James Fallows/Atlantic:
The Worst of Our Country—And the Best
The Pittsburgh gunman embodied the cruelty that has sometimes stained the United States—but the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which he reviled, has long represented America at its most compassionate
And now we have what appears to be the bloodiest act of anti-Semitic hate-violence in American history. My point for now is not to assess what factors or circumstances made this possible or egged it on. I will say that previous presidents have found it their duty to speak to the nation as a whole at times of cruelty or tragedy. In recent times this ranges from Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster, to Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City mass killing, to George W. Bush in his speech to Congress after the 9/11 attacks, to Barack Obama after the Charleston church shooting.
Donald Trump has never once, in his life, spoken in that vein—as bearer of the whole nation’s grief, as champion of its faith and resolve—so there is no reason to expect that he could do so now. America has usually had someone in that role before. If presidents didn’t naturally possess that register in their discourse, they learned the bearing and language that was expected of them. Harry Truman did so, after he unexpectedly became the leader of the post–World War II world. George W. Bush did, in his early remarks after 9/11. Even Lyndon B. Johnson, who fit no model of a natural orator, recognized what the country needed from him after history-changing assassinations: of the Kennedy brothers, Jack and Bobby, and of Martin Luther King Jr. Like his predecessors, he recognized what was expected of him, and tried his best.
Donald Trump cannot and will not do any of this, and the absence of such a voice in national leadership is palpable. It is as if George Wallace had been president when King was killed—or Theodore Bilbo, or Strom Thurmond. All of those figures, though, would have probably had a clearer awareness of what a president was supposed to do.
Julia Ioffe/WaPo:
How much responsibility does Trump bear for the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh?
Political rhetoric matters, and he has had some unfortunate things to say about Jews.
Culpability is a tricky thing, and politicians, especially of the demagogic variety, know this very well. Unless they go as far as organized, documented, state-implemented slaughter, they don’t give specific directions. They don’t have to. They simply set the tone. In the end, someone else does the dirty work, and they never have to lift a finger — let alone stain it with blood. I saw it while reporting on Russia, where, after unexpected pro-democracy protests and the annexation of Crimea, Putin created an environment so vicious, so toxic (he called his critics “national traitors” and “a fifth column”) that, when assassins killed opposition leader Boris Nemtsov at the foot of the Kremlin walls in 2015, it was easy for people to blame the divisive political rhetoric as if it were a spontaneous weather pattern, rather than Putin himself for creating it. And everyoneunderstood immediately the message it sent: Dissent is a deadly business. Putin may not have ordered Nemtsov’s assassination, but Russia’s elite could clearly see he wasn’t too upset about the outcome.
Just keep in mind that this is who Donald Trump always was, right down to “America First” ( 'America first ... why is that racist?': Trump's bizarre rant to African American supporters – video).
References to George Soros, globalists, bankers, America First etc are no coincidence. And having Jared or Stephen Miller around is no defense.
Did Trump cancel any rallies? Did he act as president of everyone? No he did not.
How can we change that? Vote them out. It is the only way. And next week, you have that chance.
Adam Serwer/Atlantic:
Trump’s Caravan Hysteria Led to This
The president and his supporters insisted that several thousand Honduran migrants were a looming menace—and the Pittsburgh gunman took that seriously.
Alan Zimmerman/USA Today:
Synagogue president: A straight line from our Charlottesville ordeal to Pittsburgh shooting
I’d like to say I'm shocked at the shooting of Jews in Pittsburgh, but I'm not. Given what I saw in Charlottesville, it seems an inevitable tragedy.
I am the president of the only synagogue in Charlottesville, where just more than a year ago neo-Nazis marched through the University of Virginia chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and where the next day they rioted in our streets only a block from our temple, killing one person and wounding dozens more. Since then, we have had no choice but to be vigilant and prepared.
Haaretz (June 2016):
Seven anti-Semitism Controversies Surrounding Donald Trump
A closer look at the anti-Semitism controversies surrounding the presumed Republican presidential candidate. Is he enabling anti-Semitism? You be the judge.
After Melania Trump criticizes [Julia] Ioffe’s April 27 profile of her in GQ as “another example of the dishonest media and their disingenuous reporting,” the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer urges followers to “go ahead and send her [Ioffe] a tweet and let her know what you think of her dirty kike trickery.” Ioffe, who is Jewish, then is inundated with a deluge of anti-Semitic online wrath, including a doctored photo of her wearing a Holocaust-era Jewish star, a cartoon of a Jew getting his brains blown out and threats that she would be sent “back to the oven.”
The online anti-Semitism directed at Ioffe is similar to online attacks directed at other Jewish commentators who denounced Donald Trump, such as Forward columnist Bethany Mandel.
When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, a Jew and former reporter for The Jerusalem Post, asks Trump if he has a “message” for supporters who were flooding Ioffe with “anti-Semitic death threats,” Trump says, “I know nothing about it. You’ll have to talk to them about that.” He then went on to echo his wife’s criticism of Ioffe’s article. Pressed, Trump says, “I don’t have a message to the fans,” and added, “There is nothing more dishonest than the media.”
Remember this from March 2017 (Independent UK):
Donald Trump suggests Jews might secretly be committing anti-Semitic hate crimes on themselves so he looks bad
The comments echoed similar ones by David Duke, the head of the Ku Klux Klan, just hours before
Mr Trump appeared to be echoing similar comments by David Duke, who commented not long before. He also suggested that the attacks were being perpetuated by Jewish enemies of Mr Trump and his movement, to undermine him.
Sioux City Journal (my bold):
OUR OPINION: Scholten represents best choice in 4th
Today, The Journal editorial board endorses the candidacy of Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten over incumbent Republican Steve King in the race for the U.S. House seat in Iowa's 4th District.
Those were not easy words for us to write….
We say nothing about King today we haven't said before. Time and again in this space, we have criticized him for what we view as inflammatory or questionable comments and expressed concern about the impact of those comments on our district. Each time King immerses himself in controversy, he holds up this district to ridicule and marginalizes himself within the legislative body he serves, neither of which provides benefit to Iowans who live and work here.
For example, King earlier this month put himself - and, by extension, the rest of the district - in an unflattering spotlight with a tweet in support of a candidate for mayor of Toronto described in published reports as a "white nationalist" or "white supremacist." That wasn't the first time King was tied, by his words or actions, to such intolerant ugliness.
Needless to say the above doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t. They endorse him anyway. But now King is too Nazi even for them.
Business Insider:
The suspected Pittsburgh shooter allegedly had a following on a social network that many call the far-right's alternative to Twitter — here's everything we know about Gab
Gab, which bills itself as the free-speech alternative to Facebook and Twitter, has become a haven for far-right extremists. The site does not police hate speech, instead encouraging users to take advantage of its tools to filter out posts they find offensive.
Gab has been shut of from servers, PayPal and a host of other support services.
Meanwhile that other guy:
Adam Serwer/Atlantic:
Trump's Condemnations of Violence Aren’t Convincing His Supporters
The president has given the nation no reason to think his recent disavowals are sincere.
During the 2016 campaign, reporters and political analysts would frequently discuss a hypothetical Trump “pivot,” imagining the moment when he would cease his appeals to prejudice or use of casual falsehoods in order to embrace a more traditional political persona. That never happened.
And it never will. It’s not designed to, see references above.
Vote them out.