Trump Uses Tragedies as Political Weapons

John F. Kennedy said it best some 60-years ago, “The greatest danger of all, would be to do nothing.”

He said this during a crisis and by doing so he showed true leadership and common sense at a time when we needed it the most. This is a time when we could use this type of leadership and wise words during a crisis such as the one we are in now.

Instead, as we have just passed 100,000 dead Americans from COVID-19 and likely to rise even higher, we have a president who uses tragedy as a political weapon and a tool to gain votes and thus, gain power. You would think that his tweets and speeches would be empathetic and would lean towards the human side of this crisis, but instead he continues to attack people and start fights with others.

Speaking of Twitter, that is another feud he has started. Just a couple days ago, Trump started fighting with Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey. He is mad that Twitter fact checked him and told people to get the facts on mail-in voting after Trump had tweeted a lie about the issue. So, as we pass the grim and tragic milestone of 100,000 deaths from this virus, Trump chooses to bicker and fight with everyone and everything.

This is your president, America.

He has used Twitter as a tool to lie and deceive throughout his presidency and especially now, during a time when he should be using it to unite the country and bring people together, he is using Twitter to gain political points and thus using the tragedy of the pandemic as a political weapon against Democrats and to gain points with his supporters.

He should be tweeting about what we can do to save lives and to defeat this virus, but instead he is using his power and his platform to go after everyone under the sun and come up with insane conspiracy theories. This is what he does and what he has always done, use tragedy for his own advantage and to get what he can get out of the situation.

This is Trump.

Now, he is getting creative and finding new tragedies to use as political tools and weapons.

The latest victims, Joe Scarborough and the husband of a deceased former staffer of his. This is Trump’s latest ploy to use a tragedy to get something for himself and it is despicable. In the middle of a national emergency that has taken more than 100,000 lives and has infected 1.7 million Americans with no signs of slowing down, we have a president who is tweeting out conspiracies about murder and voter fraud, neither of which ever happened.

He is using these made up stories as weapons to try and gain some sort of traction in his re-election campaign against Joe Biden and appears to not care who is hurt my his words. Instead of focusing all of his attention on showing some empathy for those who have died from this virus and on finding some solutions to this crisis, he goes and attacks people and comes up with these fake stories about people like Morning Joe and mail-in voting and it is nothing short of shameful.

Trump is doing what he has always done, using tragedy for his own personal gain.

This is a time when he should be using the power of his office and the many platforms he has at his disposal to comfort the nation during quite honestly the most difficult time we have experienced collectively since September 11th. 2001 and to offer us hope, not to divide, attack, and gain political brownie points with his followers. This is not the time to prop himself up, this is the time to lead a broken nation and a nation that needs some hope at a time when we have little.

He has 80-million followers on Twitter and a lot on Facebook too who hold on to his every word and take it as fact. He could use this influence to do good and to change the conversation from hate and division to hope and education on the current state of things. Trump has an opportunity to be humble and to be a leader, yet he doesn't, instead what he does is be the same Trump he has always been.

Even before this pandemic he used tragedy for personal gain and to build himself up with no regard as to how it would impact others and the saddest part of it is that he does not care about the people in these tragic situations that he pretends to care about.

He does not care one bit.

For example, when Kate Steinle was tragically shot and killed down on the pier in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant back in 2015. Trump used that tragedy to call for his wall to be built and for his anti-immigrant agenda to be implemented. He did not care about her and neither did his so-called hired guns, the pundits at Fox News who were asked by Kate’s family to stop pushing the narrative, yet refused to do so.

Trump used her death as a weapon to get what he wanted, which was his wall and deportations of undocumented immigrants. He used that one event to demonize millions of decent undocumented immigrants here to seek a better life, he did not truly care about her. I mean, the man is best pals with the top dogs at the NRA, why would he care about gun violence victims?

This was not the only time, not even close. Trump has a long history of using tragedy as a political weapon to get what he wants and I am sure he will go on and continue to behave this way as long as he remains in office. He will be who he is as long as he is allowed to be, this is who he is and who is has always been and who he will always be.

He used John McCain’s death to his advantage, he played politics with the death of Otto Warmbier, who died in North Korea custody, he used the death of as mentioned, the woman who worked for Scarborough as a tool to attack him with this fake murder theory, he has used numerous tragedies as a way to gain votes and get the conversation on him and to deflect from the messes that he has created.

It did not start when he became president either, he did this throughout the presidency of Obama.

There are many examples of tragedies he used when Obama was president and when he was running against Hillary Clinton to become relevant and it was just as shameful. I am sure you remember the mass shooting in Orlando where 49 LGBTQ brothers and sisters were brutally murdered at a popular gay nightclub. It was in this situation that he used the tragic event to go after Muslims and push for his Muslim ban plan and push his xenophobic rhetoric that he now known for.

With every mass shooting both when he was running and as president, he had something to say and none of it was helpful or compassionate. Even with some other tragedies like tornados and hurricanes he has used those events to attack those that he was supposedly trying to help, like he did with Puerto Rico and Haiti.

When he was running for president he falsely claimed how Muslims in NYC were chanting death to America and then again when the whole tragedy in Benghazi, Libya went down, he once again, used it as an opportunity to blame Hillary and Obama and use the tragedy to gain popularity and become part of the conversation.

Now, in the middle of the worst public health crisis in over a hundred years, Trump once again is using tragedy to make it all about him while deflecting from a disaster that he has created. As we sit here tonight, more than 100,000 of our citizens have lost their lives to this virus and more to come and Trump wants to use the tragedy of each of those deaths to blame China, Democrats, the media, and everyone else for his failed response. It does not end there though, he goes on to use other tragedies to gain political points and push his re-election campaign.

His advisor, Kellyanne Conway once said that Democrats politicize death and tragedy.

Really?

My message to her is, have you met Donald Trump?

Where Americans see the lives impacted by these tragedies, Trump sees a political opportunity to score points and gain voters. He has done this for a very long time and continues to do it today and even more. When we had a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh he exploited it for his gain, when there have been terrorist attacks in London and elsewhere he used it for his own gain, and during this pandemic he does it again.

He always makes it about him.

I am sure you remember the shooting death of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer who died in D.C. a few years back. He used that tragedy for his political purpose and got help from his pal Sean Hannity. I could list countless examples of how he has exploited tragedies and they are all horrible, a horrible way to lead and to govern, but this is who he is.

Now, during the worst health crisis in a century, he is using the deaths and the virus to push for his agendas of no mail-in voting and to go after journalists and others, even someone who is just reporting the news who lost a friend and a colleague in Morning Joe, suggesting that he committed a crime as horrific as murder.

The man has no limit to how low he can go.

He is now being called out by Twitter and wants to shut them down too because he cannot handle his lies and his propaganda being challenged or contested.

Exploiting tragedy is what he does. Winning at any and all costs is what he is about and this is what his movement is about. As I have said before, the way of the Trump playbook is to lie, deny, deflect, and repeat the process — this is how these people win elections and in the middle of a pandemic that has taken so many lives, he is doing it again. He is focusing on his perceived political enemies instead of focusing on the victims of the virus and the country who is suffering.

Again, this is the President of the United States. Let THAT sink in!