As night follows day, the two horribly tragic mass shootings have Democrats pointing fingers of blame at President Trump. Except one shooter, in addition to being a white supremacist, was also an anti-corporatist environmentalist who backs universal health care, and the other was a leftist supporter of Elizabeth Warren. Trying to pin the blame for these maniacs’ murderous actions on any one person, other than the shooter, is political opportunism at its worst.
Beto O’Rourke jumped in on Sunday, declaring that Trump was responsible for the shooting in El Paso, Texas, which claimed 20 lives and injured 26 more. O’Rourke declared that Trump “is a racist, and he stokes racism in this country. And it does not just offend our sensibilities, it fundamentally changes the character of this country, and it leads to violence.”
O’Rourke went on to claim that “We’ve had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years during an administration where you have a president who’s called Mexicans rapists and criminals.”
O’Rourke is hardly the only one blaming Trump. Critics instantly seized on a manifesto allegedly penned by the suspected shooter, in which he complains about the “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” to link the shooting to Trump.
Princeton professor Eddie Glaude said on “Meet the Press” that “Hispanic invasion” is “almost the exact same language of the president of the United States.”
But assuming that manifesto — posted on the Drudge Report — is credible, the person who wrote it also happens to share many policy positions with Democrats. He’s mad about the environment, he wants universal health care, he hates big corporations and job-killing automation.
The manifesto, for example, complains that “our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heaing (sic) the destruction of our environment by shamelessly over harvesting resources.”
“Water sheds (sic) around the country, especially in agricultural areas, are being depleted. Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations. Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent. Urban sprawl creates inefficient cities which unnecessarily destroys millions of acres of land. We even use god knows how many trees worth of paper towels just wipe water off our hands.”
The writer says that “Achieving ambitions social projects like universal healthcare and (universal basic income) would become far more likely to succeed if tens of millions of dependents are removed.”
He attacks greedy corporations: “This is why corporations lobby for even more illegal immigration even after decades of it of (sic) happening. They need to keep replenishing the low-skilled labor pool.”
If it weren’t for the tirade against Mexicans and for racial separation, you’d think the manifesto writer was an Elizabeth Warren supporter.
He’s also bipartisan in his complaints when it comes to immigration. “The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations.”
The manifesto author even makes it clear that Trump isn’t the reason he’s acting out. “My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I (sic) putting this here because some people will blame the President or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case.” His inspiration, he claimed, was a mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand earlier this year.
The only thing the manifesto makes clear is that the author of it is an entirely deranged psychopath.
In the case of the shooter who killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, he was a leftist Elizabeth Warren supporter and a Satanist.
“I want socialism, and I’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding,” he reportedly wrote in one tweet.
So is Warren to blame for that one? Nope, Democrats are blaming Trump for that tragic shooting as well. Trump, you see, is responsible because his rhetoric makes leftists so mad they lash out.
Trump’s critics have blamed him for every other mass shooting since he took office. They blame him for every hate crime (many of which have turned out to be hoaxes). They blame him for the violence perpetrated by far-left Antifa mobs. They even blame him for bad weather.
But if Trump is to blame for the all mass shootings since he took office, doesn’t that make Barack Obama responsible for the 24 mass shootings that took place while he was in the White House? Nobody dared suggest any such link, not even when Micah Xavier Johnson ambushed and killed five police officers and injured nine others because he was angry about what he perceived to be racist cops. That shooting came after Obama had been stoking racial animosity regarding law enforcement. Nor did anyone blame Bernie Sanders when a fervent supporter attempted to assassinate several Republican lawmakers and, in the case of Rep. Steve Scalise, nearly succeeded.
Clearly, the country faces a terrible problem — one that will not be solved by another round of gun control laws, since none of the shootings in the past would have been prevented by the laws gun control advocates want to pass. Nor will blaming Trump achieve anything.
Those who truly care about saving innocent lives will focus on things that might actually make a difference. Like whether increased social isolation and realistic first-person shooter video games contribute to mass shootings. Or whether there should be more armed security in public places. Or the merits of allowing people to carry concealed weapons for self-protection. When Democrats make these things the topic of conversation after a mass shooting, you’ll know that they actually want to do something about it.
— Written by John Merline
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Betteridge’s rule of Headlines: A headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with the word no.
It is important right now to measure the amount of terror incidences with the amount of people in the US. It is horrible when unbalanced people kill others. It will always be terrible. But, percentage wise, per population, it is small. The media will try and make it seem large, but it is not. The left will cry out to remove our second amendment rights, but we need to protect ourselves from them, as well as those who would do us harm. Blaming President Trump for the behaviors of the unbalanced in our society is pure ignorance. It is those on the left, who support groups like Antifa, and spread hatred of whites or any race. Democrats are working to destroy all that is normal. Sexual deviants are as well. The only answer for all of this, is Jesus. Who, the left is trying to eliminate, once and for all to be able to fully promote hate, division and perversion. Godlessness is necessary for them to do that. Remember, that when the democrat convention was happening, Satan worshipers were having their convention just around the corner. It is Satan who is really running their show and fighting against God’s creation.
The premise is ridiculous. Warren did not traffic in hate speech. Warren did not call a segment of the population rapist, murderers and invaders. The president promoted a narrative. Warren had policy disagreements. Stop the what aboutism. You know better but you are trying push an agenda instead of having an intellectual discourse.
Warren and the rest of the far-left do traffic in hate speech – hate and disrespect for males (especially “straight white males” as they always say), and hate for anyone who doesn’t completely agree with their ideological belief system. Trump only factually stated that **illegal** immigrants are often rapists and criminals – not Hispanics in general. The statistics back this up if you go look.
This is completely incorrect. Illegal immigrants commit far fewer crimes than the general population because they have the fear of being deported. Look it up
A great article that shows the hypocrisy of the Left as well as the media.
The support of most politicians, but especially Republicans, of the corporate shilling by the NRA for the limitless sale of guns, and — since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 — the Republican party’s increasingly less subtle winking and dog whistling at some white American’s (there is no other word for it) rabid hatred, fear of, demeaning of, and condescension toward people of color and immigrants of color are the causes of these almost daily tragedies.
If we follow your strategy and surround ourselves with armed guards and citizens with concealed weapons we will increase the number of murders and do nothing to cure the spiritual ills besetting the great ideals of our nation.
Equating Trump and Warren is disingenuous on your part, and you know it. Conflating the current positions of the Democratic and Republican parties to imply that there is equal blame is a biased description of reality. This is an unkind and mean-spirited editorial, and that’s not an insult, it’s an unbiased description.
Our point isn’t that there is “equal blame” for these tragedies. It is that the attempt to assign blame to a politician — on either side of the aisle — for the acts of a deranged lunatic in order to score cheap political points is wrong.
John, did you actually read the El Paso manifesto? The writer refused political affiliation on either side. While he did say he didn’t want the President blamed, he also used specific terminology that has been part of Trump’s rhetoric, and no one else’s.
Further, while I found his beliefs absolutely repugnant, I disagree that he came off as an “entirely deranged psychopath”… at least not of the sort who may have been successful copping an insanity plea.
“Evil” and “crazy” are different things. Like the Poway shooter’s manifesto, this one was articulately written by an intelligent and educated young author, who had actually made a deliberate decision to do a horrific thing and planned it for weeks. To write people like this off as “crazy” is foolish, because they’re much more dangerous than people who are actually psychotic.
Re the Iowa shooter, I won’t repeat what people have said about Warren’s lack of violent rhetoric. The kid may have been a “Satanist” (and you can look at the tenets of the Satanic Temple to see what that means), but the GOP has apparently sold its soul to the devil.
The language Trump uses is much different than the types of things Obama said.
“shithole countries”
“rapists”
Shame on you for trying to make that comparison.
Like what the author said that kind of commentary is helpful Was very logical Yes there are many unanswered questions an problems One thing the writer talked about is public safety Places where people gather should have security and lots of security And more people should be protecting them selves an others More good guys with guns can stop some of the bad guys with guns Stop the gun free zones Look at the places these shooter’s go to Much more metal health screening Make every one that owns guns be registered an licensed Also take a safe class every 5 years
Remember when Elizabeth Warren said she’d pay medical costs for any of her supporters who would “beat the crap out” of protesters?
Or when she smirked because someone shouted out “Shoot (illegals)!” at her rally?
Or when she bragged that she could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters?
Neither do I.
It was bound to happen eventually that a “left-leaning” shooter would come along. But the whataboutism here is absolutely inconscionable.
The Dayton shooter may have been a “Satanist” (and check out the tenets of the Satanic Temple to find out what that actually means), but the GOP sold its soul to the devil a long time ago.
Do you remember when Elizabeth Warren forcefully and emotionally proclaimed on a CNN panel broadcast just 20 minutes before the start of the Democratic debate on July 30th in Detroit “Do you have things that are broken in your life? I’ll tell you exactly why. It’s because giant corporations, billionaires, have seized our government….” (if not you can find it on Youtube)
Using very similar language in his manifesto the El Paso shooter blamed “Corporations” for the ills of the nation– that he is trying to correct. Why is Elizabeth Warren not to blame for promoting the hate that drove this person to such abhorrent, vile behavior? Intelligent and thoughtful discourse requires us to suspend our preconceived beliefs and perceptions –the partisan talking points– so that we might better understand more fully ‘see’ the complexity of the issues we are discussing. Your snarky comments to not advance intelligent and thoughtful discourse.