by Sandy » Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:36 pm
By going to Pittsburgh, Trump did something that would have been expected of any president. His presence drew attention to a tragedy and regardless of any political perspective, he needed to be there. The question was about the timing of his visit. The public officials and some of the synagogue leaders, knowing that his presence would spark protests, wanted him to wait until after the funerals because of the logistics involved in having to cordon off a part of town and interfering with those wanting to be part of the funerals in the process. He came, there were protesters, though they avoided the area where the funerals were being held, they made their point, and many of them showed their solidarity and support for the families of the victims.
I agree that it is telling that no one showed up at the airport to greet him. For a president who thrives on political rallies and loves to be a cheerleader of inane, sensless lines ("lock her up" being a favorite) not to have supporters greet him had to be deflating to his ego. It is also telling that none of the Republicans in the area running for re-election showed up for photo ops. Maybe that's because support from Trump cost the Republicans a congressional seat in a heavily Republican district (more than a 20% advantage) in this area in a high turnout special election this past spring.
I think he missed an opportunity to denounce the alt-right, white supremacist, white nationalist ideology that was behind the shooter's motivation to pull this off. Oh, he muttered some relatively unemotional words about the shooting being despicable and bringing the guy to justice, but he's only a couple of weeks away from declaring himself to be a "Nationalist," which is a dog-whistle term to those kinds of folks. To really do something to his credit regarding this particular shooting would require him to remove a number of individuals from his administration and permanently call out and denounce others who helped him campaign and whom he gave jobs, like Steve Bannon. If he wants a political "win" out of this, he'll have to do a lot more than he's done.