Trump’s “condolences” over yet another mass shooting is as worthless as sprinkling water over the raging fire of hate he has repeatedly set

Multiple death shootings by mainly right-wing nut-jobs were fairly commonplace during the Clinton and Obama administrations, but they seemed to be driven by the notion that these supposedly “socialist” presidents represented a “threat” to the white world order. But multiple death shootings in the Trump era are on a record pace, and the “explanation” for it cannot be for the same “justifications.” Trump has not “threatened” white hegemony but has been an ardent supporter of white nationalism, nativism and xenophobia; regardless if he admits it or not, he “learned” to be a bigot from his German father, who was so racist that Woody Guthrie—who once lived in a Trump tenement—wrote a song about it (“Old Man Trump”). Having fed those beliefs and allowed them to crawl out of the sewers of racists’ minds and fester, Trump has been not a “threat” but an enabler of the worst of human nature. Not only that, but the “better angels” of the America psyche have been for the most part submerged, in large part because many people who do not necessarily support Trump still agree with some of his “ideas” about who “merits” being in this country; they will do nothing until the hatred that Trump has inspired spins so far out of control that people will finally be forced to confront the true meaning of Trump. 

The latest mass shooting, at a Virginia Beach government building where 12 died, is nevertheless seemingly as confoundingly without apparent motive as many of the Trump-era shootings; even the “motive” for the Las Vegas mass killing of 58 people remains a mystery. Yet we can see in them the insane thoughtlessness and lack of conscience  that we often see in Trump and his most fanatical stooges, like Stephen Miller. They hate for hate’s sake, demonizing and dehumanizing people they don’t even know or wish to know. The people they choose to hate are just an “infestation” of so much vermin, not human beings who have their own hopes and dreams like other human beings. So while mass killers who do not have an apparent political or social “cleansing” motivation still share the total lack of regard for humanity as the people who do. We also  see in Trump someone who has complete disregard for the opinion of anyone who does not have hate in their heart, calling them “losers,” belittling their intelligence or mocking their physical stature. He traffics in the worst racist stereotypes and the people most likely to be “moved” to action by those stereotypes are his most ardent hate-filled supporters; we nevertheless should also fear those who are not moved at all one way or the other, for in their own way they are Trump’s enablers as well.

While unabashedly partisan Republicans like Newt Gingrich set the table for the sick brew to be served raw, Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric and stated policy desires has served up a banquet for his most ardent supporters to feast on. There are those of course who will sneer at the very suggestion that the endless, incomprehensible violence that has attended Trumps’ presidency has anything to do with him personally. But we only have to listen to his words, read his tweets and view adoring, fanatical MAGA hat-wearing crowds to know that this so-called human being has created such a toxic atmosphere in this country where just breathing it in is all that is necessary to set some people off to “cleanse” the world that the Trumps, Millers, Coulters, Ingrahams, Carlsons, Dobbs and Buchanans of the world have told us time and again are “infestations” that must be “eradicated” by whatever means necessary. But the bar is set so low that such hate also consumes those in the upper rungs as well. Hate is like a raging fire that consumes first the “target” and then all before it, making no distinction as long as it is combustible. A fire doesn’t think, it just does until it is stopped.