Some envision America as a nation of—God help them!—only people like themselves.This is Trump’s America, and therefore, the America of the Republican Party.We can’t quite say it’s a white male America because there are many white males who simply don’t share that vision, but it is hate-filled enough to rouse bombers and shooters and Mitch McConnell.American terrorists, in a word.Yesterday, the Sabbath, saw a shooter in my familiar city of Pittsburgh who left 11 dead.The response of Trump?The synagogue should’ve had armed guards.I propose that we ought to put walk-through metal detectors outside churches—better yet, full body scanners like they use at airports.Might as well see everything the faithful bring with them.
Apart from the obvious tragedy of the innocent victims, another disturbing element of this horrific event is that Trump can’t see that his own rhetoric encourages it.His mouth may say we shouldn’t hate, but his mouth says a lot of things.Most of them lies.His public posturing as the angry white man, the “Christian” bully, the Rambo of the Lord, has jarred people across the world.When you rail against the media daily from the highest position in the land, you’ve got to expect sycophants (e.g. Republicans) to try to please you with their own acts of outrage.What more cowardly way can one devise than to shoot those at worship?Does 45 not understand that armed guards would make a very mockery of what goes on inside?What do they teach at his church?
Coming up on two years ago, after election day, many people warned that just this sort of thing would happen.Knowing that the Manchurian candidate they’d nominated couldn’t think for himself, the GOP decided it was a good time to polish up their hit-list.Those who don’t belong in their white bread, white face, white male country.This is evangelicalism gone wild, no, Rev. Graham?Those who can think for themselves are not welcome in a party run by hatred so pure and rife that decent people feel they must take a shower after they leave its presence.And what of the dead?For the “party of Lincoln” they have died in vain.They should’ve had armed guards, as if worship were some kind of dangerous, subversive activity.The party of the NRA, formerly known as the GOP, has never watched The Witness.It has never shed a tear for the dead.And it most assuredly has never been to church, or synagogue.
Image credit: Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, via Wikimedia Commons
