After a week of attacks, thoughts on hatred and corrosive influences
Last week started out on an ominous note and just kept on getting worse.
First, there were bombs sent to former government officials and CNN. It was unnerving, to be sure, especially when bombs kept on coming, but bomber Cesar Sayoc was apprehended, and at least none of the bombs actually went off.
Then, Gregory Alan Bush killed two African-American senior citizens who just happened to be walking around in Kroger grocery store Louisville, Kentucky. It was an awful thing, especially since they were shot simply because they happened to be in the wrong place and the “wrong” color. But at least the shooter didn’t get into a church. It could have been worse.
But then, on Saturday morning, Robert Bowers shot up the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, killing 11 and wounding seven. And the only sliver of a silver lining there is that the police stopped him before he could kill more.
David Shribman, the executive editor of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the city’s biggest newspaper, lives in Squirrel Hill. The column he wrote later that day is worth reading in its entirety, but I wanted to highlight one section on particular.
You could hear it in the sirens that broke the stillness of the morning and shattered the serenity of the Saturday routines at the cleaners, at the shoe store, at the hotcake house. No need, of course, in a place like this to identify the name of the cleaners, the shoe store, the hotcake house. Everyone knows them, just as they know the names of almost everyone along Forbes Avenue at any time of the day.
And precisely because everyone knows everyone around here - the one immutable Squirrel Hill truth that is at once irritating and comforting -- the news that raced down the street as noon approached Saturday was about a rare stranger in this peaceful place: dread.
Dread that someone you knew was in morning prayers marking the beginning of a baby’s new life.
Dread that the police officers who sped to the scene - truly there were scores of them, almost as if it were a police funeral, for it was clear that soon there could be one - were in danger.
Dread, too, that our country, our city, our neighborhood, our lives have come to this, and that this has come home.
Even before Sayoc was tracked down and apprehended, there was talk about how Trump’s rhetoric - not just the not-so-coded nationalism and xenophobia, but his tendency to try to paint his opponents as an enemy that must be stopped - contributed to it. Revelations that Sayoc was, among other things, a huge Trump fan, only added fuel to the fire.
Even back on Saturday, I’ve seen some right-wing online commentators saying some variation of “what about James Hodgkinson?” And it has been pointed out that Bowers felt that Trump wasn’t right-wing enough. But while there has been some extreme rhetoric on the further left side of the spectrum, none of it came from United State’s chief executive. And even though Bowers thought Trump was a traitor, his murder spree was prompted by a conspiracy theory about a “caravan'” of Central American asylum seekers - the very procession Trump spent the decrying as a mob full of criminals and terrorists
Trump may decry antisemitism, but his rhetoric recycles some antisemetic tropes. And this, along with his views on non-European immigrants, Muslims and foreign powers in general makes it easy for white nationalists and actual Nazis to glom on to him. And even if Trump learned that showing sympathy toward them doesn’t play well politically, he chafes at having to be more civil (even when it makes political sense).
Sayok and Bowers both had run-ins with the law. There is always a chance they could have done something similarly awful even without Trump. But it’s clear that the president’s rhetoric at least helped to nudge them in that direction.
Like I said, Trump loathes to hold back, and he has never shown any willingness to admit mistakes. While he isn’t entirely incapable of learning from them, it’s not something he’s terribly good at. So don’t expect Trump to learn anything from them.
And, unfortunately, I would not be terribly surprised if something like this happens again.
Scene from October 28 candlelight vigil for the victims of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting
As for me…I may not be a Jew, but my grandfather was, and so were many members of my extended family. As I’ve said before, over the past few years, as so many of them passed away, I’ve been more conscious of this than ever. So… It would have been tragic either way, but because of this heritage, it felt more personal.
I hope that this is the worst isn’t going to get.
I hope.