In Trump World, cowardly "tough guys" and "gals" are everywhere

A few weeks ago I was sitting outside waiting for a UPS Store to open so that I could collect some packages. The ledge I was sitting on was adjacent to a wall that led to a stairwell going down to the street level; there was apparently a man at the top of stairs who I could not see because of the wall but could hear, engaged in the incoherent ramblings of someone with a score to settle with the world, or the nearest equivalent. At some point, I heard an object skip off the wall near me and into the courtyard; it was a AA battery. Then another object skipped off the wall, this time nearly hitting me, and then a third object whizzed right past my head.  At that point I had enough and stood up and demanded to know who was throwing things at me; a black man then emerged from behind the wall and advanced toward me and right into my face, offering various threatening menaces. He was bigger than I was, which is typical of encounters of this kind. It is always difficult to squirm your way out of situations like this, because people with “issues” are looking for someone to beat on, and all it takes is “say something.” Of course, if you look “Mexican” you don’t even have to say anything to get beat on in this country.

The question, of course, is why this person chose to target someone he didn’t know and had done nothing to him. Well, it actually is quite simple to explain in the age of Trump, isn’t it? Any "Mexican" will do if they are physically small enough for some "tough guy" coward to bully. Both blacks and whites with “issues” need to have a common "go-to" group to blame all their troubles on, or who they believe it is “safe” to attack because everyone “hates” them anyways so who cares, and after all they don’t “belong.” The El Paso shooter certainly felt that someone gave him “permission” to carry out a “mission” to reduce the Hispanic “immigrant” presence in the country.  After boasting “I am the shooter” in August, Patrick Crusius in October had the nerve to proclaim himself “not guilty” in court; he must be afraid that he might actually die for his crime, instead of being hailed a “hero” as Timothy McVeigh expected to be—although to his “credit” McVeigh chose not to waste the court system’s time in achieving his “martyrdom.” 

Unfortunately, there are still a lot more people out there who just want to find a “Mexican” to beat on, and as we have seen on many occasions, some of those people are white women.  The latest reported incident is a woman in Clive, Iowa. According the police press release,

On December 9, shortly before 5 PM, a 14-Year-old girl (Natalia Miranda) walked down the sidewalk on her way to an activity in Indian Hills Jr. High School. A vehicle left the road and ran over the girl. She suffered numerous wounds. Driver and vehicle left the scene without giving help to the girl. Previously, the Clive police department requested the public's help to locate the driver. At that time it seemed to be a hit and run accident. Yesterday, the Clive police department identified suspect vehicle driver as Nicole Marie Poole Franklin, 42, from Des Moines. Detectives interviewed her at Polk County Jail, where she was arrested for other charges. During the interview, Franklin not only admitted to being the driver of the car that hit this girl, but also she did intentionally. Franklin told the researchers that she ran over the girl because, in her words, the girl "was a Mexican". Then she made a series of derogatory statements about Latinos to researchers. Franklin was charged with attempted murder and is currently detained in Polk County jail. Our detectives will continue collecting information for the Polk County Attorney's office to help them with their processing. Our victim's family requests privacy while dealing with this new information. They ask not to be contacted by the media at this time. I mean, in the most energetic terms possible, that there is no place in our community (or any other) for this kind of hatred and violence.

And Franklin wasn’t even finished. Although the local prosecutor declined to file hate crime charges against her in this case (it allegedly wouldn’t “help” in an attempted homicide case), prosecutors felt obliged to do so soon afterwards for the “other charges.” Just 15 minutes after the first incident Franklin went into a convenience store, and according to the West Des Moines police report, first attempted to shoplift items, demanded that the clerk give her “free” liquor and $30 for gas, and then when confronted began throwing items and shouting racial epithets—including at a male customer who she kicked and pushed as he was attempting to leave the store. 

It is all fine and good to claim that there is “no place” for hatred and violence in one’s community, but in Trump World there are “good” people standing shoulder-to-shoulder with bad people. Hell, those Asian folks watching in fascination at the above mentioned incident from inside a Chinese restaurant were just "good" people too. In some communities, “good” people find ways to “justify” what bad people do—even it is to people who have only done harm to them in their minds. It just doesn’t seem to stop, in fact there has only been an increase in hate-inspired violence since Trump was elected. As “Anonymous” pointed out, when Trump deliberately makes statements inflaming prejudices and encouraging violence by his supporters—as he often did during his 2016 campaign rallies—the question is who is showing moral leadership at top.

It certainly isn’t a "tough guy" as morally and ethically corrupt as Trump, and it certainly isn’t William Barr for that matter, who recently announced a new “crusade” to “clean-up” a few cities, perhaps warranted in “normal” times, but in this case nothing more than a cynical attempt by a far-right administration to turn the public’s attention away from the hate-inspired violence its rhetoric and policies have inspired.