Trump keeps digging hole for himself
The world was greeted with the tragic news that many people had been brutally murdered at an Orlando, Florida nightclub on June 12.
Millions of Americans looked on in horror as reporters tried to piece together the limited information that first trickled out.
These kinds of news stories always follow similar patterns.
Before police authorities can hold news conferences, information flows slowly, and, at times, inaccurately, from eyewitnesses on the scenes.
Up in New York City, one person claimed he knew exactly what had happened.
“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism…I called it and asked for the ban. I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” tweeted presumptive presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump.
Long before it had been established that the carnage had taken place at a gay nightclub on Latin night, and that the culprit wasn’t a foreign invader, but a man who’d been born a few miles from Trump’s birthplace, he carelessly made a political point.
Trump issued his Twitter communique as if he’d singularly unraveled a mystery, and he made sure he patted himself on the back.
While the rest of the world recoiled in disbelief and sorrow, Mr. Trump took a victory lap.
He’d managed to take disconnected facts about a very complex situation, then he boiled them down into his unseemly campaign narrative – “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
The following day, basking in the glow of his (supposed) soothsaying skills, he dug himself deeper – especially among his fellow Republicans.
First, he blasted President Obama for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”
This sort of thing has always been a curiosity to Democrats.
After all, back in 2009, the ranking Republican on the Committee on Homeland Security claimed that Obama refused to use the work “terrorism” at a speech at West Point.
Yet, he actually used the words “terrorism,” or “terrorist,” six times.
So Trump seems to think he’s making a strong point about what the president says, or doesn’t say, as if it’s an indication of the president’s willingness to confront our enemies.
Trump, appearing on a number of TV interviews, went further. “Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind. There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on,” said Trump on Fox News.
Trump’s clear implication is that Obama is in some way sympathetic to radical Islamic terrorists.
There’s nothing new about Trump’s questioning Obama’s loyalty to America.
He’s America’s foremost “birther,” who in 2011, claimed Obama’s “grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya and she was there and witnessed the birth.”
But his latest attacks on Obama have even left his fellow Republicans scratching their heads.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who’d stood by Trump after his recent dust-up over his (alleged) racist attacks on the judge presiding over the Trump University cases, is mum when it comes to Trump’s attacks on Obama.
“I’m not going to be commenting on the presidential candidates today,” McConnell told reporters when they asked him about Trump’s latest personal attacks on the president.
Another supporter, and a possible vice presidential running mate, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, claims Trump “continues to be discouraging,” with his rhetoric.
Even if he’s still maintaining some support from his fellow Republicans, he’s now facing with a new problem.
While he’d pulled closed to Hillary Clinton in some nationwide polling, he’s fallen 12 percent behind her among likely voters in the most recent Bloomberg polling.
And worse, a new Washington Post/ABC News polls indicates that 70 percent of Americans view him unfavorably.
While he boasts that he’ll win over Hispanics, women and African Americans in November, 94 percent of African Americans, 77 percent of women and 89 percent of Hispanics view him unfavorably.
That includes 55 percent of Americans who say they’d never vote for him.
If this keeps up, and there’s no sign that it won’t, he’s heading for a landslide.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net