This weekend saw unspeakable carnage, but that didn't stop Trump from taking time off.
It was a brutal weekend, with two mass shootings in under 24 hours. Trump responded by doing what he does best: going on vacation and golfing.
Trump even made time to swing by a wedding at his golf club in New Jersey. Meanwhile, the GOP offered thoughts and prayers, and blamed everything but guns.
The shooting in El Paso, Texas, which killed 20 and injured dozens more, occurred Saturday morning. In a normal presidency, a horrific occurrence like this would cause the president to call off his vacation time and return to Washington, but Trump stayed at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club.
Overnight, another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people. Trump still didn't come back to Washington. He finally made a public statement Sunday afternoon while on the tarmac in New Jersey. It was typically fact free. He said he spoke with "both governors" and "we're doing a lot of work." He went on to say he spoke with members of Congress "about whatever we can do" and "a lot of things are being done right now as we speak."
Of course, Congress isn't even in session, so they're not doing a thing. Additionally, the GOP is too busy casting about for anything else to blame besides guns.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy decided that video games were the real problem because "they dehumanize individuals to have a game of shooting individuals and others." People play video games all over the world, but only in the United States do we have mass shootings, so video games likely aren't the culprit.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick refused to go on CNN to talk about the shootings but made time for "Fox and Friends," presumably a more sympathetic ear for his message. Patrick is concerned about video games as well, but he also blamed the shooting on not letting children pray in school and because "we no longer salute our flag."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) threw up his hands and declared the problem intractable, tweeting, "Sadly, there are some issues, like homelessness and these shootings, where we simply don't have all the answers." This is especially repugnant coming from Cornyn, who scaremongered about a rising Hispanic population in Texas only two months ago.
Neither Trump nor the GOP wants to grapple with the fact that the El Paso shooter is a white supremacist who wrote a manifesto praising Trump's attitudes about Hispanics, warning of a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." Trump has repeatedly called individuals who seek to cross the southern border "invaders."
White supremacist violence has skyrocketed under Trump precisely because Trump emboldens those people. He laughs when rallygoers suggest shooting immigrants. He calls Nazis "very fine people."
White supremacists are the core of his base, and they're going to keep killing people.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
