghan national who
worked with the US in Kandahar and had been granted asylum in the US opened
first on two members of the West Virginia National Guard who were patrolling in
the city as part of Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities. Sarah Beckstrom,
20, has died. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is in critical condition as of this writing.
The shooting suspect was quickly apprehended and is in custody; he has been
charged with first degree murder.
Characteristically, Trump barely paused to comfort the
victims or the nation, and instead made the terrible act of violence all about
him.
Trump immediately resorted to incendiary rhetoric and
bigoted fearmongering. He denounced the shooting as “an act of terror” —
suggesting a political motive, though the shooter’s intentions are unknown. In
fact, on Thanksgiving, Trump contradicted his own charge of “terror,” instead
stating (also without a clear basis) that the suspect “went cuckoo. I mean, he
went nuts. It happens too often with these people.”
Of course, Trump doesn’t really care about the shooter’s
intent or about providing the American people with accurate information. All he
cares about is leveraging the incident for his policies and his power. He
quickly froze all
asylum claim decisions — a directive which left agencies and an untold number
of desperate people in limbo.
He also embraced his usual policy of passing the buck. He blamed the Biden administration for the shooting, specifically pointing to a program that allowed Afghans who had worked with US forces to seek asylum. Trump lied that these refugees were not vetted.
When a reporter at
a press availability on Thursday pointed out
that his own Department of Justice said the Afghans had all undergone through
vetting, Trump snapped that she was “just asking questions because you’re a
stupid person.” (Further reporting has found that the
shooter was in fact granted asylum by the Trump administration.)
If Trump had a good faith interest in preventing further attacks on the National Guard, he would of course want to address his own administration’s processes and figure out if something went awry. He might look, for example, at if the suspect was radicalized in the United States, and whether easy access to guns made the shooting possible.
He could also
reevaluate his choice of FBI Director Kash Patel, who made another clownish
error in the wake of the shooting by announcing of
the perpetrator that “they will be brought to justice” when in fact the
(single) suspect was already in custody.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump could reevaluate his decision to deploy members of the National Guard into cities above the objections of local officials in order to escalate his incendiary and illegal deportation policies.
One prominent theory among law enforcement currently
working on the shooting, according to CBS,
is that “the suspect suffered from paranoia and other mental health challenges
that indicated he believed authorities sought to deport him from the US.” It’s
easy to see how this could have been exacerbated by Trump’s anti-immigrant
rhetoric, and how National Guard members could become a symbol of that policy
for a disturbed individual.
Even if the shooter was not influenced by Trump’s policies,
we know that Guard members would not have been harmed if Trump had not
needlessly deployed them. Presidents who send troops into conflict are
responsible when they are harmed. Trump’s refusal to
acknowledge any duty of care for those he puts in harm’s way is among the most
contemptible of his many contemptible traits.
Why are we talking about Minnesota?
During his aforementioned Thanksgiving press availability,
Trump attacked Somalis in Minnesota, claiming that they are “ripping off our
country and ripping apart that once-great state.” He also insulted Somalia,
which he sneered has “no laws, no water, no military, no nothing.”
When a reporter asked Trump what the heck Somalis have to do
with a shooter from Afghanistan, Trump admitted there is in fact no connection.
But that didn’t stop him from doubling down a short while
later in a disgusting Thanksgiving Truth Social post in
which he claimed refugees are “the leading cause of social dysfunction in
America.” He denounced fictitious Somali gangs who he claimed were attacking
people in Minnesota, insulted Gov. Walz, and attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, falsely
claiming she had come into the country illegally.
Trump also lied about Somali gangs being responsible for a
wave of violence in the state. He of course did not mention the political
assassination of Democratic Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman earlier this
year by a Trump
supporter.
Trump is panicking. And maybe facing consequences.
Trump is always vile and erratic. But spewing slurs on
Thanksgiving, a day following the shooting of members of the National Guard,
feels like an escalation even for him. It suggests he’s desperate to find his
own Reichstag Fire — a violent incident he can use to rally his supporters and
use as an excuse to target his enemies.
It’s not hard to figure out why Trump might be desperate.
Republicans got crushed in
elections last night month throughout the country and ever since his coalition
seems to be coming apart. His own party revolted and forced him to agree to
release files related to convicted sex offender and longtime Trump crony
Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s poll numbers are dismal and getting worse. Gallup
last week had his approval at 36
percent, a second term low.
Trump hopes to reverse his decline by becoming more and more
divisive. This is terrible news for asylum seekers who he is threatening to
deport back into the dangers they fled. It’s also terrible news for the Somali
and Afghan communities, which may well face threats and violence from MAGA
supporters because of Trump’s irresponsible and bigoted words.
But incendiary partisan rhetoric can backfire. Trump has
been trying to pressure the Indiana GOP to pass an egregious new gerrymander of
the state’s congressional districts ahead of the midterms. Republicans in the
state are reluctant because gerrymandering is very unpopular, they worry that
in a blue wave election cycle a gerrymander could backfire, and also
maybe because some
of them just think it’s wrong. Standing up to Trump means that they have gotten
a slew of death threats; a number of them have been swatted.
Indiana Republican state Sen. Michael Bohacek had been cagey
about his vote on redistricting. After Trump’s post using an ableist slur to
attack Walz, though, Bohacek officially came off the fence. His daughter,
he said,
has Down syndrome.
“This is not the first time our president has used these
insulting and derogatory references and his choices of words have
consequences,” Bohacek posted. “I will be voting NO on redistricting.” He added
that Trump could “use the next 10 months to convince voters that his policies
and behavior deserve a congressional majority.”
Trump rarely faces direct consequences for his shameful
rhetoric. That’s because in the past Republicans have largely refused to
abandon him no matter what he says or does.
In defying the president specifically because of his cruelty
— even though that cruelty was ostensibly directed at a Democrat — Bohacek is
hopefully a sign that things are changing. But Trump’s increasingly ugly
rhetoric and brutal policies suggest that even as his grip on his party slips,
he will continue to harm vulnerable people and our democracy as long as he has
any power at all.
