ORLANDO MASSACRE AND DONALD TRUMP
Afew days back, Democratic hopeful in the coming American Presidential Elections, Hillary Clinton, declared her main challenger, Donald Trump as someone who is “temperamentally unfit” to serve as commander- in- chief. Hillary further argued that his candidacy poses a threat to the nation’s security and could even lead to a global economic crisis. For those who might be thinking that Hillary was merely making a political statement, Mr. Trump’s response to the Orlando massacre which occurred in the early hours of June 12 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where at least 50 people were gunned down by a deranged 29-year-old American-born Muslim, rather validated Hillary’s claim. The Orlando incident has since been described as the deadliest mass shooting in American history and the worst terrorist attack since 9/11.
It is strange that while the whole world rose to condemn the act, Mr. Trump preferred to capitalise on the event for political gains. In the aftermath of the deadliest shooting, Mr Trump tweeted that he was right about radical Islamic terrorism, warning “it’s only going to get worse”. It will be recalled that the Republican presumptive contender has recommended a temporary ban on Muslims to the United States as a way of combating the threat of terrorism. Many commentators have since described Trump’s position as “hateful and awful”. How on earth would a man aspiring to lead the greatest nation on earth come up with such tactless statement at a time the whole nation and, indeed the whole world, was mourning?
I have been following the American political scene keenly since Hillary and Trump began their quest for political ascendancy. And frankly, Trump’s careless remarks after the Orlando massacre merely go to authenticate the fears of many concerning his presidential credential. His model of jumping on the bandwagon of anything that he feels will advance his candidacy and if that means sowing more fear and paranoia and playing into a kind of racist populist strain is fundamentally unbecoming of a man aspiring to lead the most sophisticated democracy in the world.
It is rather callous and essentially inconsiderate of Mr. Trump to come up with his opportunistic blabbing at about the same time as police began counting bodies in the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, steeling themselves to ignore the constantly ringing mobile telephones of the dead, as loved-ones desperately sought news. At about the same time Mr. Trump took to twitter to report that he was being praised for his foresight in having said that radical Islamists pose a threat to the West.
While commenting further on the subject, Trump in his usual garrulous nature piercingly condemned both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, for not using the words “radical Islam” when they condemned the Orlando massacre. Trump called on Obama to resign over his choice of words and added: “If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words ‘radical Islam’ she should get out of this race for the presidency.”
It instructive to state that throughout the early moments of the gory Orlando debacle, Mr. Trump did not reach out in sympathy with the dead, injured and their loved ones. All he saw was an opportunity to hit at his political enemies, secure more sympathy from an already angry citizenry and make his journey to the White House simpler. He was in such a haste to score cheap political point that he goofed on the citizenship of the insane assailant. It took a reminder from the more politically suave Hillary that the murderer was an American, bred and raised in the United States for Mr. Trump and his supporters to realise that they have made yet another costly goof.
There are several ways to explain the horrible response of Mr. Trump to the Orlando massacre. One is that Trump is desperate for power. The second is that he lacks proper grasp of legislative issues surrounding sales of guns in his own country. It is on record that Republicans in Congress have moved to block Democratic proposals to block gun sales to people on federal no-fly lists for those suspected of terror links, citing the rights of those who may be on such lists by mistake. It is not yet known whether the Orlando killer was on any such list.
Mr. Trump was unsurprisingly more interested in the ‘Muslim hate’ theory than bringing attention to the cause of easy availability of powerful guns. Without a doubt, in deliberately choosing not to appreciate any proposition of restraining the availability of powerful guns that make it possibly to kill a lot of people rapidly, Trump is rejecting a practical policy that has been successfully tried in places such as Australia, Japan and Britain.
Tragically, Mr Trump is not just waving aside a gun control policy that has been proven to be successful in other climes; he wants Americans to elect him president in order to try a fuzzy safety policy hinged on closing the country to dangerous Muslims, a policy that has been tried with success by specifically no country on earth. Tayo Ogunbiyi, Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Lagos