Trump Held Hostage

Yesterday, Li'l Donnie Trump was forced to put on his big boy pants and do something he doesn't like to do. 

He had to make a speech that didn't involve yelling or insulting his enemies. 

When he's forced to do this, Trump always sounds like a hostage victim being coerced at gun point to read a statement defending the hostage takers.  

Trump did say white supremacy is bad and his supporters will take that as evidence that "see, Trump is not a racist. We're not racists. Stop saying we're racist!" 

But while Trump did say white supremacy is bad, he never came out to explicitly call out white supremacy as an instigating factor in the recent spate of gun violence. He blamed video games and mental illness. 

Hell, he didn't even blame guns for gun violence. 

He certainly didn't acknowledge his role in all of this carnage. But what did we expect would happen?

"Americans, I have taken some time for some sincere and deep soul searching and I am forced to admit that I have said some really stupid and overtly racist shit that quite frankly has served as a call to hatred, to anger, a call to violence.  For this, I am most deeply sorry and..."

OK, I can't keep going on with that.  

The thing is the record of Trump's hate mongering diatribes in his tweets, his campaign rallies and more is extensive.  His whole shtick is to promote hate, anger and fear of "the other" (black, brown, Muslim, liberals, etc, etc). His whole strategy is to focus his appeal on that core group of people who are ready to buy into that message of hate, anger and fear of "the other". 

As I noted in this blog in the early days of Trump's time in White House, Donald Trump is not the President of the United States; he is the President of the Part of the United States That Voted For Him.  

On days like these, in the wake of national tragedies where a true unifying voice needs to speak to the nation, Trump has no moral authority to do so.  He has spent years assailing half of the nation while bolstering the worst impulses of the Part of the United States That Voted For Him.  

It is hypocritical of him to say that there is no room in America for hate when so much of that hate has come from Trump's own rhetoric.  

Earlier, I said that "Trump always sounds like a hostage victim being coerced at gun point to read a statement defending the hostage takers."  Trump was being held hostage by the harsh and cruel reality that his usual bluster and lies could not deny.