Opinion: Poway Shooting Proves That Trump Has To Go

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This was going to be a column on what looks to me like softening Republican support for Donald Trump. Instead it’s going to be about an aspect of one of the reasons Trump should be impeached. I will write that other column, but not today.

Trump stokes hatred toward most Americans. He has transformed hate crimes to domestic acts of terrorism and therefore is derelict in his duties. That is impeachable.

Many of us, me included, have focused on the Trump campaign’s willingness to take help from a hostile foreign power to cheat its way to the White House. This past week, there was reporting that former Secretary of Homeland security was ordered not to mention Russia’s cyber-attack on our democracy because that reality would hurt Donald Trump’s fragile ego.

And if we’re going to talk about snowflakes, let’s talk about the privileged white male in the White House who equates constructive criticism, questions or simple difference of opinion with hate of him. For the record, I don’t hate you, as a human being. I hate the ideas you defend. There is a volume of difference between hating the act and hating the person, as I’m certain any preacher of any religion will explain to you.

No, Mr. Trump hate is when you grab your gun, go to a place of worship and kill people in prayer. Hate is when you weaponize a car to strike silent a women because she had the courage to condemn the ideas that caused a World War. Hate is what makes it possible to back a serial adulterer while telling the monagomous gay man to repent. Hate is what makes it possible to throw rolls of paper towels at survivors of natural disaster in one part of the country, while assuring survivors of natural disaster in a maga part of the country they’ll get all the help and support they need.

You are the personification of hate and you have used it as a weapon against Americans, with help from the one person you consistently praise: Vladimir Putin.

The fact that, finally, after the many hate crimes inspired by your rhetoric, even you recognize that the Poway Synagogue shooting was a hate crime, doesn’t absolve you from the role you had in making that crime possible.

Guess what. I don’t give a damn if Trump’s ego is too fragile to handle the deadly reality that his presidency is pandering to white supremacists, neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.

Mr. Trump, you whine about how people are out to get you! Bullsh*t! Jews know what living under siege is really like because we are the first to be scapegoated by demagogues like you. We’re the targets in 50% of all the hate crimes inspired by the ideas you defend.

The Palestinian people who are treated by Israel’s Netanyahu similarly to the way you treat: Americans who are black, brown, Muslim, opponents of hate, members of the free press, Democrats, women who think and don’t need to make themselves look Aryan to feel good about themselves and pretty much anyone who disagrees with you.

Mr. Trump, you chose to use the presidency to defend, to DEFEND, the ideas people that make mass shootings at Synagogues more frequent. This is the second one this year! Hate crimes have soared since you started your moronic maga campaign and Jews were the targets in 50% of those hate crimes. And no, it’s not going to be normalized! Not while I’m breathing!

No, the answer is NOT more guns! It is re-funding the organizations that monitor hate, and who help people who hate return to sanity. It’s about recognizing that a president who promotes hatred is a threat to our national security – and especially a threat to innocents who are routinely targeted by those “very fine people” Mr. Trump actively, passionately, and frequently defends.

This is why 2020 is a national identity election. Those who celebrate the latest mass shooting at a Synagogue will undoubtedly vote for Mr. Trump. Most of us will be looking for someone who embraces the idea that a president must be president to everyone in America.