Trump must condemn white supremacist terrorism

Only the mass-murderer of 50 Muslim worshipers in New Zealand is to blame for his evil act. Only him. But responsible world leaders have a duty to speak forcefully about white supremacist, Islamophobic violence, just as they had a duty to call out anti-semitic hatred after Jews were attacked last year in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The burden to condemn falls especially heavily on President Trump, who, with the largest megaphone on Earth, has missed precious few opportunities to stir the pot of suspicion against Muslims — and who the Christchurch murderer himself, referring to immigrants as “invaders” in language that echoes Trump, called “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”

Trump has failed to meet the moment. Rather than deliver a strong and stirring statement opposed to the vilification of Muslims, he has issued general condolences and dismissed white nationalism as a rising threat around the world.

“It’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess,” he said.

This characterization, despite a surge in right-wing terrorism in the U.S. and Canada in 2018, is especially rich coming from a man who rightly rubbed President Obama’s nose in his failure to call “radical Islamic terror” by its name.

Meanwhile, Trump remains doggedly incapable of reflecting on the climate fomented by his spreading of the anti-obama birther lie, which suggested his predecessor was a secret Muslim and therefore illegitimate. And his baseless smear that he saw American Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks. And his call as a candidate for barring all the world’s billion Muslims from entering the United States.

And his angry defense of Jeanine Pirro, who Fox News took off the air for a week after she suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s wearing a hijab is “indicative of her adherence to Sharia law which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution.”

We repeat: We don’t blame Trump for the attack. We fault him for lacking the moral spine to call white supremacist evil by its name.