18 holes Trump the funerals of school massacre victims
AS grieving families continued to lay their children to rest following America’s latest school massacre, Donald Trump was busy shooting golf.
Incredibly, only days after Nikolas Cruz walked into his former college and killed 17 pupils, the President of the United States slipped on a white polo shirt and a matching white cap and headed for the course.
Just hours later and a mere 37 miles away, the parents of 14-year-old Alaina Petty and 15-year-old Luke Hoyer said goodbye to their children for the last time as they were buried.
Trump, who briefly met with injured victims and first responders on Friday, refrained from a trip to the links over the weekend – a decision his flunkies billed as being out of respect for those killed.
But his role as consoler-in-chief was simply too much to ask as, come Monday, he again put himself ahead of those who have now become yet another statistic in the country’s appalling rate of gun deaths.
The shooting aftermath was the latest episode in the conflicting saga of golf and grief which shows the world’s most powerful man to be the world’s most selfish.
Before hitting the course, Trump embarked on a Twitter rampage over the weekend.
Rather than trying to show respect and understanding for those affected by the brutal murders at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in south Florida, he sickeningly used their deaths to push his own agenda.
As special counsel Robert Mueller began indicting Russians for election interference last Friday, the President lashed out.
He sent 16 tweets – two thirds of all those he wrote – on the topic over the next three days, all with one thing in common. They were lies.
The indictments focused on social media activity by Russia rather than hacks targeting the Clinton campaign or US electoral infrastructure.
Trump’s tweets described this as proof “there is no collusion” between his campaign and Russia and that the whole scandal was dreamt up by Democrats and “the fake news media”.
But that’s not true. The absence of indictments related to collusion does not mean that such charges won’t be coming in the future.
To make it sound true, Trump twisted the facts, the worst instance being his claim the FBI would have stopped Nikolas Cruz if it hadn’t been so busy probing his ties to Russia.
The tweet caused outrage online, including among apparent survivors of the shooting.
One wrote: “Seventeen of my classmates are gone. That’s 17 futures, 17 children and 17 friends stolen. But you’re right, it always has to be about you. How silly of me to forget. #neveragain.”
Another added: “Seventeen of my classmates and friends are gone and you have the audacity to make this about Russia. Have a damn heart. You can keep all your fake and meaningless ‘thoughts and prayers’.” Trump ended his weekend Twitter rampage by posting, “Have a great, but very reflective, President’s Day” before going to play golf as Alaina and Luke were laid to rest. The President is a national embarrassment devoid of all sense of humility, respect and understanding.
Instead of putting on his white polo shirt and golfing chinos and prioritising 18 holes, any other leader would have donned a black suit and tie and attended the funerals.
The President played golf as, 37 miles away, parents buried their children