We must call the El Paso shooting what it is: Trump-inspired terrorism
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
‘Trump’s rhetoric is infused with notions of violence and dehumanization’. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
L ast year, when a rabid, anti-immigrant antisemite murdered 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, I called it an act of domestic terrorism inspired by the ideology of Trumpism. The shooting took place during the height of the 2018 midterm campaign when Trump was inciting fear of an immigrant “caravan” from Central America. The shooter got the message. Hours before his bloody rampage, he accused a Jewish refugee support agency of bringing “invaders in that kill our people ” .
Saturday in El Paso it was deja vu all over again.
Trump has launched his 2020 re-election campaign this summer by doubling down on the theme of racial and ethnic division and anti-immigrant hysteria. And as sure as the sun rises in the east, a mere month into this racially charged atmosphere, an extremist suspect fearful of Hispanics gaining political power in Texas decided to go kill as many Hispanics as possible at an El Paso Walmart. It is Trump-inspired terrorism yet again.
Tags
Who is online
54 visitors
The president’s defenders have taken great offense to the notion that any of his actions or rhetoric have contributed to what happened in El Paso, but this defense is deeply flawed.
First, the assertion that Trump can be absolved of responsibility because he condemns violence by white supremacists reflects a misunderstanding of how homegrown domestic terrorism works.
It doesn’t require an overt appeal to violence to motivate an ideological extremist to engage in violence. Indeed, individuals often move from being a passive supporter of a cause to a mobilized killer when their political grievances are amplified, and their enemies are dehumanized.
When Trump goes on Twitter and television calling migrants “invaders”and dehumanizes them by suggesting they are “infesting” America, he is motivating aggrieved individuals to take action into their own hands by using violence.
One would think this would be obvious, yet the Trumpsters are mainly holding strong behind their hero. America needs divine intervention.
It's because that's exactly the message his followers want to hear. They want to hear about how it's not their fault that they live in poverty waiting for the next low wage manufacturing job or coal job instead of getting retrained for the jobs of tomorrow. They want an easily identifiable face, preferably brown or black, to blame all their problems on, as he said, "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best, they're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems". All his bigoted base hear is "You guy's are great, it's those Mexicans that are the problem!".
It sure is trump inspired, if only he'd shut his big fat mouth....
The current plague of homegrown rightwing domestic terrorism America is suffering today did not suddenly spring out of nothing. These horrors are plainly the result of the normalization of xenophobic white nationalism...
Just think what a world we could have if idiots didn't allow others to incite them to acts of stupidity.
A world of personal responsibility for your very own actions which you alone choose to take.
That is something that is sorely lacking across the board. Everybody is quick to place blame in the wrong places because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside (like blaming the President or inanimate objects).
So, the theory here is that absent Donald Trump, this guy would have never committed this crime or something similar? Where is the cause and effect? It's not enough to say Trump is an ass therefore some maniac commits mass murder. Your anger at Trump combined with your need to hate a scapegoat makes for poor analysis.
Show me that this was a good boy who was minding his own business until Trump showed him the light leading to mass murder - not just that they both hate illegal immigrants or something common like that. How do we get to mass murder?
And speaking of poor analysis:
Trump inspires anti-semitism? It's hard right this second to imagine a dumber theory. The actual antisemites in this country absolutely hate how friendly and supportive Trump is of Jews, and they hate that his daughter and her husband are jews. They say so, out loud, frequently.
Is the rhetoric really inspired by Trump? Or is Trump inspired by the results of his rhetoric?
Or this. Is Trump simply following the inspired playbook from the Putin oligarchy to diminish the influence and power of The West?
Republican calls for "civility" are nothing but a joke since they never call out Trump or his supporters for the incivility at his rallies. The offer to pay for legal fees if the crowd goes after a reporter. That alone is condoning violence. End of discussion.
Trump says he's a nationalist: What it means, why it's controversial