Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.
Condolences, love and sympathy to the family and friends of the people who were murdered at the horrific shooting massacre in Orlando on June 12. It’s a senseless and terrible thing—and all the more so because these kinds of awful incidents have become routine in our country. It’s just so sad.
And like most senseless and terrible events, it has inspired some senseless and terrible reactions. I was disturbed by the debates about whether the event should be classified as a “hate crime” or a “terrorist act,” like those two things are somehow mutually exclusive. But what really bothered me was Donald Trump’s reaction on Twitter: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”
In the face of something genuinely sad—a monstrous, heartbreaking crime—Trump’s reaction was to say, essentially, “I told you so.” That petty, narcissistic opportunism is really vile. (And don’t even get me started on his comma splices. His sentence construction is as offensive to the grammarian in me as his sentiments are to the humanitarian.)
Up until now, I’ve watched Trump’s presidential campaign with gleeful schadenfreude—it was amusing to see the Republicans saddled with a candidate so plainly unqualified and unelectable. But he’s a man who will exploit a terrible crime to stoke the fire of his own ego and to compensate for his own insecurities, and such a person must be kept far away from the corridors of real power.
So, this is when Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy stopped being funny to me. (And I know it stopped being funny to most smart people a long time ago—but I’m a mirthful motherfucker.)
And there can never be enough sorrow expressed for the people who were murdered for no reason. Whatever the motive, there is no reason.