by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Donald and Melania Trump and their entourage paid visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, last Wednesday to (one must suppose) show some concern for the victims of the shootings which had occurred just days before in each of those communities. Trump, a self-absorbed individual who seems to bear a complete lack of empathy, acted as though he was on a campaign swing during the visits. He and Melania both smiled broadly in pictures with hospital trauma room staff - doctors and nurses who were also inexplicably smiling.
The visits were actually more of a political sideshow, a tasteless and vulgar photo-op that covered up the very real tragedy that had played out among the bullet-riddled patients who were confined to rooms and beds nearby.
The idea that trauma-room personnel who had just been through the horrors of dealing with patients of mass-shootings could stand giddy and grinning next to a jovial Trump and pose for pictures was so absurd that people began to speculate that these individuals might not be the real doctors and nurses who had worked with the bloodied patients, but instead be paid actors. It didn't take long for that rumor to start flaming its way across social media. Yesterday however, Snopes.com, an organization that ferrets out false rumors, announced that the people in those photos who were so eager to get their pictures taken standing with Trump as he gave "thumbs up" signs were indeed actual medical personnel who had been involved in the care and treatment of the shooting survivors.
Reports to the contrary were fake news.
All of the shooting survivors in El Paso, as well as the local congresswoman, refused to meet with Trump during his visit, but hospital staff had no problem at all crowding into the picture.
But there was another photograph that came out of the El Paso hospital visit that was even more controversial than those group shots with the hospital staff. The second photo showed Donald and Melania Trump standing together with Melania holding a beautiful brown baby so that he, too, was facing the camera. The Trumps were smiling and Donald was giving his ubiquitous "thumb-up." Social media was on fire with the news that this child was the baby whose parents had died in Walmart while trying to shield him from gunfire. And while decent people thought that surely to God the Trumps would not be despicable enough to try and score political points with an orphan, a child whose parents had died as a direct result on Donald Trump's virulent verbal attacks on Hispanic immigrants, others were not so charitable and opined that it was most likely true.
Yesterday Snopes.com verified that the baby which Melania was holding in the photo was indeed the child who had lost his parents in the Walmart massacre. American politics had sunk to its lowest point ever, and Donald Trump had taken it there.
Donald Trump, a man who lacks the ability to feel empathy, went to Dayton and El Paso not as a mourner or a consoler - but as a politician looking for ways to grab and hold the attention of the media and the public. He left with a nice stack of glossy photographs. That's a far cry from the actions of our last President, a man who openly wept with every parent of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. One was an inspirational leader - and the other was Donald John Trump.
Citizen Journalist
Donald and Melania Trump and their entourage paid visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, last Wednesday to (one must suppose) show some concern for the victims of the shootings which had occurred just days before in each of those communities. Trump, a self-absorbed individual who seems to bear a complete lack of empathy, acted as though he was on a campaign swing during the visits. He and Melania both smiled broadly in pictures with hospital trauma room staff - doctors and nurses who were also inexplicably smiling.
The visits were actually more of a political sideshow, a tasteless and vulgar photo-op that covered up the very real tragedy that had played out among the bullet-riddled patients who were confined to rooms and beds nearby.
The idea that trauma-room personnel who had just been through the horrors of dealing with patients of mass-shootings could stand giddy and grinning next to a jovial Trump and pose for pictures was so absurd that people began to speculate that these individuals might not be the real doctors and nurses who had worked with the bloodied patients, but instead be paid actors. It didn't take long for that rumor to start flaming its way across social media. Yesterday however, Snopes.com, an organization that ferrets out false rumors, announced that the people in those photos who were so eager to get their pictures taken standing with Trump as he gave "thumbs up" signs were indeed actual medical personnel who had been involved in the care and treatment of the shooting survivors.
Reports to the contrary were fake news.
All of the shooting survivors in El Paso, as well as the local congresswoman, refused to meet with Trump during his visit, but hospital staff had no problem at all crowding into the picture.
But there was another photograph that came out of the El Paso hospital visit that was even more controversial than those group shots with the hospital staff. The second photo showed Donald and Melania Trump standing together with Melania holding a beautiful brown baby so that he, too, was facing the camera. The Trumps were smiling and Donald was giving his ubiquitous "thumb-up." Social media was on fire with the news that this child was the baby whose parents had died in Walmart while trying to shield him from gunfire. And while decent people thought that surely to God the Trumps would not be despicable enough to try and score political points with an orphan, a child whose parents had died as a direct result on Donald Trump's virulent verbal attacks on Hispanic immigrants, others were not so charitable and opined that it was most likely true.
Yesterday Snopes.com verified that the baby which Melania was holding in the photo was indeed the child who had lost his parents in the Walmart massacre. American politics had sunk to its lowest point ever, and Donald Trump had taken it there.
Donald Trump, a man who lacks the ability to feel empathy, went to Dayton and El Paso not as a mourner or a consoler - but as a politician looking for ways to grab and hold the attention of the media and the public. He left with a nice stack of glossy photographs. That's a far cry from the actions of our last President, a man who openly wept with every parent of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. One was an inspirational leader - and the other was Donald John Trump.
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