Mississippi is burning again. A historic black church in Greenville was set ablaze last night. The arsonist spray-painted “Vote Trump” on an outside wall. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign has cancelled scheduled events in Iowa after a Trump supporter ambushed and killed two Des Moines police officers. On October 14th, he was asked to leave a high school football game because he was waving a Confederate Flag at black fans during the national anthem. He even explained himself:
His neighbors say that he put a Trump/Pence sign in his front yard shortly after the confrontation at the game.
Neighbor tells me that shooting suspect Scott Michael Greene put this Trump sign in his yard approx 2 weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/8HjtthB51I
— Grant Rodgers (@GrantMRodgers) November 2, 2016
His daughter says that “He was also a loving father grandfather and the greatest man I know. He was very very sick mentally. Evil succumbed him and he made the up worst mistake. Now he will have to live with that for the rest of his life. But I will never turn my back on this man.”
No doubt he is suffering from mental health problems. But, without being incited by right-wing campaign rhetoric, he wouldn’t have brought a Confederate Flag to a football game to protest kneeling during the national anthem, gone home and put up a Trump sign, and then ambushed and killed two police officers.
It’s ironic that he killed the very people whose honor he set out to protect, but who can explain mental illness?
Were the Mississippi church burners also mentally ill? I suppose that’s a legal term of art, right?
Weak-minded people filled with rage is what I call them. They are being led by a man who wants to be our president.
Sounds like another reason to vote Stein. There’s a Clinton connection in here, Trump’s just the setup.
You have to be shitting me. Are you allowed to vote in elections?
Based on comment history, KC should have added /sarcasm at the end.
Yah, I just can’t help reflecting on the nutty logic of some of our peers.
One of my good friends, a Bernie supporter, cast her vote with great reluctance for Hillary. I told her I was proud of her. As CK Lewis said, and this is a paraphrase, those who vote for Hillary are grownups; those who vote for Trump are suckers; those who don’t vote are assholes. I would have said immature narcissist but whatever.
“It’s ironic that he killed the very people whose honor he set out to protect, but who can explain mental illness?”
In the mind of the paranoid and deeply racist, he probably saw them as race traitors or something along those lines.
Seems right.
They told him that waving the Stars and Bars at black football fans was creating a public disturbance. He said it was an exercise of his constitutional rights. Then he stewed on it, and this is what happened.
Stewing on things seems to be a right wing specialty.
.
Those who don’t know how to process feelings have few other options. There’s perseveration or drowning one’s pain in some addiction. I can’t think of a fourth option. My dad’s like that. If I invite him to a counseling session to work through something, he’ll just make me wrong for asking. As if there were something weak about it. In truth, I think it takes strength to face one’s feelings.
These attacks happened, and more will happen as well, because Trump has made it okay to vocalize racism and hatred.
It’s now acceptable to disparage and incite violence against women, immigrants, blacks, and anyone else who doesn’t fit the approved white male party.
We have met the enemy, and he supports Trump. And I’m guessing that it will only get worse.
Yes, although photos of the Trump rallies certainly have many, many white ladies cheering as well. Quite remarkable, really.
The ladies don’t, however, seem to be as likely to conclude the use of assault weapons on innocent parties is somehow justified…
Sadly, this is what a fair subset of Trump’s supporters consider “making America great again.” And now that this bunch has been energized, I’d expect at minimum more of these sort of lone wolf terrorist attacks, that at their heart are race-based, because that has really been what has “concerned” Trump’s base all along (contra the usual “it’s about economic inequality” concern trolls).
Yes, yet another reason to fear for our nation if Trump wins (and even if he does not). As hard as it will be for all of us, I most of all fear for our brothers and sisters of color.
Yes, but what to think about reports on early voting in Florida that African American voting is down?
Eventually people have to step up.
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Don’t recall where I first came across that revision of Trump’s slogan, but everything I’ve seen before and since suggests that’s the main factor, if not the only factor, driving Trump support.
“A fair subset”, as you put it.
A subset without which he’d have been history long ago.
And kudos for “terrorist”.
Domestic terrorism is exactly what it is. And no, if psychological derangement doesn’t excuse foreign, including Islamic, terrorism, then it doesn’t excuse the domestic variety either.
“…and more will happen as well”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/02/us/mississippi-black-church-vandalized-vote-trump/
Sadly your’s is a well founded observation.
Among the millions of “law-abiding” gun nuts with massive (and growing) home arsenals, some percent will lose their minds over the course of their lives and use their high-powered weapons on whomever their failed brain happens to grab onto. The price of “liberty”, I guess…
So one day this nut is disparaging some black football fans as “cop haters” and the next he’s shooting two coppers to death? Jeebus.
“Weak-minded people filled with rage is what I call them. They are being led by
a man who wants to be our president.one of their own.”something along these lines seemed predictable, even inevitable eventually given the extreme irresponsibility of Trump’s relentless incitement of desperate, deluded, unstable people (and the more widespread embrace by the right of the scorched-earth politics of personal destruction).
It’s a very, very dangerous “game” they’ve been playing.
“Deplorable” even, one might be tempted to label it!
Revival of lynching would barely seem surprising to me at this point.
Perish the thought!