In the wake of the last week's string of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks on the United States, President Donald Trump offered scant comfort. Indeed, if anything, he exacerbated the damage by refusing to issue anything more than rote words of muted outrage.
Even this minimal nod at what we might consider normal human empathy was undercut nearly immediately by Trump labeling the news media as "the Enemy of the People" because it criticizes him and by his continued racist language when it comes to the immigrants who are seeking asylum in the United States and by his ongoing condemnation of Democrats, especially people of color, like Maxine Waters and Andrew Gillum. This is not to mention his invocation of the words "nationalist" and "globalist," the buzzwords of the anti-Semitic right.
It's obvious that Trump has no interest in uniting the country unless it's united in worshiping him. He has no interest in the cruel and awful things that happen in the country except in how they make him feel. "As President, as bad as you felt before," he said about the "terribleness" (his word) of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, "you feel worse. And I just — I just find it hard to believe."
He specifically declined to reach out to Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, the former president and secretary of state, in case you need reminding, after they had been mailed pipe bombs. When he was asked if he would call them and others, he said, dumbly, "Uh, if they wanted me to, but I think we'll probably pass."
His continued demonization of Democrats as aiding and abetting crime, if not being outright criminals themselves, is perverse in the wake of the week's tragedies - the Pittsburgh massacre, the Kentucky racist shooting - and the potential tragedy from the bombs. At a rally in Illinois on Saturday, Trump pronounced, "The Democrat Party is openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders, and overwhelm our country."
Both the pipe bomber and the synagogue shooter (no, I won't say their names) specifically cited the caravan of immigrants as reasons for their crimes. No one fanned that flame of fear when it comes to the border and immigrants and the caravan more than the president. If violence is committed and that is the reason given for it, then Trump is the number one propagator of that.
We have faced times when a president has used language that seemed coercive or confrontational. George W. Bush famously said to other countries, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," and many of us interpreted it to mean he was talking to us, too, we who knew that we were about to stumble into an idiotic war and enforced patriotism. And the political campaigns that came after were all about judging who was faithful to the mad war and the mad nation fighting it.
But there is something different here. Bush at least pretended that he was talking about the nation as a whole when it came to devotion and pride. Trump doesn't give a damn about any of that. He is the country and the country is him. It is devotion to him and his beliefs that matters above all else. You see that at his rallies for the midterms. The ostensible candidate he is supposedly there to support takes a minimal role, less the backseat and more the trunk, to Trump basking in the crowds' adoration.
Trump's goal is nothing less than separating the country into those who love him and those who don't. and those who don't are his enemies. Right now, it's any media that doesn't give him glowing praise, Democrats who won't blindly support him, and any protesters who happen to get in his sights. He has no interest in bringing the country together, even in the simplest circumstances, like after a tragedy. No, his desire is to divide the nation, to break it down, and to destroy it, like a building on the historic registry that he'd dynamite to build one of his obscene towers with his dunce-like name mounted on it like a child's underwear at camp.
When Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that, in many ways, brought us to this moment, was interviewed in 1998 about the goals of his terrorism, he said he wanted this nation to fall apart: "We predict a black day for America and the end of the United States as United States, and (it) will be separate states." He sought to sow divisiveness that would make Americans fight with each other in order to advance his desire to bring about a united Islam to eject the West from Muslim countries.
Osama bin Laden is dead. Donald Trump is the new terrorist leader. No, obviously, not of al-Qaeda, but of a large minority of sympathizers in this country, call them "Republicans," if you wish, many of whom are sleeper agents, ready for some unknown signal to launch an attack, as we saw in this last week. Some may be even more extremist than Trump, but that's the way it is with terrorists. Trump seeks to maintain power through threats and bullying, isolating and calling for punishment of heretics from his dogma.
Sure, this is hyperbolic, but we have to come up with new ways to think about this sociopath that is president. The old ways aren't working. Instead, we have this dead-eyed monster who is incapable of basic feelings towards other people, except for greed and lust, those things that only pleasure him.
He doesn't more forcefully condemn attacks against Americans because those being attacked are his enemies. He wants them fearful. He wants the sun to shine only for those he deems worthy.
And if Democrats don't win next Tuesday, and perhaps even if they do, he will go even further to silence anyone who dares to oppose him, we infidels, all.
