In Praise of Our President
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state his case inelegantly? He brings more contempt on himself by being the personification of the “ugly American”.
I ageed with much that Trump said, but saying it 3 days after that young lady died, there was no way most people where going to listen rationally to what he said. Maybe they never will.
[Jonathan Charles]I ageed with much that Trump said, but saying it 3 days after that young lady died, there was no way most people where going to listen rationally to what he said. Maybe they never will.
Frankly, the sound bite attention span of this current society combined with their social media mentality effectively prevents any meaningful, rational dialog on more than the most personal of levels. It didn’t matter what Trump (or anyone else for that matter) said or when they said it, if it didn’t fit the current social, media paradigm it was going to be trashed. There was no statement or timing that could have been right in this situation. Evil people from several differing points of view carried the day.
Lee
When the hullabaloo broke out, one of the first things that came to mind is that the press rarely, if ever, called President Obama as he consistently failed to mention Islamic extremism by name. And per that, it strikes me that the right option for President Trump is to be relentlessly specific and scripted. Something like this:
In light of the riots and tragedy seen recently in Charlottesville, I’d like to say a couple of things. First of all, if you are marching with a swastika flag, or with people who are flying that flag, you are a loser who forgets the cold blooded murder of 12 million innocents. Second, if you are marching with the hammer and sickle or red star flags, or with people who are carrying that flag, you are a loser who forgets the cold blooded murder of 100 million innocents.
In other words, Trump needs to, by his rhetoric, force the press to read their history books and learn that yes, the hammer and sickle/red star is every bit as horrific a symbol as the swastika, and the movements each represents are every bit as nasty.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Very tired of the “you do it too”-isms people offer in defense of Trump. The plain truth of his profound lack of character, wisdom and self restraint is more obvious every day. His response to Charlottesville is inexcusable.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Aaron, tu quoque strictly requires that one be admitting that obnoxious group A is on your team. Now granted, Trump’s been clumsy about this, but wearing MAGA hats does not make these guys part of Team Trump—he could (and should) point out that given that his dad changed the family name to obscure the German connection after WWII, it’s absurd to claim he’d have friendship with Neo-Nazis.
Again, what we have here is two equally obnoxious groups of people fighting it out—if it were not human beings we were talking about here, we’d pray for injuries and fatalities as they duked it out. Here’s a little bit about the affiliations of the lady who pulled down the statue in Durham, for example. In her mind, American slavery of four million people without mass murder is dead wrong, but North Korean enslavement of 25 million people with the dictator letting a million people starve so he can keep his nuclear glo-pops is A-OK.
It’s long past time for us to point out that the hammer and sickle is every bit as hideous as the swastika. Long.Past.Time.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
There are several factors which are converging together:
- A population increasingly polarized by identity politics, which has become a defacto prism and worldview for many younger people
- A population woefully ignorant of history, and dependent on social media soundbites
- A President who is inarticulate and clumsy at best
- A media which is anxious to hate the President
These have all combined to create this latest firestorm. The Lincoln Monument was defaced. Statutes across the country are being vandalized. I wonder if this mania parallels the chaos of the 1960s, for those old enough to remember it. I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Here is his statement (link is external)(reproduced below, too):
I will dispense for now from discussion of the moral character of the president’s Charlottesville statements. Whether he intended to or not, what he communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn. His apologists strain to explain that he didn’t mean what we heard. But what we heard is now the reality, and unless it is addressed by the president as such, with unprecedented candor and strength, there may commence an unraveling of our national fabric.
The leaders of our branches of military service have spoken immediately and forcefully, repudiating the implications of the president’s words. Why? In part because the morale and commitment of our forces—made up and sustained by men and women of all races—could be in the balance. Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America’s ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished. And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?
In homes across the nation, children are asking their parents what this means. Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Muslims are as much a part of America as whites and Protestants. But today they wonder. Where might this lead? To bitterness and tears, or perhaps to anger and violence?
The potential consequences are severe in the extreme. Accordingly, the president must take remedial action in the extreme. He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize. State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville. Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis—who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat—and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute. And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.
This is a defining moment for President Trump. But much more than that, it is a moment that will define America in the hearts of our children. They are watching, our soldiers are watching, the world is watching. Mr. President, act now for the good of the country.
I voted for him in 2012, and I wish he were our President today.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
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