Reacting yesterday to the Christmas bombing in Nashville, President-elect Joe Biden shared some presidential thoughts:
“This bombing was a reminder of the destructive power an individual or a small group can muster, and the need for continuing vigilance across the board. I want to thank the police department in Nashville and particularly those five police officers who worked so quickly to evacuate the area before the explosion occurred, risking their own lives. And all the firefighters and first responders who jumped into action early. Their bravery and cool- headedness likely saved lives and prevented a worse outcome, and we are eternally grateful. I know the hearts of all Americans are with the people of Nashville as they rebuild and recover from this traumatic event.”
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has personally shared his own thoughts:
Not.
Six days, and not a word. Not even a word about the cops and firefighters and first responders who put their lives on the line to awaken the nearby residents and prevent fatalities. Trump can’t even thumb a few words of gratitude on his phone. How hard is that?
President-elect Biden broached a number of arguably more serious topics yesterday – like the fact that the dying Trump regime has failed to brief the Biden team on vital national security matters (big surprise); and the fact that Trump has “hollowed out” many of our security agencies (big surprise) – but somehow the contrast between Biden’s fulsome reaction to Nashville and Trump’s shameless silence reminds us that the transition to a real president can’t come soon enough.
Should we bother to wonder why Trump has said or tweeted nothing about Nashville?
Was he too obsessed with his golf game?
Or with his peevish refusal to sign two crucial funding bills (to pay our troops, and to help citizens who are going broke from the pandemic)?
Or is he too obsessed with his fascistic lies about a stolen election? (One Saturday tweet was a classic: “A young military man working in Afghanistan told me that elections in Afghanistan are far more secure and much better run than the USA’s 2020 Election.” Either this “young military man” is clueless about the election violence in Afghanistan, or the “young military man” is a mere figment of Trump’s rancid imagination.)
Probably all of the above, plus this:
The bomber was a white home-grown red-state American.
Rest assured that if the suicide bomber had been a person of color with a foreign-sounding name, and had blared a recording of Allahu Akbar!, Trump would be tweeting about Muslims and terrorism and the wisdom of his executive order that curbed the entry of foreign nationals from Muslim-majority countries. But because the bomber was a white guy (like most domestic terrorists), Trump has not been moved to denounce the violent act. The rote duties of his office require him to say something, but apparently that’s too heavy a lift – when there’s no opportunity for racial or ethnic profiling.
But I suppose the situation could’ve been worse. If the bomber had lived, Trump might’ve signed a preemptive pardon.