We’re learning more about the El Paso mass murderer and the Dayton mass murderer as the days go by. I’m not going to bother with their names. They don’t deserve to be named. The El Paso murderer was a racist, and his mass murder was motivated by the bigotry and racist ideology Donald Trump spouts, and Fox News spouts, and right-wing radio and neo-Nazi sites promote. He was radicalized in plain sight, by Trump & company. The Dayton murder seemed to not adhere to the same kind of right-wing ideologies. Instead, he became yet another mass murderer motivated – partially or wholly – by violent hatred of women. Former classmates describe the Dayton murderer as a young man for which there were a multitude of “warning signs.” He brought a “rape list” to school, and he told at least one woman that he wanted to violently kill her. That woman reported his threats to the police, and they did nothing. He was still allowed to buy an automatic weapon and kill nine people and injure 26 people in less than one minute.
So, both mass murderers have different things in common with Donald Trump. For the El Paso murderer, a profoundly racist ideology. For the Dayton murderer, a profoundly violent hatred of women. With so much in common, it’s no wonder that Donald Trump can’t say “white supremacist terrorism” or “violent, toxic misogyny.” Hell, Trump can’t even remember where the second shooting took place:
Toledo. Sorry, Dayton, you’re no Toledo.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton released statements yesterday about guns and much needed gun laws.
People suffer from mental illness in every other country on earth; people play video games in virtually every other country on earth.
The difference is the guns.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 5, 2019
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 5, 2019
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
And this morning, he’s whining about Obama.
When he is not whining about Obama, who lives in his head rent free.
@Peg, I choked on my coffee. Good one!
Well, at least he got it right that it was a city in the US. The bar ha been set so low for the highest office in the country. I’m at loss for words.
People have set the bar lower for Trump than they would ever allow for even a child. The comments he made on Elijah Cummings were unbelievable. If my child came home and made fun of a kid whose house had been broken into, there would be a serious discussion and some punishment.
But the Trump supporters cheer, because the state of things has people cheering for bad things to happen to people on the other political side.
Word.
What the trash needs to do is take Obama out of his mouth.
To be fair, Obama is everything Trump is not: articulate, kind, compassionate, thoughtful, funny, charismatic, handsome, smart…it’s no wonder that he’s obsessively jealous.
Nexus, I know. If a local politician had said something like Trump said about Cummings, it would have been a scandal for weeks until that person would be forced to step down. I feel like while the Tea Party may have had a huge detrimental effect on our country starting at the local level, they drew the line at the petty, nasty garbage that Trump pulls every day. Which is why it kills me that he gets way with it. Because almost no one else could.
Kitten, that is what it comes down to. add to your list the fact that he was LOVED by so many, and admired/respected by other world leaders…
45 is just upset that “the black guy” did it better than he ever will. that’s a big part of it, too.
@Seraphina, are we sure? He could have been referring to Toledo, Spain!
@Lightpurple , thank you! I needed that laugh this morning.
I just want to say, the comments today in 45 have been insightful and kudos to everyone for being so aware of what is going on.
I can see hate crimes going up AFTER one of his rallies. Cause and effect reaction for sure. The roaches come out because they think it’s ok to do so after the rhetoric they hear.
And I cringe whenever 45 mentions Obama. He isn’t fit to say his name or anyone else’s name who has held office before him. What a mockery of the office he has made.
By next week he’ll name Barack O and Hillary as the reason the shootings took place.
By next week he’ll be back to normal, he cannot keep up this false facade for more than 3 days. He could not even act like he cared what happened to those killed and injured over the weekend. He will be back calling Hispanics breeders and saying blacks live in roache infestation cities with crimes and drugs, bad schools and cannot walk on the street because they fears they will be shot. I can’t wait to see him at his next rally as he riles up his sheeps to get them chanting some racist chants about, who they going to k#ll today while they clap and chant USA, USA. He read the TelePrompTer yesterday as if he was reading a ransom letter, my little dog would have been more convincing about the killings was done by a racist white supremist.
Thought he would be back to his normal self by next week, well, lo and behold he’s back on Twitter this morning bitching about B Obama. By Thursday he will be calling the people of El Paso ungrateful for not being grateful for not welcome him with 🌸.
I think some kook in the Ohio State Senate already did that. She wrote it on her FB. Lady take a look at the mirror and I question the constituents who would vote that kind of person in. Luckily the GOPers in Ohio aren’t having any of it. They demanded her resignation. Not sure if she will do it though. Forgot what Bargain Basement Sarah Palin’s real name is.
he’s supposed to be here in Dayton tomorrow. Maybe he’ll go to Toledo instead, it’s not like the Oregon District wants him.
I read somewhere that every time Trump holds one of his racist rallies, hate crimes increase in that area.
That’s interesting considering Dayton is very close to Cincinnati, where he had his most recent nazi rally.
I believe the statistic is that hate crimes are generally higher where Trump holds rallies.
Here’s the link to the article that says wherever he visits, crime hates increase in over 200%
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/22/trumps-rhetoric-does-inspire-more-hate-crimes/
I swear I think that he is using some form of HYPNOSIS like SHILTER to get his way over the masses (MAGATS, mainly).
And you just KNOW that this is the last thing in the world he wants to do. He knows that he’ll be met with disapproval and he hates being anywhere that he isn’t adored. I bet GOP leadership is forcing him to do this because they’re worried about how it will reflect on his 2020 campaign. The only thing these people care about is money and power–that’s it.
Focusing on this is like Obama’s 57 states thing, or covfefe, or Joe Biden also getting the names wrong.
Trump gets away with horrific things, like basically being an accessory to murder here, because people get distracted by verbal shiny objects and would rather discuss an old man’s brain not working for a second than his brain working perfectly well when he’s inciting Americans to violence.
True, but it’s a pretty big deal when the *POTUS* incorrectly names the city where a mass shooting occurred less than 48 hours prior. Not to mention he was reading the entire thing off of a teleprompter. His utter incompetence and stupidity makes his riling up of his base and inciting violence that much more dangerous.
It’s been confirmed that the moment where he says “Toledo” is different than the moment with photos that have the TelePrompter not saying Toledo, so it could have been one of the numpties in the White House getting it wrong.
He’s not incompetent or stupid at riling up his base though, that’s the problem. All this “lol orange grandpa said a dumb thing” focus ignores that he knows precisely what he’s doing when he uses the racism of his base to raise his support.
I’m not saying he’s incompetent and stupid for riling up his base, I’m saying his incompetence and stupidity makes it more dangerous because he doesn’t, for one second, consider the ramifications. All he cares about is getting people’s support, no matter what that means. And what it means doesn’t matter to him because his incompetent, stupid little brain can’t comprehend it until it’s too late (and even then I don’t think he gets it, or truly cares). And his naming the incorrect city is just another example of this. It may seem like a “small” thing but those small things add up reinforcing just how unfit (mentally, morally, intellectually…) he really is.
Nexus- forgetting the names is appalling on Trump and Biden’s part. It’s a serious error that shows they either don’t care or are having cognitive issues. Neither is appropriate for the President.
This is it, though, isn’t it. Out of hundreds of millions of Americans, pretty sure there’s a qualified person who doesn’t go mentally blank on names of two cities, y’know, along with not being problematic in literally every single other way.
I’m not a fan of Biden, was extremely disappointed he decided to run, but he was talking off the cuff. It was still bad but not nearly as bad as he sitting president, surrounded by staff and teleprompter, getting it completely wrong.
At least the Dayton mayor could sort of laugh about it. I loved her jab at Trump.
“people get distracted by verbal shiny objects and would rather discuss an old man’s brain not working for a second than his brain working perfectly well when he’s inciting Americans to violence.”
He gets criticized for inciting Americans to violence. A LOT.
Trump will do anything to get reelected. He is not working for us & he has no heart, no soul, no conscience.
My sister’s stepdaughter converted to Islam a few years ago. She posted a video on IG where she was being harassed at a water park by a WW telling her to go back where she came from. She gave her the finger and tried attacking her going as far as knocking the phone out of her hand. Words matter and he is emboldening this behavior.
JFC. I’m so sorry she had to go through that. Whenever I hear stories like this I have fantasies of being there and intervening. Not because I imagine myself as some white savior or whatever but just for my own selfish catharsis. I just wanna scream at all of these people terrorizing black and brown people.
We all know that the country didn’t become racist overnight–the bigots and racists have been here all along–but it’s just so different when you have the PRESIDENT sanctioning the racism and bigotry. Obama made these people feel ashamed of their feelings by merely being a caring and empathetic black man who asked his fellow countrymen to do the same. They love Trump precisely because he doesn’t make them feel guilty about their bigotry–he’s just like them, after all. Hey, if the Leader of The Free World says it’s ok to be hateful to non-whites then it’s gotta be ok, right?
“Words matter and he is emboldening this behavior.” Truth and truth.
Side note cuz this isn’t the main thing, but I dont’ watch him, ever, to preserve my sanity (the narcissism and gaslighting reminds me exactly of an abusive boyfriend)…so I only made it through half of this clip, but…
.
What is up with his behavior? Is this normal? The sniffing, the weird mouth positions, the weird hand gestures? I remember watching him on the first year of his reality show, and don’t remember this stuff. Is he more mentally ill or mentally declined than I knew?
Boomers will always hilariously post things like “HE’S ON COKE”, which does make me laugh, but you’d be shocked at how often you sniff audibly with a microphone in front of you catching every sound. Especially an old, unhealthy man who’s unlikely to have great lung capacity and health. The hand gestures are classic Trump, he’s been doing them for decades.
When he’s at his rallys he never sniff. There is something going on when he has to give a speech with a prompter The sniffing starts. IMO, he’s on something to calm his nerves.
Beyond that, his odd speech patterns often cover the fact that he makes errors while speaking, like we all do, but will never admit it. So he does a rambling, weird thing where he won’t stop talking until he feels he’s on the other side of it (see his first State of the Union where he goes on about a guy called CJ, but calls him DJ, and then bizarrely attempts to claim the guy named CJ said he would like to be called either CJ or DJ).
Like, it’s possible I would say “oranges” instead of “origins” while speaking to someone. I’d then say “oh, origins! ha” and move on. Trump instead will try to prove he didn’t say the wrong thing.
He’s been famous for decades, but not known for public or live speaking. His mental decline is on the level with someone his age, but it often looks worse than it is because he desperately tries to cover up misspeaking or mispronouncing things.
Having seen the size of the font on the teleprompter I can see why he has a habit of starting and stopping sentences in weird places, he’s basically reading the screen as the words appear. As another poster said he is not known for public speaking particularly from an teleprompter, its always obvious when he’s making it up as he goes along, he at least sounds a bit more natural.
As for the sniffing, rumours are that he snorts crushed adderall before public events to give him that ‘high energy’ nonsense he’s always spouting about.
In some ways, Trump is like my father, so there’s a lot of things Trump does that I recognise well.
(side note: my father is a lovely, not-racist man! But he’s a successful businessman whose success is heavily charm-based more than intellectually based)
My dad is pretty tuned into the world, but is not a reader. He’ll never pick up a book just to read it for fun. For work presentations or events, he’d mentally memorise what he needs to know and be able to speak off the cuff for an hour at a time or more. When he’s interested in a subject, he’ll store a tonne of information.
That’s hugely impressive to me, a person who needs a script to follow. But put a written speech in front of my father to read and insist he stick to it? He’ll struggle to sound natural, and will often have to put his finger on the page to read. The words don’t flow like they would if he spoke without a script.
Supposedly it’s the early symptoms of Alzheimers combined with an Adderall-snorting habit to create the mess of slurring, dry mouth, weird tics and utter imbecility.
Who knows? I would, however, bet most of what I own that the exact moment he’s removed from office and the lawsuits regarding his decades of criminality start raining down upon him, his lawyers will claim that he has a significant cogitive impairment that makes him unfit to stand trial.
I think it will be similar to Cosby arriving at court hearings with a cane and holding on to people. He had been appearing at shows without such help shortly before charges started raining down.
Captured screen shots show his pupils WIDELY dilated. In bright lights (needed for the cameras), pupils would CONTRACT. Combined with the sniffing, I’d bet anything he was on *something*. Combined with the weird tongue protrusions… I’d bet a LOT that there is frontal lobe dementia going on. If you look at a list of symptoms, he’s got every single one of them. Check it out, from the Alzheimers’ Society website: https://www.alzheimers.net/signs-of-frontotemporal-dementia/
Another thing to consider is that when he was on The Apprentice, they were probably able to do tons of takes. He was more in his element as a (supposed) businessman. As POTUS, he is in way over his head every single minute of every day, and I gotta believe that is what’s taking its toll. He knows how ignorant he is, despite his ridiculous bravado, imo.
There was a great article in the New Yorker about The Apprentice. It’s interesting (but I guess not surprising) how much smoke and mirrors was involved. And it will make you angry, though, because Mark Burnett is pretty much responsible for rescuing Trump from below the D list and rebooting him as a viable personality. Without it, I don’t think he would ever been elected. Grr.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success
That article is indeed both interesting and infuriating.
I never watch anything associated with the “bird of a feather” producer.
@Amy – I watched it again and someone made a good point that all the pauses, breathing etc were an attempt to sound genuine, contrite, statesmanlike and articulate. But sadly it had exactly the opposite effect.
Someone also said this was a sign of Adderall usage ?
Both Biden & Trump are old so it doesn’t surprise me they got the names of cities wrong. What does surprise me is anyone trying to say that these mass shootings are caused by anything other than hate & violent rage. In some very rare instances a mentally ill person becomes violent…Gabby Gifford’s shooter or the Aurora Shooter but it’s rare. This is where the public really needs to be educated about mental illness vs disorders…and by disorders, I mean personality disorders. People that have personality disorders are not mentally ill like paranoid schizophrenic or say bipolar disorder, borderline personality, although they can get violent. True personality disorders… narcissistic personality, sociopath, psychopath, antisocial. These people are hard to spot but the Ohio shooter…there were red flags in high school. El Paso shooter…I’m not sure. I thought he was posting pictures of his guns on the Internet right before the shooting. So how would anyone have stopped him?
The Ohio shooter was briefly removed from school for making a kill list and a list of classmates he wanted to sexually assault. Those are red flags, of course – but thoughtcrime isn’t illegal. Look at Twitter, look at Reddit, look at 4chan or 8chan. Chockfull of people posting hateful threats.
There’s no system in place to deal with millions of men (yeah, they’re men) posting their violent fantasies because there’s no way to know who is going to act on them. Most won’t. Some will.
Most don’t kill or act out their violent fantasies. And yes, they’re men. The Ohio shooter was a teenager when the red flags occurred but how many of us excuse behavior of teenagers? It’s a question. Some behavior is more serious than others & this I’m going to argue is. It was an indicator of what was going to come. Other people aren’t going to be able to so easy to spot, though. The Pulse shooter was on a FBI watch list. The shooter of ballgame between house Republicans & Democrats had a history of domestic violence. The shooter in Florida high school had a history of behavior & domestic calls to his house, FBI was called about him prior to him shooting up the high school. I mean I could go on. How any of these individuals pass background checks is beyond me.
I mean, what do you do with a teenage boy who has written up a list of classmates to rape?
As a former teenage girl and now a mother of girls, my first instinct is obviously “lock him up and don’t let him out, ever, because he’s just looking for the chance to do this”. But what the real answer is, I don’t know.
Whatever therapy you put them in, whatever medication they might get, a sixteen year old boy is a few short years away from being able to do whatever he wants. And at that point there’s nothing to stop him from doing this, I guess.
Nexus, Exactly. I heard a radio story about how there was literally nothing they could do since he hadn’t acted on anything. I would think even if nothing could be done from law enforcement, a school could enforce some kind of code of conduct and have him expelled. But for whatever reason they didn’t.
I tend to think his family and his mom may have pushed to keep him in school. I read that recently she posted a mother’s day card from him and basically bragged how well she’d done raising him. Likely she was in deep denial.
I read Sue Klebold’s (mom of Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold) book a couple years ago and even so many years later, she talked over and over about how she never saw it coming, even as she literally described tons of red flags. It was crazy how blinded she was to his potential for violence and perhaps this killer’s mom was the same.
Esmom, it’s beyond ridiculous he was ever allowed to go back to a school with classmates he had threatened like that. You can be damn sure if he’d written about wanting to rape male students or administrators, he would have been expelled. But no one cared about the girls
But even if he been expelled forever – then what? Go to another school and have the same anger? Not go back to any school, have worse prospects re: jobs, be even angrier and the world and the women he blamed for his situation?
I don’t think this kid was treatable, honestly. I think something was inevitable – this is an extreme, whereas plenty like him “just” murder a spouse or girlfriend and go to jail but we don’t hear about them.
Guys really are given a lot of public space for and validation of their woman-hating culturally. The Dayton shooter was a liberal, but he still had a pattern of aggression, misogynistic threats, and and anti-woman slurs and hate speech. We’re all manipulated or pressured to accept, minimize, protect, or support and engage in this behavior, and the pressure starts pretty early in life. This is not harmless at all and it does not have to be silently accepted.
@nexus – in Canada that rape list would potentially be an uttering threats charge or a criminal harassment charge.
Trump saying something stupid isn’t really news. Most of my attention is on the Democratic primaries now because I find them infinitely more interesting than Trump’s latest brain farts.
I’m not into wild conspiracy theorising but some very smart, not reactionary people I admire do sometimes say they think that often Trump’s tweet spelling errors and the like are trolling the mainstream media. His barely literate base won’t notice the errors, and the media will focus on the spelling errors instead of the content.
Nexus- I don’t buy that. He’s just that dumb. What I think is more likely is the people around him don’t check him or correct him because they know it serves him as misdirection.
I don’t believe that. He’s a stupid, ill educated man.
One of Dump’s professors said a while back that Dump was one of the dumbest people he’s ever encountered. As a rich kid who got into university through connections, Dump never had to actually act like a student and he learned early on that bullying gets him what he wants so that’s how he’s functioned for decades. Because he is surrounded by sycophants he is never told just how stupid he is.
Another dumb, insensitive gaffe, another day in trumplandia. He was told specifically by El Paso reps that they don’t want him there so I bet he makes his way over there by the end of the week. I didn’t see Dayton ask him not to come. Maybe they did and I missed it. He still owes Texas and Ohio a lot of money for his klan rallies. Instead of doing anything remotely decent he’s going to go make things worse and add to his huge debt that he’ll never pay.
It’s only Tuesday. Uh.
Dayton’s mayor doesn’t seem overly thrilled about his visit.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/456231-dayton-mayor-jabs-trump-over-toledo-gaffe
I always try to stay away from the internet when shootings happen because reading the arguments NRA supporters come up with makes my blood boil. I just can’t deal with people talking nonsense and calling ME the irrational, delusional one. There’s no f*cking reason an average civilian on a supposedly democratic first-world country should get their hands on an assault rifle. Those guns weren’t made for self-defense, they were made for mass killing. I don’t care how sane you can prove you are, those things shouldn’t be sold out. Period.
What most drives me insane is they are so passionate about guns, I truly, wholeheartedly believe if a gun reform where to happen they’d go out of their way and do mass stabbings just to prove they had a point.
@ Cindy. Just like that white guy who travelled to NYC a few months ago and stabbed an elderly black man who was minding his own business. Bastard did this is prove his point that he was racist. It’s a shame that a portion of humankind is acting like that they should be the only people on the planet and not other types of people.
On one hand, I love reading politically and diplomatically intelligent works that illustrate proper sense is still alive. On the other hand, I dislike reading politically and diplomatically intelligent works that illustrate proper sense is still alive. This dichotomy is killing me lol.
As a Dayton citizen, my heart is broken over what happened to my city. I’ve been in the Oregon District many times and im extremely thankful that none of my family or friends were directly affected but im heartbroken for the ones lost. It’s still surreal to see my city listed in the news for this 💔
I’m angry and frustrated that nothing has nor will it ever change. People who supported trump will not see how terrible he truly. I’ve cut ties with family and friends over this and I will continue to do so. So many people on fb are blaming mental illness and are ignoring the way the shooter was hateful and misogynistic and never should have had access to guns.
Say their names.
Lois L. Oglesby
Megan K. Betts
Saeed Saleh
Derrick R. Fudge
Logan M. Turner
Nicholas P. Cumer
Thomas J. McNichols
Beatrice N. Warren-Curtis
Monica E. Brickhouse
Was just reading a story by a reformed white nationalist- in The Atlantic – he says the worst is yet to come and the problem is metastasizing. Moscow Mitch and Don the Con are going to get us all killed. Another thing, kim is firing off all those rockets and Don is saying kim is his friend and he trusts him. It’s strange he does not trust the Mueller report, the FBI , the CIA ect but he trusts Kim. As Beto says, “Jesus Christ” when are they going to connect the dots.
Trump trusts foreign desposts and dictators but he doesn’t respect institutions of his own country.
After all these years I still don’t understand how people look over all these things to support him. Like, fine. You’re a racist and a mysoginist. I hate you for that, but couldn’t you AT LEAST choose a somewhat presidential racist and mysoginist to lust after? I was never expecting the Republican candidate to be woke, but he could at least be less of an idiot and less transparently in search of his own interests.
Idk if the worst is yet to come, all I know is getting Trump out of office won’t be enough. He already validated and normalized everything he stands for. Trump can go away, he can even be impeached, but the virulent bigotry of his supporters will stay the same until they die.
Fellow Ohioan here, sending love and white light. You have a beautiful city. I was so proud of Dayton when the KKK tried to do a rally there this spring, and only 9 racists showed up, but 600 wonderful Dayton citizens came out to protest the rally. Hundreds shouting “Get Your Hatin’ out of Dayton!” And I like your mayor too. If Trump shows up, she’s already said she’ll let him know what she thinks about his gun control message.
I’m going to light a candle and say those names tonight, like you asked.
I think the Dayton shooting was a combination.
Info is still limited but his sisters boyfriend was black.
He could have had massive issues with that.
The mom hasn’t said much so this one could be awhile till we see some answers.
Trump makes George W seem like a GENIUS.