Trump’s Texas trip is a distraction tactic
He is trying to use a border visit to drawattention from Capitol coup attempt he helped incite.
Don’t be distracted by President Trump’s Tuesday visit to Texas.
Don’t be fooled into believing a White House spokesman who claimed this hurried trip to Hidalgo County is to mark “a promise made, promise kept — and his administration’s efforts to reform our broken immigration system.”
Trump didn’t keep the promise. After four years, the “big, beautiful” wall he promised from sea to shining sea includes a grand total of 30 new miles. And news flash: Mexico didn’t pay for it.
More importantly, though, Trump’s scurry to the Lone Star State is a blatant attempt to distract from the violent insurrection his dishonest and hate-filled rhetoric helped incite. It’s a stunt to draw attention away from an impeachment effort on Capitol Hill, the very place a horde of his fanatical supporters stormed last week. Five people died, including a Capitol police officer.
Trump seeks to use our conservative state, which he won in November with 52 percent of the vote, as a backdrop to lend a veil of normalcy to the last days of his failed presidency.
It’s the basest kind of political theater — and it’s not welcome. Don’t bring your mess to Texas, President Trump. This state may be red, but it’s nobody’s sanctuary city.
Along the border, community organizers are protesting the trip and have created a petition drive urging local officials to refuse to cooperate with Trump and to “cancel his dangerous stunt.” The Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe also started a Change.org petition seeking to keep Trump off their ancestral land, saying he “believes insurrection, treason, sedition are ways of life.”
Even Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, certainly no profiles in courage when it comes to challenging Trump, have chosen to stay away. Neither will join Trump at the border; opting instead to be in Austin for the first day of the Legislature. Patrick, who skipped opening day in 2019 when Trump summoned him to the White House, has condemned the pro-Trump rioters, even decrying the myth of antifa involvement, but minimized the president’s role.
Texas Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen, a Democrat whose district includes part of Alamo, however, minced no words about Trump’s visit.
“This is a time for good ol’ South Texas American pride to beam into our communities and to not allow ourselves to be used like an old rag by a modern-day traitor,” Gonzalez said.
Trump’s visit is a con man’s shell game — and we mustn’t play along. We can’t let it overshadow the horrific events of the Jan. 6 insurrection, when proTrump rioters staged the first occupation of the U.S. Capitol since it was torched by British troops during the War of 1812.
Hold on to these bone-chilling images: A ravenous mob dragging a police officer out of the building and beating him with crutches and a pole carrying the U.S. flag. Another officer screaming in agony as the redhatted throngs crushed him in a doorway. Rioters rushing through the hallowed halls of the Capitol shouting “Hang Pence” and “Hang Pelosi.” Shattered windows. Broken doors. Feces smeared on walls. A placard honoring the civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis trampled and destroyed.
The pulse of our democracy was nearly stilled by a rabid crowd radicalized by a president so unwilling to admit defeat that he pushed a conspiracy theory about nonexistent election fraud and who, moments before sending his followers toward the Capitol, said “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
Trump’s visit can’t erase the horror of what happened in the
Capitol Hill coup attempt — or his responsibility for roiling the rage, something he’s been doing for years.
Our state is all too familiar with the damage Trump can inflict. We saw it in 2019 when a gunman sharing the president’s anti-immigrant zeal opened fire in an El Paso Walmart, killing 23 and injuring dozens more. We saw it when migrant children were ripped from their parents’ arms at the border, with more than 500 still separated more than two years later.
“Trump started his campaign with lies to stir up white nationalism and incite hate toward immigrants,” tweeted former Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro. “He’s ending his presidency the same way.”
Trump’s support among Texas voters is undeniable, and there may be many who support his anti-immigrant policies, but that doesn’t give him the right to wield our state as cover for his sins.
Texas is a big, diverse state. We have our differences. But the vast majority of us love our country, our democracy and respect the rule of law.
So, Mr. President, before you smile for your photo-op in a town not coincidentally called Alamo, remember this about the sacred piece of our lore that you’re reappropriating for your cynical purposes:
Texas is a land that celebrates bravery in the face of defeat. It’s no country for old seditionists.