Dayton and El Paso Won't Change Trump. He's Bet His Future on Division, Cruelty and Guns.
Jill Lawrence
USA TODAY
5:00 a.m. ET Aug. 5, 2019
Donald Trump and Republicans are the party of guns and that is not going to change. A 2020 Democratic sweep is the best chance to reduce gun violence.
Once again, America has topped itself in the unthinkable department, with two mass shootings in 24 hours in El Paso and Dayton that killed at least 29, just days after five children and adults had already been killed in shootings at a garlic festival in California and a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi.
At moments like this we always think this is it, this will be the outrage that finally gets Congress to fix our tragically lax gun laws. Columbine, or Sandy Hook, or Las Vegas. But it never happens.
And why would the Republican-run Senate act now?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring up bills to better protect American elections in the face of threats from Russia and other foreign actors who wish us ill. Any security ramp-up would be a tacit acknowledgment that President Donald Trump benefited from Russian interference in 2016 — possibly to the point that Russia boosted him to victory, as former President Jimmy Carter said recently.
Similarly, changing gun laws at this moment in time could suggest, without exactly saying so, that Trump’s rhetoric has helped create this moment in time. Think about it.
►He attacks liberal activists and politicians and inspires Cesar Sayoc, who faces sentencing Monday, to mail homemade and thankfully faulty pipe bombs to those same liberal activists and politicians.
►He issues a series of executive orders to try and keep Muslims out of the country, starting on Jan. 27, 2017. Two days later a Canadian student, who has a selfie of himself wearing a Make America Great Again hat on his laptop, kills six people at a mosque in Quebec. In August a mosque in Minnesota is bombed; one of the men charged had submitted a bid to build Trump's wall across the southern border.
►He calls Mexicans criminals and invaders and an infestation. He even jokes with fans about attacking migrants at the border. "How do you stop these people?" he asked at a Florida rally in May. "Shoot them!" a rally attendee shouted. "That's only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff,” Trump said with a chuckle. “Only in the Panhandle." Lo and behold, a couple of months later, a gunman opens fire at an El Paso mall. And ABC News, citing two law enforcement sources, says the suspect — Patrick Crusius — told police he wanted to kill as many Mexicans as possible.
Baltimore should be on high alert
Trump said Sunday that "hate has no place in our country," but the platitude is worth nothing after all that's come before. As 2020 presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, “The president not only tolerates but invites the kind of racism and hatred that not only offends us, but changes who we are as a country and produces the kind of violence that we saw in El Paso.”
Trump’s latest targets are Rep. Elijah Cummings and his Maryland district, which includes part of Baltimore as well as suburbs and rural areas around it. Trump called the district "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and added: “No human being would want to live there.” If I were Baltimore, I’d be vigilant. The city could be at the top of the list for some deranged Trump fanatic.
No, we are probably not going to see changes. It’s too risky for Trump and Republicans. They need to maintain their political identities as the people who let you keep your guns — any kind you want, as many as you want, with magazines as big as you want, to carry anywhere you want, as openly and blatantly as you please.
2020 elections are the only chance
Not everyone is reassured by that. Not everyone thinks all of these guys with guns are good guys, or even if they are, that they will know what they’re doing in a sudden firefight with a real bad guy.
But this is where we are in politics. There is only one answer, and it lies in the 2020 elections.
What will it take to convince Democrats that taking over the Senate is as important as winning the White House? How long will it take for Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and, yes, O’Rourke, to drop out of the presidential race and jump into Senate races in their states? Democrats should shower praise and money on anyone who makes the switch, and pray the others follow his lead.
Right now it would be a mistake to count on McConnell and his party to put America’s safety and security ahead of Trump’s political safety and security. Or his own.
Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY
5:00 a.m. ET Aug. 5, 2019
Donald Trump and Republicans are the party of guns and that is not going to change. A 2020 Democratic sweep is the best chance to reduce gun violence.
Once again, America has topped itself in the unthinkable department, with two mass shootings in 24 hours in El Paso and Dayton that killed at least 29, just days after five children and adults had already been killed in shootings at a garlic festival in California and a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi.
At moments like this we always think this is it, this will be the outrage that finally gets Congress to fix our tragically lax gun laws. Columbine, or Sandy Hook, or Las Vegas. But it never happens.
And why would the Republican-run Senate act now?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t bring up bills to better protect American elections in the face of threats from Russia and other foreign actors who wish us ill. Any security ramp-up would be a tacit acknowledgment that President Donald Trump benefited from Russian interference in 2016 — possibly to the point that Russia boosted him to victory, as former President Jimmy Carter said recently.
Similarly, changing gun laws at this moment in time could suggest, without exactly saying so, that Trump’s rhetoric has helped create this moment in time. Think about it.
►He attacks liberal activists and politicians and inspires Cesar Sayoc, who faces sentencing Monday, to mail homemade and thankfully faulty pipe bombs to those same liberal activists and politicians.
►He issues a series of executive orders to try and keep Muslims out of the country, starting on Jan. 27, 2017. Two days later a Canadian student, who has a selfie of himself wearing a Make America Great Again hat on his laptop, kills six people at a mosque in Quebec. In August a mosque in Minnesota is bombed; one of the men charged had submitted a bid to build Trump's wall across the southern border.
►He calls Mexicans criminals and invaders and an infestation. He even jokes with fans about attacking migrants at the border. "How do you stop these people?" he asked at a Florida rally in May. "Shoot them!" a rally attendee shouted. "That's only in the Panhandle you can get away with that stuff,” Trump said with a chuckle. “Only in the Panhandle." Lo and behold, a couple of months later, a gunman opens fire at an El Paso mall. And ABC News, citing two law enforcement sources, says the suspect — Patrick Crusius — told police he wanted to kill as many Mexicans as possible.
Baltimore should be on high alert
Trump said Sunday that "hate has no place in our country," but the platitude is worth nothing after all that's come before. As 2020 presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, “The president not only tolerates but invites the kind of racism and hatred that not only offends us, but changes who we are as a country and produces the kind of violence that we saw in El Paso.”
Trump’s latest targets are Rep. Elijah Cummings and his Maryland district, which includes part of Baltimore as well as suburbs and rural areas around it. Trump called the district "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" and added: “No human being would want to live there.” If I were Baltimore, I’d be vigilant. The city could be at the top of the list for some deranged Trump fanatic.
No, we are probably not going to see changes. It’s too risky for Trump and Republicans. They need to maintain their political identities as the people who let you keep your guns — any kind you want, as many as you want, with magazines as big as you want, to carry anywhere you want, as openly and blatantly as you please.
2020 elections are the only chance
Not everyone is reassured by that. Not everyone thinks all of these guys with guns are good guys, or even if they are, that they will know what they’re doing in a sudden firefight with a real bad guy.
But this is where we are in politics. There is only one answer, and it lies in the 2020 elections.
What will it take to convince Democrats that taking over the Senate is as important as winning the White House? How long will it take for Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and, yes, O’Rourke, to drop out of the presidential race and jump into Senate races in their states? Democrats should shower praise and money on anyone who makes the switch, and pray the others follow his lead.
Right now it would be a mistake to count on McConnell and his party to put America’s safety and security ahead of Trump’s political safety and security. Or his own.
Jill Lawrence is the commentary editor of USA TODAY and author of "The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock." Follow her on Twitter: @JillDLawrence
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.
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