TUESDAY, AUGUST 6 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
Monday at a political trade with
Democrats as a path to action
— tougher background checks
for gun purchases coupled with
changes in immigration. But in
his address from the White
House, he made no mention of
new gun legislation.
As outlined in his tweet, the
proposed deal is a nonstarter.
The shooters were both
homegrown, and one seemed to
share the president’s views on
immigration. Over many
months, Trump has warned of
an “invasion” of migrants
across the southern border. In a
screed posted just before the
shootings in El Paso — which
officials believe belonged to the
alleged killer, though they are
continuing to investigate — the
attack was described as a
response to “the Hispanic
invasion of Texas.”
Even if the president were
prepared to push hard for new
gun legislation, there is no
guarantee of success. Former
president Barack Obama tried
to do so after 26 people,
including 20 children, were
massacred at the Sandy Hook
Elementary School in
Newtown, Conn., in December
2012, but didn’t succeed. Nor
did the killings of 17 students
and staff at Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in
Parkland, Fla., in February 2018
lead to action.
If those innocent lost lives,
along with all the others on the
roster of the other recent and
horrific mass shootings, were
not enough to spur action, the
likelihood of something
different happening this time is
limited.
What might be possible,
however, is something that
would push back against the
rise of white supremacy that is
evident and that law
enforcement and domestic
security experts have identified
as a growing threat.
The president called for
exactly that on Monday
morning.
“In one voice, our nation
must condemn racism, bigotry,
and white supremacy,” he said.
“These sinister ideologies must
be defeated.”
He has now set a marker for
himself and the duration of his
presidency, a standard he has
yet to meet in office.
[email protected]The president is not directly
responsible for the weekend
shootings. The shooters are. It
would be fruitless to make this
all about the president,
however easy that would be for
some. Something bigger has
caused this epidemic of gun
violence, something deeply
rooted in society. America has
been a gun-loving nation for
centuries.
But the shooters also have
enablers, indirectly or directly.
Something has brought the
anger closer to the surface of
late, something that has
allowed those with hatred in
their hearts, and no doubt some
mental problems as well, to
take deadly action against
innocent people.
The president hintedhe had even made his public
comments highlights the
conflict between the need to rise
to the moment presidentially
and continuing to carry on the
fights and grievances that
animate him and his followers.
More telling in the coming
weeks and months will be how
he conducts himself at his
campaign rallies. Will he stoke
the audiences as he has in the
past? Will he stand by as those
audiences issue chants of “lock
her up” or “send her back”?
Politics as practiced today can
be a harsh and unforgiving
profession and the campaign
ahead probably will be brutally
fought. Will the president
inflame or will he, as a result of
this moment, make some turn
in the other direction?chanting in unison for action,
not words. This was a cry of
anguish and frustration from a
citizenry that has lost faith in its
political leaders, political
leaders who have mastered the
art of offering comfort but little
more, as the carnage from gun
violence continues to spread.
The president spent much of
Monday on Twitter, pledging
that the victims of the shootings
and their loved ones would not
be forgotten, highlighting his
call for the death penalty for
those convicted of mass murder
or of hate crimes and holding
the media responsible for
contributing to a culture of
violence, claiming that “Fake
News” is the cause of it.
That he would start down the
road of finger-pointing beforeburden. One pattern of the
Trump presidency has been to
overcorrect, to undo the good
words by later lashing out at
perceived opponents or critics
when he has not gotten the
praise he expects.
The mix of racism, madness
and political impotence has
created a toxic combination that
has infected the politics of the
country. No one expects a
magical answer to the multiple
causes of mass shootings, but
the absence even of real efforts
to address the conditions and
causes has led to the outrage
and numbness felt so widely at a
moment like now.
“Do something!” a citizen in
Dayton shouted at Ohio Gov.
Mike DeWine (R) on Sunday.
The audience quickly joined in,On Monday,
President Trump
spoke. He decried
the weekend
slaughters in El
Paso and Dayton
that left 31 people dead and
dozens more wounded. He
warned against a culture of
hate. He even spoke about the
rising threat of white
nationalism. His words were
scripted for a president. But did
he believe what he said?
With the nation in shock and
so many Americans feeling a
sense of despair and
helplessness, the president’s
language was prepared to fit the
moment. He has been given
appropriate words at other
times in his presidency, which
he has read from a
teleprompter, often with only
minimal emotion. It is what
presidents are expected to do.
What this president does before
and after those moments is the
real issue.
Absent from the president’s
remarks Monday was any note
of self-reflection. He did not
acknowledge even in the
slightest that presidential
language and presidential
leadership help to set a tone, for
good or ill. In decrying white
supremacy, he did not suggest
that, in any way, he has given
aid and comfort to those who
preach hatred or even violence
against immigrants or people of
color.
That is why there can be no
sense of confidence that the
weekend rampages of gun
violence will cause a change in
the president’s behavior. In fact,
everything suggests there will
be no change at all. His default
position as a politician is to
divide and incite, not to unite
and inspire. In nearly three
years as president, he has yet to
make any consistent effort to
speak beyond the constituency
that elected him. That is what
makes him different from other
presidents.
When he has been required to
play the role of healer-in-chief,
as all presidents have, he has
soon after reverted to form.
Everyone does, which is why
each moment of terror from
random gunshots in a public
place produces a temporary call
for action that is ignored. But
politicians, especially
presidents, carry an extra
mass shootings in america
BY CHELSEA JANESsan diego — Hours after Presi-
dent Trump called on the nation
to “condemn racism, bigotry, and
white supremacy” following
massacres in Texas and Ohio,
Democratic presidential candi-
dates and Latino leaders did
exactly that — and their condem-
nation was aimed at Trump him-
self, who they said is responsible
for spreading those sentiments
with his rhetoric.
Many of them issued those
rebukes at the annual conven-
tion for UnidosUS, the largest
Latino civil rights and advocacy
group in the country. Although
the organization scheduled its
forum for presidential candi-
dates long before the violent
weekend, it provided a venue for
the discussion of racism, rhetoric
and the president — and the five
Democratic candidates who at-
tended seized the moment.
“The attack we saw in El Paso
two days ago was the result of
hate and bigotry,” said former
secretary of housing and urban
development Julián Castro, the
only Latino candidate in a Demo-
cratic field of more than 20.
“For four years now, since he
launched his campaign, Donald
Trump has made hate and bigot-
ry and division a political strat-
egy,” Castro said in San Diego.
“The attack two days ago was an
attack on the Latino community.
It was an attack on immigrants.
It was an attack on Mexicans and
Mexican Americans. And that
was no accident. That is due in
part to the climate this president
has set.”
Castro, former vice president
Joe Biden, and Sens. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), Kamala D. Harris
(Calif.) and Amy Klobuchar
(Minn.) all dedicated at least a
portion of their remarks to a
roomful of activists from a criti-
cal voting bloc to condemning
the president and tying his
words to the shooting in El Paso.
Trump and his supporters re-
ject the idea that he is racist. His
remarks that often come under
scrutiny, they say, are policy
critiques or messages on subjects
such as immigration and urban
affairs, not aimed at particular
racial or ethnic groups.
Biden, however, told the
crowd that while he had planned
to talk about a variety of issues
Monday, “in light of a weekend of
the grief and horror so many
people had to withstand,” he was
changing his message. He ad-
dressed part of his speech direct-
ly to Trump, saying it was “long
past time to stand up to” what he
called “white nationalism,”
“white supremacy” and “hate.”
“The policies of this adminis-
tration amount to nothing but an
onslaught on decent, decent
Americans and citizens and
those who are seeking to be
citizens,” Biden said.
Sanders called on Senate Ma-
jority Leader Mitch McConnell
(R-Ky.) to reconvene the Senate
in the wake of the shootings and
said McConnell should “stop al-
lowing the NRA to dictate gun
policy in America.”
Then he, too, went after the
president. “Today I say to Donald
Trump: Stop your anti-immi-
grant rhetoric,” Sanders said.
“Stop the hatred. Because that
language, that hatred, that divi-
siveness creates a situation
where certain people will do
terrible things.”
It is not unusual for candi-
dates to blast a president from
the opposing party. But the spec-
tacle of one party’s leaders saying
a sitting president paved the way
for a mass shooting highlights
the hostile, fractured nature of
this political moment.
Harris at one point indicated
her microphone to convey one of
the presidency’s most powerful
tools.
“The current occupant of the
White House has used this in a
way that has been about beating
people down instead of lifting
people up,” she said. “But we are
better than this, and we are
going to help him get out of theWhite House and go back to his
reality TV show or wherever he
came from.”
That was a not-so-subtle refer-
ence to Trump’s recent remark
that four minority congress-
women should “go back” to the
countries their ancestors came
from.
In the past Unidos has hosted
candidates from both parties,
but its leaders chose not to do so
Monday. The organization’s pres-
ident, Janet Murguía, opened the
forum by telling the audience she
hopes that “someday soon we’ll
be able to host presidents and
candidates from both parties
again.”
Earlier, Murguía told report-
ers that Trump should apologize
for fostering a divisive climate,
and said she believes his words
motivated the El Paso shooter.
“Hateful words have hateful
consequences,” Murguía said.
“We’re seeing the direct impact
of his promotion of a climate of
fear and hate and division taking
hold in our country. And we wantto make sure that he under-
stands that he has to take some
ownership over this.”
Her remarks preceded the un-
veiling of a Unidos survey of
Latino voters in which 78 percent
said their top concern ahead of
the 2020 presidential election is
the way “Trump and his allies
treat immigrants and Latinos,”
and the fear that it might get
worse.
The poll was taken before a
authorities said a gunman drove
hours to El Paso to target Lati-
nos, apparently after writing a
manifesto that said that “immi-
gration can only be detrimental
to the future of America.”
Clarissa Martinez, vice presi-
dent of civic engagement for
Unidos, said Trump is not the
first politician to use immigra-
tion as “a proxy” for racist poli-
tics, but argued that he is draw-
ing a clearer line than those
before him.
“I think what the president
has done... is that he tore away
the veneer under which somepoliticians might have been able
to hide to in the past, and has
made very clear what this is
about,” Martinez said.
The result, she added, citing
the group’s polling, is that the
Latino electorate — which cast
12 million votes in the 2016
presidential election and will
soon pass African Americans as
the largest minority group in the
nation — is supporting Demo-
crats at higher percentages than
ever.
“Latinos are not a monolith,
which is why it is actually so
surprising to see the incredible
level of affinity, as you have seen
in all of the issues and candidate
traits,” Martinez said. “Latinos
care about substance. That’s one
of the reasons that you have seen
across the decades a very strong
ticket-splitting tendency among
Latinos in any given state.”
African Americans have often
considered one of the more influ-
ential groups in the Democratic
primary. According to Martinez,
more than 80 percent of regis-tered Latino voters normally
vote, which she argued makes
them a prime target for candi-
dates hoping to generate turnout
in the primaries or general elec-
tion.
“We’d like to hear what they
believe they can do to address
[divisiveness] now and if they
become president,” Murguía
said. “One of the things that
Latino voters are hungry for is a
candidate who recognizes that
diversity is a strength for this
country. And they’re equally
hungry for someone who can
unite us as a country.”
Many Democratic candidates
for president, including those
not at the Unidos event, spent
the day blaming the man they
believe is dividing the country
and creating a climate that
helped lead to the shooting.
While Sen. Cory Booker of
New Jersey campaigned in South
Carolina on Monday, his cam-
paign manager Addisu Demissie
tweeted a text he said he received
from Booker during the presi-
dent’s speech.
“Listening to the President.
Such a bulls--- soup of ineffective
words. This is so weak. We
should quickly condemn his lack
of a real plan,” the text said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Mas-
sachusetts tweeted a video of the
speech, in which Trump suggest-
ed mental-health issues were the
underlying cause of mass shoot-
ings, and argued against that
notion.
“White supremacy is not a
mental illness. We need to call it
what it is: Domestic terrorism,”
she wrote. “And we need to call
out Donald Trump for amplify-
ing these deadly ideologies.”
Her rivals at the Unidos forum
also fielded questions about
their health-care plans, criminal
justice overhauls, plans for
Puerto Rico and other subjects.
But the topic of the day was
clear, and none of the five candi-
dates strayed from that focus for
long.
Biden, as he concluded his
remarks, said, “None of this
works if we don’t get rid of
Donald Trump.”
[email protected]Democrats say Trump, condemning bigotry, is responsible for its spread
The president has set a marker for himself. But has he met it?
The
Take
DAN BALZ
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
On Monday, President Trump decried the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, which left 31 people dead and dozens more wounded. He
said white supremacy and sinister ideologies “must be defeated.” Though he had hinted at a political trade with Democrats as a path to
action, he didn’t mention new gun legislation in his address.President’s hard-line
language stokes hatred,
candidates claimMIKE BLAKE/REUTERS
Julián Castro was one of several Democrats who mentioned the El Paso shooting at a gathering of
Latino civil rights activists. “The attack two days ago was an attack on the Latino community,” he said.