I'm not sure I have ever seen a picture that disgusted me more than this one does.
353
Just reading these comments it’s clear the Times has succeeded in chasing off the comment lists the half of the country that voted for the president. He went to visit the hospital- if he didn’t he would be criticized too.
27
Trump doesn’t need democrats and doesn’t need the NRA either. Ironically, he could be the hero by coming up with a gun plan in spite of his party. I’m pretty sure, being a New Yorker, that he sees weapons as distasteful. If he choose, he could emulate the sheriff in Dodge City in the old westerns .,,when you come to this place you leave your gums with me ! And by the way, the Second Amendment doesn’t say what most people think it says - read it again sometime and you’ll see... if you understand English.
46
The uncle will have some explaining to do when this baby gets of age and determines he was used for a celebrity photo op by Trump, Melanie, and his Uncle upon the death of his parents.
176
What was Melania thinking? She’s an opportunist like so many Trumps, always trying to burnish her sad and manufactured image. These people are detached from feelings and have no empathy.
173
"Americans will always do the right thing.....after they've exhausted all other options" - Winston Churchill
79
The Minority President lacks any emotional intelligence that a decent human being generally demonstrates. He seems to love his children but likely for wrong reasons. He takes pride in himself and I ‘created’ these very beautiful specimens. He is incapable of having any thoughts, certainly not intelligent ones that maymeander away from ‘Me, the Great Donald Trump’. The times when a nation experiences human tragedy, it is an opportunity for its leaders to bring the country together which provides a collective emotional support and helps to provide a closure. This minority president wants to make sure that the country..the hospital workers, who wanted to be polite, thought he was a rock star.
If we as a nation regardless of our color want to save this country as a shining beacon on the hill, we must rid this imposter who thinks he is our leader as a nation.
59
There aren't words- or enough words to describe the crass, vulgarity of the Trumps-Melania Dreadful Donald and the adult children.
This photo speaks to the dark time we are living in....
124
The NRA has the same dirt on the politicians that the Russians do. The politicians aren’t afraid of not being re-elected. They’re afraid of being ruined.
82
We already own 100% of Trump’s rubble pile and the burden of carrying it will be 100% our children’s and grandchildren’s.
52
Please explain to me why this man is smiling with a thumbs up sign at this tragic moment
166
The only person who’s face has the correct emotion is the lady on the right. There is nothing to smile about here.
106
Great piece! Painfully true. Some people voted for W because they thought he would be great to go get a beer with. Kind of awkward since he is a recovering alcoholic. The point was, he was a regular guy. Obama is a great guy. Now we have trump. No one could possibly want him as a friend, neighbor or family member. Think if he were the president of the company you worked. You would know you have a company bankruptcy in your future. Yet, he is now our president. I sincerely question that we will ever recover from him; his hate, his bigotry, his lies, his cruelty. Has he numbed us to the reprehensible? Do we continue to have a Republican Party manned by gutless wonders? How do we ever recover from this disaster?
90
Republicans are scared all right, but not about their children getting mowed down in a hail of bullets by the next sexually repressed white 20-something with an AK-47. The only think that scares them is the prospect of losing elections. They’ll say anything, do anything, if they think it’ll sway an undecided voter (pre-existing condition coverage, anyone?).
Expect congressional Republicans to slow walk their response, in the hopes that by Election Day 2020, Trump’s industrial distraction machine will have focused their outrage in some other direction. Expect more wacko predictions that the “radical Socialists” will be emboldened into taking more things from freedom-loving Americans; guns, jobs, sovereignty, economic security. Expect more GOP lies about their being the party of public safety.
And if you’re sick and tired of the true “American carnage”, like I am, write to your representatives in Congress, contact your favorite candidates, and let them know you expect them to keep common-sense gun safety on the front burner during this election cycle, and beyond.
71
Despite the anguish and disgust, Trump has done us a huge, largely unacknowledged favor. Metaphorically, America is a chronically sick human who has avoided a checkup for at least the last 50 years, thinking either nothing is wrong or that he/she will get better in time. Trump is a human x-ray machine. His x-ray of America shows the moral rot and the unmitigated fear and prejudice that lies deeply ensconced in an ignorant and heartless heartland. Now that we have the correct diagnosis we desperately need the proper political treatment if the patient is to survive.
74
If this is “winning”, Trump was right - I’m sick of it.
76
The reaction to the Trump “thumbs-up, big grin” photo is overdone. It’s just Trump’s reflex knee-jerk reaction to a camera. All the time. Anytime. It’s not an icon of self-absorption.
6
WT- does Trump think he is doing, grinning and reflexively giving the thumbs up at a time of great tragedy? As a representation of the blank slate that is Trump's brain, you cannot get anymore iconic or totemic than that.
71
What a great comparison to remind people how awful Trump is... I miss Obama so much!
92
So this was what was going on in the front office when, behind the scene, doctors, nurses and other caregiving staff were pulling all-nighters to desperately save the gravely injured from the shooting massacre and then suffering from PTSD like symptoms where they themselves needed counseling. Talk about a sociopathic President, his family, his acolytes and each and every one of the elected Republicans. Sickening is not enough to convey the feelings of disgust I feel about them and my disillusionment with humanity. How is this not front page, above fold news??
76
No thanks. I'll stick to my NRA lifetime membership and my 12 guns, including "assault weapons". Btw George H W Bush was a one term president for a reason.
2
“Mass shooting” is an inappropriately vague euphemism. It was mass murder.
87
I remain surprised by Ms. Dowd's conversion to saying nice things about President Obama and Democrats. I remember her disrespectful column's when he was president.
Nevertheless, if she has joined the anti-trump majority, I will gladly read her columns.
35
Why not just throw the baby in the cages and be done with it?
Let’s not pretend that this is exactly where the Trumps want him.
41
It is sickening to see the baby in the hands of a presidential couple who refuse to do anything about the gun problem in this country. Parents dead and Trump smiling with thumbs up.
The wrong people are dying. Republicans are responsible for the lack of acceptable solutions to guns and death in the USA.
33
Nothing more can be expected from Trump than promotional appearances, talk and actions. He is a tv president.
When he is on tv, he is happy. And he figures if he's happy, everybody else is happy, too.
He doesn't read his security briefings or do the work of a president. His staff, such as it is, do all the work and he is busy tweeting and worrying about rap stars in trouble overseas. And getting nice letters from brutal dictators.
No, Trump hasn't compassion for anyone. He simply isn't wired for it. And he feels no remorse for any misery he causes.
This photograph is one of the most telling ones I've ever seen. Every awful pixel.
45
Trump has won the war on children and babies. He has separated them from their parents on many occasions, because he cannot think of a more vicious thing to do to people. And "We the people of the United States" say "It's a pity" and "It's not who we are". They are right about the pity part and wrong about who we are. It took 80 years (well, 4 score and 7 years) after the Declaration said all men are crated equal until we warred among the slavers and non-slavers to free the slaves. It took another 60 years for WOMEN to get the vote. It was starting to look like we were making progress toward all men being equal. But Reagan and the Republicans beat down the "equal rights amendment" and kept women subservient to men and money. Today we live in nation where: "You are free to obey. Quit obeying and they take away that freedom". A nation where only the elected aristocracy votes on laws, votes for the Executive officers, and no one votes for Judges. We are better educated and more numerous slaves than any in history. Well, we can change it. But that means not obeying. Few of us have the guts for that. We'd rather see the war on children than oppose such a war. Philip Wylie thought he lived in a generation of vipers. Those were timid vipers, these are far superior vipers, American Oligarch funded, ignorance led, and winning the war against the children. I would say "God Help us" but the Evangelical Christians have already joined the war on the side of the vipers.
23
Why do I never hear of mass knife stabbing sort mass baseball bat clubbing? Those implements can be used to kill but not lots of people at time and not quickly. Assault rifles, on the other hand, do pretty much only that: kill lots of people quickly. And unlike other objects that can be used to kill, those rifles have no legimate purpose. I firmly believe in everyone’s right to own the same single shot musket that was available when the second amendment was adopted.
37
At another point during his "consoling" mission to Dayton and El Paso our President took the opportunity to brag about his crowd size. Only a man like Trump would think that terror victims and emergency room workers would give one toss about the size of anything that Trump has. This matches his appalling response on the day of 9-11 when he talked about the height of his building being the tallest now that the twin towers were destroyed. His capacity for self promotion in the midst of tragedy is unmatched.
38
There are no longer good people on both sides and I do not want to be governed by beliefs of those who live in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Those states know nothing about CA or NY etc... and they should not have access to more representation. You can hate the coasts all you like but we are the economic drivers of this country. Now if you support Trump and Republicans you cannot automatically be deemed a "Real American" or a good person that is merely scared with economic anxiety and there is no claim to any kind of moral high ground or rationale for single issue voting. Going backwards is not an option whether you like it or not. Those that vote Republican at this point are cowards too.
45
Unfathomable. And reading the comments supporting and defending this president is heartbreaking. There's no use arguing, at this point, with a Trump supporter. If a Trump supporter has not changed his or her perception of the facts by now, arguing with him or her is useless.
63
Each of us can expect to experience our own breaking point during this tumultuous and torturous presidency. I experienced mine when I saw this photo of the baby and his uncle with the president and his wife, plus an unidentified woman. Presented to the world via the president's wife's Twitter account, the photo screams exploitation: The baby is used as a prop, who, unlike the eight survivors in the hospital who said they preferred not to meet the president, is unable to voice his preference; the uncle, who, dressed in his work shirt, is the perfect portrayal of the president's narrative of the hard-working Trump-supporting man; and the mystery woman, who, because she is consistently unidentified, stands there as the insignificant/lesser-than token female. And then there are the president and his wife, grinning demonically, clearly pleased that they are the center of attention. The awkward way the president’s wife holds the baby reflects the lack of sensitivity and concern she has for the child. The president's thumbs-up sign is a clear message that he believes he has done something right and that this is a moment of victory for him and all he represents. This message will not be lost on his more fanatical supporters.
I vomited when I saw this photo. I have continued to feel sick, sad and hopeless since then. If the same-day deaths of 22 people in El Paso cannot move the president and the rest of the leaders of this country to protect its people, then this nation is doomed.
43
Trump is just the mouthpiece of an appalling culture that has taken over too many in your country. Not just in Washington but in the 30 or 40 million supporters this culture still has.
The problem is not the President, the problem is his people.
41
So while the Senate is on their summer break, nothing is going to happen as far as gun control. Not an urgent mattet? How many shootings will happen till September at this rate?
17
Trump bases his "policy" on whatever simplistic slogans stir his crowds to an adoring frenzy. Like every demagogue before him, he has learned nothing motivates crowds like demonization and fear-mongering. That child lost his parents so Trump can bask in more cheering and applause.
17
The pundits are wrong to consider the 2020 election a referndum on trum. The election is a referendum on the character of the American people. Joe Biden is right.
The upcoming election is about who we are as a nation. The media should stop focusing on Trump, and turn their attetion to the people who still support him..What is sickening in the photograph is not the president and his wife exploiting the orphaned child for political gain. It is the smiling face of the dead man's brother who chose to ignore the fact that the president's racist rhetoric contributed to the environment in which his nephew's father was brutally executed, like a dog. So smitten with the harmful Americn disease of celebrity attachment,he appears undisturbed. I have met Hispanics who, even now, wholeheartedly support the president while vilifying the new Hispanic immigrants trying to come to this country.He gets no blame efrom them, because they no longer identify with the new arrivals. Please American media, do not let the American people off the hook. Trump is only as powerful as the people who elected him.and continue to support him. The 2020 election gives us a chance to say loudly and clearly who we are as a country. From the sounds I am hearing from the electorate, the answer might shock decent Americans. This might be the reason we hide behind Trump because, then, we do not have to admit who we truly are; the grinning uncle in the photograph.
26
this is the last thing the nation needs.
10
The picture of Trump with the orphan baby is an alpha white man moment. He is showing that he can walk in, hold a helpless colored child whose parents were slain due to an environment enabled (if not supported) by Trump, and nobody can stop him. The baby’s relatives unwittingly participate in their own subjugation, contributing to Trump’s “master” persona.
Teutonic moment indeed.
25
My heart breaks for this infant who will never experience the love of his parents shot down by a domestic terrorist who thought he was in line with Trump's demented way of treating Mexican immigrants. I can hardly express my degree of sadness for each of the small children who lost their parents this past week when ICE raided the plant where their parents were working. These Mexicans were arrested and taken off in buses without any notice to their very small children left behind who were panicked sitting in a line out of doors sobbing and crying asking for their mothers and daddies. Mr. Trump said this would be a deterrent to Mexicans crossing the border. That is so not-right to cause the suffering of very small children for political advantage. These children will very likely be traumatized for life. Trump is committing such an enormous sin against those children.
29
Enough of Trump bashing. It is time to go beyond that and look at the sole of this country. Our friends at Fox News deflected Trumps timid response by talking about the mass invasion from south of the border and then bemoaning the lack of criticism of Obama after Sandy Hook. Trump just raised millions from the Hamptons in New York. Major companies are funding his campaign.Trump is a reflection of what this country has become. America the beautiful is not so beautiful any more.
23
The only thing remarkable about that picture is that we no longer think it is remarkable. It’s actually what many of us have come expect from Trump.
All lenses must focus directly on him, the rest of the picture is completely irrelevant (to him)!
13
With Trump, every week is the worst ever, until the next week. Looking at that picture, any normal person would think that the family in question had had good news. Perhaps they become citizens. Instead..... it is what it is.
This actually has to be the worst, most self-centered thing Trump has done as President. But, there’s always next week.
35
Too much is made of the thumbs up photo. All it amounts to is an automatic response of Trump before a camera, regardless of the situation. The photo is not an icon of self-preoccupation, but an icon of mindless reflex.
7
It seems as long as Trump is president there will never be an outrage that does not draw more attention to him than to the majority of white Americans who support him. Yes, a majority of white Americans support Trump. This being true, we must far better understand historical, racial, economic, political, and social factors motivating white Americans to support Trump in a form of mass psychology similar to authoritarian movements. And those who oppose Trump must understand how the same factors affect them as well because all Americans are susceptible to, and may be unknowing carriers of, the same disease.
7
We can no longer have "faith in the good sense and decency of America" because America no longer has good sense and decency. That it ever did is a myth.
20
It's all one big reality TV show for the current occupant. Smile for the cameras, make jokes, keep 'em entertained, even in the face of devastation and death. Orphaned child - father a Trump supporter? A photo-op! Promote the brand! Trump's entire life is a sales pitch.
18
When history records the voices of reason, honesty, and disgust that rose against Trump, McConnell, and the early 20th-century Republican party, Ms. Dowd, I hope this straightforward and all-too-accurate essay is included. Brava.
11
Hate to break it to you, Maureen, but it will die down. That's what Republicans are hoping for with waiting for September to return, while the Democrats are willing to come back NOW to try to do something. You'd have thought killing all those 6 year olds at Sandy Hill would've been enough, but the NRA has decided you'll stop selling assault weapons over your children's cold, had bodies. Trump talked assault weapons ban after meeting with the survivors of Parkland at the White House, but the NRA had a chat with him, and that talk went away fast. They're probably now trying to think of the most minimal thing they can do that could qualify as doing SOMETHING. Oddly, I agree that this is a "Nixon goes to China" moment, where Trump could use the bully part of his pulpit to whip everyone into line for an actual assault weapons ban. But- after $30 million, is he one of those politicians who, once bought, stays bought? The floundering NRA is counting on it.
15
Neither Donald nor Melania have the ability to have or show compassion. This poor 2 month year old child will never get to know his parents, beyond the fact that both died trying to protect him.
I saw one child crying for her parents when they were taken away in a deportation raid at the Koch's chicken plant. How many children came home from their first day of school and their parents were missing? I don't hear any complaints or support coming from the WH.
As I said before, "Neither Donald nor Melania have the ability to have or show compassion." Using this poor infant as a photo-op confirms that. Not speaking up for children who came 'home to nobody' is another confirmation.
25
Revulsion, indignation, incredulity — almost daily fair with Trump who is still mostly willingly backed by the GOP, and by something approaching 40% of American voters who seem devoid of any semblance regret for choosing a rank incompetent and morally delinquent spoiler as President.
All for naught if he manages a second term! As disconcerting and dangerous as that would be there are many variables that do not portend well for his certain and resounding defeat at the polls: voter complacency and skepticism, sophisticated domestic propaganda and outside interference vis a vis the Russians, and a fundamentally divided Democratic party.
8
it would take each sitting Republican Senator to lose a child to gun violence for them to change their views on this issue. No ethical quandary there for me...I'd begrudgingly trade that for the tens of thousands lost each year to their inaction.
14
The Anchondo parents died heroically, without doubt.
But I will never, ever understand Latinx, Black, LGBT, women or first-gen immigrant Trump supporters. Are these fellow Americans in that much denial, or that aspirational for some token of faux-status, that they are blind to Trump's unrelenting nastiness and divisive politics of "the other?" The selfish motivation of Republican politicians to enable Trump, however, is quite clear — re-election without a challenge.
21
The DOJ policy of not indicting presidents should be suspended and a charge of inciting to riot entered against Trump for falsely warning of an invasion. Invasion is a precise term that when used by a public official is a clear call to defensive action. Misused it is the equivalent, or worse, of shouting “fire” in a crowded theater.
17
Looking at this photo while knowing the baby in Melania Trump's arms is now an orphan after his parents were needlessly gunned down due in large part to the president's hate-fueled speech against immigrants and Mexicans is more than mind boggling -- it's the height of poor taste.
Especially with Donald Trump standing there with a smile on his face and an exuberant thumbs-up as though this were like any other photo-op instead of the tragedy it is.
On the August 9th edition of the PBS NewsHour, when asked about Trump this photo David Brooks said: " I think he's a sociopath. He's incapable of showing or experiencing empathy. I look at that as someone who is unloved and has made himself unlovable and whose subject is his own competitive greatness. He doesn't do the Consoler-in-Chief because it's not in his emotional range."
That's it in a nutshell -- and no truer words have ever been spoken.
34
It's possible that Trump is devoid of empathy because he has never experienced suffering or anguish in his entire life. But there's no excuse for his inability to express sympathy for the suffering of others. When he was doing his completely inappropriate and frankly bizarre photo op in the El Paso hospital, I felt like I was looking like a man-boy who had no idea of the gravity as to why he was in that hospital. Trump is not stupid but he is oblivious to the world of reality.
13
Maureen has correctly branded Republicans as the party of human sacrifice. Republicans willingly sacrifice the lives of hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Americans from all walks of life for the votes of gun owners and the contributions from the gun lobby consisting of the NRA, gun manufacturers, gun owners, and others.
The human sacrifices Republicans willingly make are much more sickening than those made by primitive cultures. Republicans are not trying to placate their gods, they are simply trying to keep their jobs and to maintain power.
In the wake of a huge number of mass murders, involving the killing of Americans from all walks of life, Republicans have refused to take any steps to prevent further gun violence and they have prevented others (city councils and other local legislators) from taking any action.
Republicans have no interest in preventing fun violence. They benefit from it by convincing people that the only way to protect themselves is more guns. The ultimate protections are personal arsenals held by each of us.
Continuing to elect Republicans to political office means that gun violence will only get worse.
17
“Risk of Premature Birth Increased for Latinas After Trump’s Election.”
If the risk has increased then we should expect more premature births. Unless that has happened it's a meaningless conclusion.
Intuitively however I could understand increased anxiety and stress if you are an illegal immigrant in fear of being deported but I hardly find that to be a disturbing headline from the Washington Post.
Bear in mind that the results of this study are after Trump's election and the study must have some time to complete and therefore do not reflect what would be a natural reaction to the killings in El Paso.
1
To me, pictures like this are emblematic of why gun reform has stalled in this country. Survivors are not a monolithic group; there is always that minority who, whether from naivety or vanity, always seem to delude themselves that "If I get his ear for just a second, maybe I can convince him to do everything that decades of reformers haven't."
It never works. Instead, they allow the leadership a fig leaf to discount the views of all the other survivors. Instead of agents of change, they allow themselves to become props for confirming the biases of the people in power by serving as a token "representative" of every victim of gun violence everywhere.
I hope you're proud of yourself, Mr. Anchondo. Your fifteen minutes of infamy will ensure that there are even more children without fathers and mothers in the future.
40
Time to be honest about the dangers of guns and from gun owners.
Every person who uses any thing which may cause harm to others is expected, trusted, to not allow them to do so. That is an expectation that is punished if betrayed. If those betrayals become likely, them the thing that produces the harm may become contraband.
But any thing perceived to be unsafe and too dangerous to allied to be used can be made into contraband. The fear is enough. Cigarette smoking does kill eleven people for every person killed with a gun. Every year.
Somewhere between a third and forty percent of adults own guns. Compare that to those who have done harm, and it becomes clear that misuse of guns is not likely in terms of numerical risks.
But we don’t try to know who has guns who are likely to do harm. We wait until they do before we do anything. Changing that is a logical first step. Registering guns, licensing owners, background checks, and court orders to remove guns from those highly likely to misuse them could prevent some of that gun violence. Over half of the deaths are suicides, which can be anticipated as possible.
Assault rifle ban? The danger from these guns is due to the fact that they are the perfectly designed guns, easiest to shoot, to keep focused upon a target, with long ranges, and to shoot continuously. That is why they are popular and why the military rifles are much like them. The weapons of war assertion is to plant the idea that they are made for homicide.
8
Every time I think that this presidency has reached its lowest point, I’m proved wrong. As a human behind, this is probably as low as he can get but I’ll sure he’ll prove us wrong during the campaign. I worry that the Dems may not have the stomach for his kind of fight. Ultimately it all boils down to what kind of country Americans (mainly his supporters) want. The signs so far haven’t been promising.
29
Trump doesn’t care. He could care less.
25
What’s the smile and thumbs-up for? My speeches got two immigrants killed. It’s sickening.
46
Elvis Costello said it best. He was writing about Margaret Thatcher, but the point is perfectly made about Trump too:
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that child's lips
Well I hope I don't die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh I'll be a good boy, I'm trying so hard to behave
Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to live
Long enough to savor
That's when they finally put you in the ground
I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down
12
The image is grotesque, and absolutely fitting. A Trump supporter and his wife are killed in a mass murder against people of their own race, a mass murder incited by the president of the United States of America. The man's brother, smiling, said he felt "consoled" by the inciter-in-chief, who is positively grinning: This is just a sick situation.
Right now, we don't need to focus on Melania Trump holding the murdered couple's 2-month-old son who is alive because his parents shielded him from the shooter.
Right now, we don't need to focus on the power of ideology holding the uncle of the baby.
Simply behold the grinning sociopath giving his usual thumbs up -- the grinning sociopath who is the president of the United States of America.
67
"If he (the Prez) wanted to lead a crusade to get real background checks — or even a ban on assault weapons, which he said in a 2000 book that he favored — he would be formidable."
In Canada, Tommy Douglas, the guy who gave to Canadians actual Health Care -- for Everyone! -- is so Beloved, they have statues of him -- Everywhere!
"I felt that no boy should have to depend either for his leg or his life upon the ability of his parents to raise enough money to bring a first-class surgeon to his bedside."
President Trump can go down in Infamy.
OR, he can rise to The Occassion.
He's full of Surprises.
Surprise US, Mr. President.
We'll Love You FOREVER.
12
As we know from the president's twitter messaging, everything he says is ALWAYS addressed, first and foremost, to his base. So what does a picture of him giving a thumbs-up—with a baby whose parents, Jordan and Andre Anchondo, were both killed by a racist—say to his base?
35
Melania's jacket ... personified. They don't care.
How could anyone vote for Trump?
39
@Gregg54 Ask America's farmers how in the world the voted for Trump.
9
“I want to know if my hair is just like yours.”
What child would say that about Donald Trump's crown & glory?
32
We choose to live with periodic sacrifices. It appears so. Just ‘collateral damage’ obscuring view of the mighty altar to guns.
10
I find Melania's glowing smile as she holds the baby to be more disturbing than Trump's inane thumbs up (I expect idiocy from him). Since when does someone use an orphan as a prop? We've seen plenty of photos of her looking sulky and dour - why smile at this?
47
You know than fat, grinning, clown and his witless mail order bride, are about as ignorant and as clueless as they come. What about this situation, a two month-old orphan, made that way by parents protecting him, is worthy of smiles and a thumbs-up?
Wanting to puke is an understatement. tRump once suggested "2nd amendment" solutions to HRC's candidacy. I am going to exercise my 1st amendment right and say that turnabout is fair play. It wouldn't make me sad to have to deal with Homophobic Race Bannon for the last seventeen months of the term. Maybe a large hunk of well done steak with ketchup or a KFC bone can do the country a solid; a massive coronary or stroke would be fine as well. We need a new national holiday.
27
McConnell and Trump aren't simply cowards on the gun issue, they are repellant, disgusting even. The lack of regard they show for human life, and for the sense of security we all need in our daily lives, is antithetical to good governance.
Donald Trump, in particular, with his grinning and glad-handing and pathetic politicking at the El Paso hospital's ER, is a poor excuse for a President.
Trump should resign.
America deserves better
36
Pence should resign right after Trump.
11
The Good: an innocent baby
The Bad: the shooter who killed the infant’s parents
The Ugly: Trump’s smile and thumb’s up after the horror.
39
Trump said that if he would be our President, we would get tired of winning.
Look at it. Melania’s got the healthy kid in her arms. They won.
I, for one, must confess, if this is winning, I am tired of it.
17
This photo is worthy of Diane Arbus.
25
And yet maureen, your disparagement of "barry" and your constant assault on both Clintons had an influence in bringing us trump. In a close election, everything matters, in an epically close one like the 2016 disaster, that fact is magnified.
50
"President Trump, standing next to Melania and the baby in the picture, is grinning and giving a thumbs-up."
This is what we got for a President because the Press was so worried about emails. The World watches and wonders how Americans were this ignorant.
44
The whole family's bizarre.
His wife posted the photo with no thought of the irony...as Trump shamelessly campaigns with an orphan baby who's just lost his parents because the President inspired an impressionable 21-year-old to drive 600 miles to maim and murder dozens of innocents.
We thought W was the worst but the bar keeps sinking.
Is this impeachable, Nancy??
31
I heard another columnist for this newspaper talking about this photo when he appeared on the PBS Newshour on Friday. I think Mr. Brooks used the word "sociopath" to describe the man in the long red tie.
33
The shooter traveled to El Paso to stop the Hispanic "invasion" of Texas apparently unaware of the fact that Hispanic occupation of Texas preceded that of the "whites" (including the Trumps) by hundreds of years.
38
@moschlaw. Excellent point.
7
An appalling and tone deaf photo summing up all that’s wrong with the man child in the White House. God bless America.
17
Abdominal pain all around concerning this sick photo. Who does this??!! Who thinks this is OK?? How much money did the NRA give DD? Alot more than soul cycle. If we could have a more direct relationship between the offce holder and the voter by stoppin g the flow of corporate money, the human race may survive- otherwise it isnt a pretty picture
17
The Democrats are being provided with almost an endless source of campaign items to use against Trump:
1. You wanted to see Obama's birth certificate, Show us your bone spurs
2. You're a billionaire ....show us your tax returns
3.Thumbs up in the photo....so you approve of what happened to this child's parents?
4.You'll have the best working in the cabinet....how many of the best have left...now you have less than the best
One could go on and on
The Democrats should not reply and respond to every tweet....
Rather change the topic....we want to see the X-rays of your bone spurs...etc
19
I think this whole thing with Trump is totally disgusting. A thumbs up for what? That the child didn't die along with his parents?
However, I wish the story on the shooter was that simple, but it's not. He's also a rabid environmentalist and anti-corporatist along with his white supremacism.
The guy in Dayton called himself a socialist.
It's like the labels are all getting thrown in a blender and whatever combination of hates comes out is almost random. The only real commonality is the hate itself.
5
“The boot in the face. The brute, brute heart of a brute like you.” — Sylvia Plath.
19
So true
Trump knows exactly what he is doing
Trolling people in morning before they’ve buried their dead.
The Only thing missing is the I really don’t care jacket
10
Remember this, Ms Dowd, when you and the rest of the media start nit picking the Democrats running against DJT for being too quiet or too pedantic or too something for your sensibilities. Any of them, on their worst day, is a vast improvement over the current officeholder.
44
Vile is the word to display with this picture. No empathy or humanity from this creature occupying the WH. Beyond comprehension for anyone with a conscience.
22
I wonder if trump even knew who the baby was.
He probably thought it was a newborn, scrubbed up for his photo op.
16
Thank you Ms. Dowd for this, you are the reason I read this paper. As to the current occupant of the whitehouse who clearly has no self awareness, there is little left to hope for in regards of actual human feelings. The caption from Melania`s tweet should have been "let them eat cake." That would be more apropos of these seething narcissists.
9
The TDS suffering enraged liberals have no boundaries.
They will use any excuse to spew their hateful bile and anti-Trump lies and rhetoric.
Conservatives hate the president* too FYI
21
@George Orwell
Yawn. And they say that irony is dead.
22
The real George Orwell hated fascism. He would have been revolted by a "leader" who kept the press out of the hospital then released his propaganda photos. Who calls the press the "enemy of the people." Who puts his children, unqualified and vile in their own way, into powerful and important jobs. Who fires highly experienced and skilled experts to put syncophants into jobs of national safety. And I must add I have a very similar photo of my husband and I holding our infant daughter, flanked by two people. We are grinning ear-to-ear because it's her adoption day. That photo turned my stomach.
14
No one worked harder for, and got more glee from, the take-that-Bill! victory of Donald Trump.
You knew who he was when you thumped the tub for him, Ms Dowd. Own your complicity.
35
The image of the "thumbs-up" Trump and his smiling wife using the orphan of massacred parents as a prop for their photo-op evokes feelings of disgust and revulsion... the word that comes to mind is "sociopath".
27
This is the only time I have ever seen Melania smile in a public photo.
16
Maureen, this is the same Trump whom you supported and enabled (by writing anti Hillary articles) during 2016. Is there any mea culpa on your part, an honest repentance? Otherwise, you are just as transactional as Trump is.
43
"Our Republican leaders are cowards." Republican leader is an oxymoron. Congressional Republicans are cowards. There, fixed that.
23
That photo is both repulsive and a true picture of the vile soulless man that was elected President.
No economic boom or big tax cut at any other policy or party that someone may support is worth supporting a man who debases his office and what the USA stands for on a daily basis
21
Yes, Maureen, the pile of rubble mounts week by week. But the reasons for the slaughter are complex. Yes, millions of guns including weapons of war, more than our total population. Some attacks result from individuals with issues...they lost their jobs or their wives, or they've always been bullied. True, some political attacks come from a leftist view, no less destructive. However, what is most disturbing is the higher incidence of extreme right racial and religious hatred. The perpetrators: Those who fear that, like Hitler would profess, inferior legal and illegal immigrants of different races or ethnicities are replacing them. This is where Congress has failed to pass immigration reform since Reagan welcomed millions in 1986. We should blame Republican hatred of The Other and constant obstruction; and Democratic outlandish generosity including free healthcare for illegals. Most important, for decades, America has failed to stop far right messaging and terrorism. Now tragically, these Neo-Nazis are encouraged by a megalomaniac President Trump, the selfsame individual who encourages the KKK. He baits and switches by supposedly supporting Israel only because of the large Evangelical vote. Trump's despotism and racism encourages growing support worldwide. And still, the rubble mounts upon the White House, until the shining city on the hill transforms into a collection of dead bodies and forgotten values of epic proportions.
9
As bad as Trump is, and he’s worse than awful, at least Hillary didn’t get elected. I mean, after all, her emails...
Right Ms. Dowd? !
38
Why are the people in the picture smiling?
22
Trump is a cruel narcissist, that fact well established. But the fact Melania posted this photo simply reveals her as a clueless stooge who continues to serve well as the First [Trophy] Lady of the United States.
21
In case we were in any doubt, Melania Trump, ( I won't call her the first lady of anything) is also a sociopath. But you would have to be, to marry Trump.
29
Trump loves the carnage and chaos. He’s on track with the plan from Moscow.
Let’s not forget that Ms. Dowd was so obsessed with her hatred for Hillary Clinton that she helped put Trump in office.
Now she is shocked by the monster she helped created that is destroying our once great nation.
I call this hypocrisy and Ms. Dowd will write this kind of moany column about Trump until the Democrats choose their candidate, then she will start picking that person apart like she did with HRC. Oh but her emails!
I guess it sells newspapers or creates clicks as they say these days.
This country is lost.
29
Once again Mo you have proven why you articulate the most accurate and cogent comments re DT. One of these days perhaps you’ll write a column titled “Donald’s Inferno”. .Truly as time passes we travelers are witnessing the Decent. Many of us out here who share your views are truly frightened. That picture of DT with the orphaned baby is the showpiece photo of this man’s pathological compartmentalization. You’re the best Maureen.
7
It says everything about Congress that despite these massacres and death toll they all still toddled off for their August vacation.
16
Trump,the sociopath, should be locked up for inciting hate and racism. All supporting Republicans of trumps manifesto should be voted out of office. This administration and its supporters are criminal.
16
The tiny voice in Trump’s head:
Please, my fellow White Supremacists, kill more people of color so I can have more photo ops like this. Darn! I look so good in front of the camera!
10
Seeing the thumbs up and smiles, I was led to believe this photo was a pre mass murder photo op. Then I read the article. This kid is now an orphan; his parents ruthlessly gunned down. And our president smiling and thumbing up like some middle schooler who just won a trophy. What an imbecile.
30
Unfair and unsophisticated to reach precocious, presumptuous conclusions about motives of the shooter except to postulate that he is mentally ill,sociopathic, obsessed with video games,victim of bad parenting, just as was the case @Columbine, and included among the victims r the shooter's own parents who will have to live with the disgrace and guilt for the rest of their lives.1 can no more blame the president nor his 63 million unconditional supporters than 1 can blame Sanders when 1 of his acolytes,a Dem.Party precinct captain, unleashed a fusillade on that baseball diamond with the intention of killing G0P lawmakers 2 years ago.Ms. Dowd's writing has deteriorated since it is opprobrium , denigration of the c-in-c all the time w/o a let up. Yet Trump was always ready to return your phonecalls when u were NY based, Ms. Dowd. Some thanks!Try for a change being informative, weigh the good Trump presidency has accomplished against the negative effects of his mandate, and inform us of ur conclusions. This article strikes ABH as vacuous, and Alexander Harrison seeks only enlightenment from Times newspaper writers, a reasonable request from someone who was raised by his parents to be always "raisonnable,"and they did not have half the educational advantages in life which u have had and take for granted!
2
Shame on the uncle too. Like trump is going to care what a Hispanic brother has to say about the death of his brother. Have some awareness, dude!
27
Cowards indeed!
5
She is writing so seriously out of context as to make me wonder about what else she writes.
Lord, next she will attack his wife?
Well, at least she didn’t crop the picture to make it look inappropriate.
@Ramon.Reiser
I agree with you that cropping the picture and leaving out the baby would make it into an ordinary shot: one that would show our Daffy Donald like a happy duck in the rain, wallowing in his element of narcissistic adulation.
6
Trump is giving a thumbs up to his white supremacist supporters. He's saying "atta boy" to the shooters. I think this is the way that Neo-Nazis and Klansmen will see it.
17
Trump and his wife are both despicable. This is the most shocking photograph I have ever seen. They are both beyond shame. How dare they use that child as a prop for their depravity? And... she posted it! How can anyone be so callous? Words cannot express how I feel. It is simply beyond words to express my revulsion.
28
Why does Dowd think she has the ‘right’ to say what the President is ‘thinking’ in that photo. A typical airhead ‘progressive’ making judgments she is not remotely qualified to make.
2
Cowards they are and their boss is the biggest. Trump's bullying history displays his cowardice as any youngster learns on the playground. The big bully always turns out to be the biggest coward in a real confrontation.
7
Is the obscene, depraved, indecent individual in the photograph the same person you, Maureen Dowd, fawned over in 2015 and 2016? Of course it is. Will you own your part in enabling the photograph that you now (appropriately) find obscene, depraved, and indecent?
26
Maureen, Maureen, Maureen.
Oh how enjoy your prose, especially when your poison pen is turned on evil.
But, unfortunately, you are just that. A poison pen.
You write for $$$ and the trail of garbage you leave in your wake, could care less about America (see all your past nasty columns about Bill, Hilary, and "Barry").
So, as I was heartened to revisit the image of President Obama (your Barry), leaning down to allow a young boy to touch is hair, I was sickened by the image of Melania holding that poor child while her husband (who created an atmosphere to which that child is now orphaned) is smiling with his thumb up, and reminded how you and the rest of the news media helped get this horror of man elected President.
34
After November 2016, I've tended to feel like American politics was completely unpredictable. But I'm confident in predicting this: Trump will NOT lead any effort to increase gun regulation.
Sure, it would make sense for Republicans to pass some sort of toothless reform just so they could say they're not ignoring the issue. That would be the rational thing to do.
But Trump isn't rational. And he's entirely indebted to the unshakable support from a base that agrees with the ideas expressed by the El Paso shooter and who believe ANY gun regulation is the first step toward total disarmament of the population and enslavement to liberal ideals they hate with unbounded passion.
Trump will say whatever he needs to say, for now, to try to make it seem like he's concerned. But he knows that if he really pressured the Republican Senate to pass a gun bill, he would betray the core values of his most passionate supporters. And he won't do that, no matter how many bodies pile up.
12
It is sickening to see the Trumps SMILING! They are holding the child of slain parents for Pete’s sake, what is there to smile about? A photo op for the first couple at the expense and exploiting a real tragedy for their own aggrandizement!
Beside the fact that Trump’s rhetoric may have aided and abetted the shooter actions it is also impossible not to recall the heart wrenching images of Latino babies snatched away from their parents at the border by order of a self serving and cruel president who claims to be protecting our borders by using babies and children as ammo. He is the most despicable human being next to Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot.
23
What a couple of sick cookies, this so called President and so called First Lady.
19
Not only is the picture of Trump dispicable, the Barbie dolll next to him shows how big her brain is. The woman is herself an immigrant. Is just shameful, foolish, inappropriate and unamerican.
32
No sensible gun laws will be passed because Putin now owns both the Republican party and the NRA via bribes — also known as donations in Washington parlance.
Treason is now called as patriotism in the GOP.
Keep ‘Merica Great!
Bow to Putin!
15
That photo made me literally sick to my stomach. Thank you, Maureen Dowd for putting into words my utter revulsion seeing that sweet child being used by that sick piece of garbage.
19
"[F]aith in the good sense and decency of America..."?? Are you kidding me? That flew out the window in November 2016. Anyone who still has that is a fool.
11
Oh please, all register to vote and throw this scoundrel of a President trump and his shameless cardboard wife out of the office.
And then we will breathe again !
27
This whole thing was Melania's doing. Why is it that she is off limits for blow-back? Michelle never was.
20
Vote out the white nationalist party in 2020!
15
Donald Trump is a virulent disease and to still support this monster is to support the worst kind of cancer
12
Let us not forget that Melania was a hooker who was introduced to the Donald by Jeffrey Epstein. Donald turned her into a 'supermodel'. She's a poser alright.
27
Exactly.
3
Does Maureen Dowd have any idea how much Democrats dispise her? She helped put Donald Trump in the White House with her vicious and highly personal attacks on Hillary Clinton. Never mind that her columns are unreadable. Just no to anything she has to say.
16
I think that Trump is almost devoid of empathy and intelligence. The fact that he will likely be re-elected says volumes about what half of the populace holds near and dear : guns, Israel, and a sense of us vs them. I always wonder what the average American Indian thinks when he hears some buffoon railing about " this is our country ; send those immigrants back home ". And, how far left & out-of-touch the Demos are that they cant beat this rich , retarded demagogue who lacks a soul. The whole situation is surreal.
10
MoDo cracked off a good one here.
Take a look at that picture.
He's wearing his KFC ecstasy smile!
The emoji doesn't exist yet to express the revulsion.
13
Maureen,
I am sure you get lots of pressure from the Echo Chamber crowd but this column isn’t you. If people want to wallow in self righteous, hypocritical, limousine liberal (old NYC term for you) drivel then the Times is full of it. We rely on you for educated sarcasm. Clever and amusing remarks which hit a target. Let Charles Blowhard and the others satisfy the demand for the hand wringing and crocodile tears. We expect more from you. Thanx.
4
I saw the picture when it was made public this week, but I didn't read anything about it. I was immersed in sadness about the shootings, and knowing that nothing would be done about the proliferation of weapons of war in this country made me so angry that I found it difficult to read about Trump's visit to the two sites of carnage.
But now, reading that the picture is of the little guy orphaned in the shooting in El Paso, and seeing Trump with his trademark "thumbs up" sign - which is great for fundraising events and his constant rallies - enrages me. I cannot understand the Anchondo family; they have lost so much in this tragedy, and yet, they don't seem to comprehend that the grinning guy they stand with is complicit in the deaths of their loved ones. But best wishes to them as they raise that youngster and the other children orphaned in their family. May God bless and keep them safe from that which they do not understand.
20
On the latest Friday News Roundup of The 1 A, one of the guests compared mass shootings to war zones, where life hums along normally most of the time and is punctuated by occasional random bombings or shootings. Think about that for a moment. The US is the same as a war zone.
17
@Carrie. And every place you go, anywhere you might expect to feel safe, can become a war zone in the blink of an eye.
10
May I point out that the child's deceased father, and his uncle - both Trump supporters. Which helps explain the fatuous grins on the POTUS and his wife. And fails to make either one worthy of the office.
23
@mimimum. I know. It’s really hard to wrap one’s head around that. But my Latino friends would never vote for a woman for president (even the women friends!!! Although voting women into lower offices is apparently o.k.) and they subscribe to a macho-apparent physical strength and/or power is everything” mentality. Of course many of them are also one-issue voters—anti-abortion. All of this makes them varying degrees of Trump supporters.
5
If any gun laws are passed, it will be a surprise. I think it will go the way as the republicans healthcare plan. .
11
When one truly smiles, it comes from the eyes, not the mouth. look at this photo of Trump and you can see he's faking it, just as he does millions of times. There is no smile in those eyes, he's pretending to smile for the camera. That and the ever present thumb's up are the last gasp of a man trying to pretend he has any empathy for the people he's coming to support emotionally. All of this is just too showy for words. Fast forward to the next horrible event, and we'll see the exact same mannerisms.
18
On CNN recently, Anderson Cooper show three shorts of ex-president Clinton, GW Bush and Ronald Reagan reacting to the OK bombing, at a Muslim mosque just days after 9/11, and Reagan when the Columbia exploded.
Graceful, empathic, using words of compassion and understanding of how tragic the situations were.
And we have our president and his First Lady smiling as if they were at a christening instead of showing compassion and empathy at the most horrible thing ever to happen to that child.
The thumbs up just turned my stomach.
26
As stated by David Brooks on Friday, August 9th- Trump is a sociopath incapable of empathy or compassion for others. If he is re-elected the Faustian bargain the GOP has made with it's "base" will lead the US over a cliff we probably can't recover from. The Russian interference isn't about sabotage of voting machines- it's about the sabotage of vulnerable minds and has been only too effective.
28
if you're still calling them a "Grand Old Party," the way you did just now, who sabotaged you?
i agree the blame for no solution goes to obstruction by mitch McConnell and by donald trump who is convinced that his base is 100% pro gun, anti immigrant and not smart enough to connect the dots to what a total inept crook he is- he is convinced his family can continue to profit off their pretend positions - they have power but do nothing- trumps convinced his base supports him in every endeavor to disrupt the country, let climate change go with no legislation to take actions- and to basically continue to lie about everything. Is is base large enough to sustain this chaos ? Aren't there enough people who see trump in a truer and more informed light, going to get him out of there? enough is enough. we are being held hostage by this - all of us are the same latino being rounded up now --it could be us next.
8
The El Paso shooting was an aberration. The annual Crime in Texas Report shows that Texas averages less than one hate crime murder a year. There were no hate crimes murders in seven of the last 10 years,
Hispanics make up about 39 percent of the Texas population.
In 2017—the first year of the Trump administration—5.6 percent of Texas hate crimes were anti-Hispanic hate crimes. There was one hate crime murder.
During the eight years of the Obama administration, Texas anti-Hispanic hate crimes ranged from 7.7 percent to 26 percent of total hate crimes.
Under President Obama, Texas hate crimes against Hispanics average 18.9 percent of each year’s totals hate crimes.
Hispanics make up 18.3 percent of the U.S. population. The most recent FBI Hate Crime Report shows that in 2017 Hispanics made up 10.9 percent of hate crime victims. There was 15 hate crime murders, but only one victim was Hispanic.
http://www.dps.texas.gov/administration/crime_records/pages/crimestatistics.htm
1
My two adult kids (adopted) are Hispanic, and I hate that my thought process is to reassure myself that one of them lives far from the border, and worry that the other lives in DC. When will he get a knock on the door, or feel a hand grab his shoulder? What would we do if he’s arrested for being brown?
I don’t know of any administration that has more successfully sown fear into the populace like 45 has done. Instead of focusing on any of the myriad issues facing the country and the planet, we’re in the gutter with this monster, repeatedly horrified that his ability to sink ever lower in lack of morality or empathy. I just hope I live long enough to see him dragged from his golden palace in chains, and exiled to Russia.
19
Some photos are so iconic that they remain in your memory, forever, to represent human misery.
This photo will join the photo collection that captures human hate and the resulting misery - such as the photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc OOnt on fire in Vietnam.
After seeing such searing, dreadful images - no one can forget them.
13
I don't know how you can compare the two photos of President Obama and President Trump. One was taken during a happy occasion (Barack Obama) and the other was taken after a massacre (President Trump). What was President Trump and Mrs. Trump to do? Frown and have sad faces. They would have been severely criticized if they had and they were trying to make the best of a very tragic occasion. The Anchondos would not have allowed the photo to be taken if they had not wanted to be seen with the Trumps. I am sure they did not blame President Trump and did not see him as a racist. The father who died obviously did not or he would not have cast his vote for President Trump.
President Trump is in no way a racist. He is against illegal immigration and does not care the color of one's skin or race. He is against all illegals from entering our country - white, black, Hispanic. He wants people to come here legally like millions before them.
President Trump and Mitch McConnell are willing to seriously consider background checks and red flag legislation. What is needed is for the Democrats and Republicans to come together and discuss this very important matter. What is needed is dialogue and until then nothing will be accomplished. This back and forth over gun control is getting us nowhere. We need real action.
3
They mumbled carefully parsed statements that might be construed as a vague nod in that general direction. But that's it.
5
@KMW ~
"...He is against all illegals from entering our country - white, black, Hispanic. He wants people to come here legally like millions before them."
Unless he can use them as employees at one of trump's properties. This has gone on for years, wink, wink!
‘If you’re a good worker, papers don’t matter’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/if-youre-a-good-worker-papers-dont-matter-how-a-trump-construction-crew-has-relied-on-immigrants-without-legal-status/2019/08/09/cf59014a-b3ab-11e9-8e94-71a35969e4d8_story.html
6
Maureen, yes they are cowards, but it is you I worry about. When the Democrats have their imperfect nominee, will you pick him or her apart as you did with HRC? Will you once again do the Republicans' bidding? Given the stakes, I sure hope not.
31
What will it take to get William Barr to investigate how files already in possession of the FBI wound up on Anthony Weiner's computer. That's what I want to know.
3
Photo says it all. He is perhaps a sociopath. Regardless, we are in a real crisis as everything that occurs seems to play into his bizarre playbook... Imagine making fun of Beto's nickname in the aftermath of such a tragedy...He is not just unfit or miscast. He is a usurper of the highest order.
15
The annual Crime in Texas Report shows that Texas averages less than one hate crime murder a year. There were no hate crimes murders in seven of the last 10 years,
Hispanics make up about 39 percent of the Texas population.
In 2017—the first year of the Trump administration—5.6 percent of Texas hate crimes were anti-Hispanic hate crimes. There was one hate crime murder.
During the eight years of the Obama administration, Texas anti-Hispanic hate crimes ranged from 7.7 percent to 26 percent of total hate crimes per year.
Under President Obama, Texas hate crimes against Hispanics average 18.9 percent of each year’s totals hate crimes.
Hispanics make up 18.3 percent of the U.S. population. The most recent FBI Hate Crime Report shows that in 2017 Hispanics made up 10.9 percent of hate crime victims. There was 15 hate crime murders, but only one victim was Hispanic.
http://www.dps.texas.gov/administration/crime_records/pages/crimestatistics.htm
2
@William Case
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
John Adams
4
Trump’s election and worsening cardiovascular health, sleep problems, anxiety and stress, especially among Latinos in the United States.”
Personally, I think it's more than just Latinos.
20
Too much noise.
VOTE.
That’s all we have left.
9
Every son and daughter of Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and the eastern shtetles know that America's welcome was not wholehearted and even generous. But it did exist. We all had people who came here when immigrants were needed even if some were doubtful to be easily assimilated. The Irish were not considered white. The Italians were criminals, and the Polaks drunk. The Yids were Asiatics supposedly and had all sorts of religious weirdnesses.
Now immigration is a threat. We don't need most of them. All the world wants to come here and to Germany and Britain for material and other advantages. We have every right to keep them out. But unlike Trump, we can do so humanely and without racist dialogue and viciousness.
3
To Trump this was all a photo op for him. He has no ability for empathy or sympathy. Getting reelected is all he cares about.
8
Even a casual glance at the photo allows one to see the obvious (1) Melania isn't smiling, she is grimacing, and (2) the female member of the Anchondo family looks as though she would rather be elsewhere.
7
Let's not forget, Trump is a master manipulator of media for his own purposes.
If you remove all context from that photo, then it just looks like a happy Latino family celebrating some medical success involving their Latino infant in the hospital with a supportive and beaming Trump and the First Lady.
In other words, a photo that will be useful to project in Trump's campaign ads directed at the Latino community next year, when the context has been forgotten.
5
There are some 30 million reasons ($$) trump will not buck the NRA. But the more significant is that he is, like most juvenile bullies, a coward. Even if trump had some convictions about meaningful gun control - difficult for one who has no convictions about anything other than himself - he would wither from even the most meek assault by the noxious PR machine of the NRA. Without leadership coverage from in the White House the Republican congress critters will do nothing. It's 8 years since the babies were slaughtered at Sandy Hook and there has been no movement to control these readily available weapons of war. And after every slaughter, the question remains - How many more sslaughters will be enough to make a difference?
5
The thing that has to blow your mind is the Trump supporters who apparently think that Trump is the best candidate the Republican Party has to offer in 2020. What does that say about the Republican Party? What does that say about the character of Trump supporters?
10
I don't understand this whole situation like many commented here. But I am thinking, the child's remaining family seems to be happy and they seem to bu supporting Trump just like the child's dad did. So maybe that's how things work in their world; hobnobbing with the powerful is more important that the lives of their relatives.
5
@Lagrange
hobnobbing with the powerful is more important that the lives of their relatives.
-----
Ugly, ugly, ugly.
Maybe the parents named the boy Paul, not Pedro, because they were proudly raising him as an American child. Maybe, he will one day know secure borders.
Plenty of legal immigrants, unlike the liberal elites, still distinguish between American citizens and undocumented workers. The latter are exploited much more than the former, who have civil rights and are regulated under the labor laws. Open borders just leads to more Hispanic exploitation, and less worker protections.
People who work, legally, understand this. The elites do not.
The GOP will do nothing in the end. The American public by wide margins -ever among Republicans- wants universal back ground checks. Yet, the GOP refuses and bows to the NRA. The only fathomable reason is money. These greedy thugs are willing to sacrifice innocent lives on the alter of donations and power. It's revolting.
11
What's revolting is that in the face of all evidence to the contrary, decent people still refer to them, completely without irony, as a "Grand Old Party."
Are they paying you? Have something on you? No? Then call them by their name. That's epithet enough.
I will never, ever forget that photo. Up is down and down is up and, for the nausea it triggered, I just don’t have descriptive words that are publishable. Sigh.
7
We need a national debate on the meaning and intent of the 2nd amendment--a debate the gun lovers would lose. Why hasn't this been part of the discussion? Use your voice, Dowd, and get it started.
4
Of course this is an unsurprising, sickening, dreadful photo and only the Trumps could have facilitated it. Obama asked how long the country had to endure such hideous acts, but until the Second Amendment is ditched, all US citizens remain responsible for this violence. An uncomfortable truth? Why on earth isn't the whole country repulsed by the endless loss of life? More to the point, why on earth are citizens not demanding that their representatives change the law? Why is the USA the only country that has such archaic gun laws? Look at how New Zealand responded following the Christchurch massacre. I feel grief for those who are the victims, but refuse to accept that anyone else deserves sympathy. ACT!!!
10
I blame all of this on the Founding Fathers for not making crazy
and irresponsible an impeachable offense.
9
Maureen claims the Republicans’ sin is cowardice. Hardly. Their sin is venality: they do what they are instructed to do by their patrons.
17
Yes, Ms. Dowd, this is a totemic photo for the times we are in. And it is so abhorrent, that while we can't take our eyes off the surrealistic horror of it, even the orphaned baby in the pic averts their eyes. Like, even the baby knows, from somewhere, instinctively that they must not look into the camera, like their deluded uncle, but actually off to the side where perhaps some sane loved one is distracting them. A sad scene indeed.
5
The photo is what represents the US today in terms of guns, gun controls and people murdered by guns: Dogs keep balking and people keep on walking.
3
Looking at those two photos reminds me of how much I miss President Obama and of how much I miss simple decency.
9
As far as I can determine the rock star treatment that the WH was thinking of must have poopiepantstednugent when he showed up at his draft board.
4
The baby was brought back to the hospital? I can only imagine the “rock star’s” entourage set this up, in their search for victims (dead or alive, doesn’t matter!) who are Trump supporters. The only thing that surprises me about this ghoulish tableau is the the baby isn’t wearing a MAGA cap.
14
I hear you. Not sure how they missed that opportunity.
1
Mo seems to imply that Trump is the only go-to politician responsible for our gross inaction on gun control...NRA lobby = cash bribes and I would suspect that most of our elected pols have guilty pockets
4
Trump's cowardly regime represents an extreme stress test for our democracy and our ideals. If he somehow wins in 2020, the USA is doomed.
6
"Mitch McConnell, Dr. No, won’t want to do anything ... the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, John Barrasso, pumped the brakes on possible inroads"
This is why the Republicans need to go. The American public is crying out for rational improvements in gun control, and yet these anti-American, corrupt politicians are so beholden to the gun lobby that they refuse to lift a single finger to help.
Well, here's a single finger for you Republicans. Do your doggone jobs and fulfill your Constitutional obligations to your constituents to keep them safe. Your jobs may depend on it, but the voter's lives certainly do.
5
The slain family’s attitude and support of Trump reminds me how oppressed people still support their oppressors.
They seem to identify with something in Trump even though he is monstrously racist and hates Central Americans and Mexicans.
My gut tells me that the family members identify with the sexism, male dominance and machismo in Trump that signifies power.
It reminds me of how women still support religious institutions that are misogynistic at a foundational level and still believe in male dominance of women.
I don’t know the answers for this.
14
Well put. Thank you.
1
Only the blind will not see the hollow expression in Trump and his wife's smile while holding the orphan baby.
I agree, our Republican members of Congress - whom I can't see as "leaders" - are spineless cowards. Time is running out for them as it always has for the wicked.
Sooner or later, the supremacists - including Trump - may understand that evolution cannot be stopped with guns. Neither is global warming.
We all need each other to figure out how we can survive without killing each other.
2
The cowardice of McConnell and the rest of the Congressional Republicans has been amply demonstrated by their enabling of a disloyal if not traitorous and otherwise worst president in American history. These cowards deserve to be both voted and scorned out of office.
But they will still be in office after the next election. Why? Because a huge portion of the American population is too cowardly as well. They are afraid of things like liberalism, people of color, and economic and religious ideas that differ from those they were spoon-fed while growing up. And they are too easily misled and manipulated by the right-wing media. So they are vulnerable to the fear-mongering and bigotry that media and the Republican politicians it supports are so adept at generating these dark days.
In short, change of a social-political nature is anathema to these GOP supporters. And courage is an attribute nearly impossible to find in any of them.
6
When a friend told me of the photo, I dare say I could not believe it was true. Words cannot convey the soullessness of the four standing individuals. Soulless degenerates void of conscious.
9
“Something sickening about the photo.” Really? It’s looks pretty darn touching to me, and I’m sure millions of others. But no, you find fault with it. Geez, Trump can’t win for nothing. Just another reason he’ll prevail in 2020..
4
The blame for the death of this kid's parents falls squarely on Trump and his supporters, so every single adult in that picture is responsible for this kid growing up without his parents. But yeah, they are all smiling; must be a "win" for Trump.
5
The media and American people must stop referring to Trump and his cronies as “leaders.” It’s sickening.
6
You are a great writer, but you make my mistake of going one step too far. Tens years from now will you be proud of your labeling of the US Senate Leader. Have a good day,
All you need to know about Trump and his administration is that they thought this photo op was a good idea. How far the mighty have fallen..
7
I wonder if I'll find any comments by Trump cultists saying he behaved most admirably.
Can someone actually look at this photo and not feel revulsion?Let's see.
7
@Jack Toner
No revulsion here, Jack.
Maybe my comments will be published today.
Y'all don't know yet how many "Hispanics" and legal immigrants are against open borders, do you? Dare I say, these are the Hispanic voters too who are legally qualified to vote -- the American citizens who count, whether the Census wants to acknowledge their status or not.
1
@Jack Toner OK, found two, one said the photo was "touching" and the other said that if Trump had looked sad he'd have been criticized. Then there was the fellow who claimed that the Times was responsible for the massacre.
3
Look just a few comments above yours. The commenter said it is a touching photo and wonder why Trump is being unjustly victimized.
The picture of the Trumps and their Hispanic (!) fans surrounding a two month old whose parents were murdered for being Hispanic is the poster of American indecency, the emblem of the hollowing out of America’s promise. How many of us are willing to stand with the signers of our Declaration of Independence and “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” in order to reform a country grounded on moral absolutes? The dead at Walmart ask me again what sacrifice am I willing to make to love my neighbor as I love myself. It’s a lot to ask.
4
President Trump does not care about anyone but himself. Why is anyone surprised to see this incongruous picture of Trump with the baby?
He has no sympathy for the baby. He is delighted to have any victim to pose with him, a definite victory for him. The baby was brought back to the hospital, and his relatives were the only people who wanted to see Trump. None of the victims still in the hospital wanted to see Trump.
Sad that we have such an uncaring president.
1153
@janye Sad that we have voters as gullible as the baby's father who voted for Trump and persist in supporting and idolizing that repugnant excuse for a person.
179
@janye
Having long ago cast in her lot with Trump, Mrs. T pictured holding the baby and standing next to that mugging man,, cares less as well. When her jacket said: "I really don't care, do U?", she meant exactly that. Her giant grin says it all.
136
Thank you Maureen for this poignant column. The incongruity of picture of Melania Trump holding the orphaned baby while Trump smiled his malignant smile was nauseating. Unfortunately the baby's uncle's remarks about being "consoled by Trump" will be used out of all proportion by Trump's supporters. The vile hypocrisy of that whole photo op was palpable. The whole scenario of ICE rounding up workers in Mississippi while a beaming Trump and Melania posed with the baby whose parents were victims of Trump's xenophobic rants, reminded me of the scene in the "Godfather" where Michael Corleone is at the christening of his nephew while his henchmen are rounding up his enemies.
When nothing happened about reasonable gun control legislation after the horror of Sandy Hook, I knew the NRA had won. Republican politician's allegiance was to them, and not to the citizens of this country. As happens every single time in this country when we are subjected to yet another massacre, this will blow over. The Republicans might be feeling the heat from some citizens, but the majority of their base are the ones who "cling to their guns and their religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...." to quote President Obama who spoke the truth. I apologize if this is abhorrent to anyone.
Of course we know the solution to the horror. Other countries which have instituted reasonable gun control measures do not have never ending mass killings.
Such a sweet picture of Obama and the little boy.
1080
@Diana Well said! Compellingly articulated and convincingly moving! "The Godfather" scene you describe is illustrative of the nature of the Vietnam War draft dodger to direct others to do his dirty work while he remains above the fray with the ever ready 'plausible denial' at the ready!
102
@Diana
Trump’s reactions often seem the opposite of what any normal human being’s should be. This thumbs up one is especially callous and stomach turning.
108
My husband was an NRA member because he felt they advocated gun safety. He let his membership lapse because they had turned political and refused to evolve or change in any meaningful way.
NRA members who are alarmed should vote with their wallets. The NRA will fail without money.
1635
@Jane: No, it won't 2/3 of the funds to operate come from the gun industry and huge contributions for wealthy Conservatives. The membership dues would not keep the NRA in operation for even a week. The vast majority of gun owners are like me, we will never become NRA members.
147
@Jeff
Jeff, please speak to other gun owners. As you know, sensible gun reform will work to keep guns out of the hands of those who lack common sense in owning guns, plus reduce weapons of war off the streets. We owe this to our children, their children and future generations. Otherwise, kind of miserable country are we going to bequeath them?
58
@Jane, George Bush senior resigned his lifetime NRA membership when they went after the ATF. At one time, there were Republicans with a recognizable set of values. All that is long gone, a collective of despots have seized the nation.
133
The picture of the both Trumps grinning as Melania Trump holds a newly orphaned Mexican-American baby looking toward his aunt for comfort is both gruesome and defining of this 45th presidency.
It labels both of them as opportunists with a profound belief that they are protected from the type of violence that other people, because of their skin color or ancestry, endure.
If we didn’t understand this man before, we certainly have all the evidence needed to understand him now.
2836
I agree how can you smile when a child you hold has profound sadness, that of never smelling his mums bosom or feeling that love again. I am a mother and I cannot help but feel empathy and love for that child, I have tears for him not grins or thumbs up
151
@Susan-Thanks for putting into words the sense of creepiness this "photo op" evoked.
150
@Susan
That Melania Trump tweeted this photo to the public is even more disturbing. Most of us know what Donald is all about. His smile and thumbs up is no surprise. But I can only conclude that Melania is an enabler of Donald's evil vitriol and sociopathic behavior. Is she proud of him? How very awful - to compare this First Couple to the First Couple of 2009-2017.
246
That picture says so much that I can hardly put into words how it makes me feel. As I look at Trump and his wife holding that tiny orphan with big smiles and a thumbs-up, it literally turns my stomach. Then, when I look at the baby's uncle, I see a smile that I just don't understand. I heard the interview with the uncle on NPR this week and was left with the same feeling. It was extremely important for him that he meet Trump and try to get a sense of what he thinks and feels. I don't know how to interpret his smile. Did he get what he was looking for? I think that the picture represents the profound division within our country. I don't understand how someone of Hispanic descent whose brother and sister-in-law were massacred along with all the others can even entertain the thought of supporting a person like Trump for president. This is the deep bafflement that many of us feel at this point. Maybe in another era if massacres weren't happening all over the country and gun violence was not a big issue then someone like Trump, based on his policies, might win the support of those who are currently being victimized. But this is not another era . This is the nightmare that we are living through. I just don't get it.
3779
@Ann
I heard that same interview with Tito Anchondo on NPR. It sounded sick and weird. His begging for an audience with the president sounded nothing like someone who wanted to hear Trump's views on race and the massacre. It sounded like someone desperate to keep believing in the Trump cult of personality.
If the massacre of his El Paso neighbors, not to mention his brother and sister-in-law, has an Hispanic man in that city reluctant to give up his belief in Trump, we are more doomed that I ever thought. That interview with Tito Anchondo brought it home.
If you havent' heard the interview, listen. It explains Tito's smile as he stands beside his brother's orphan. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/748972066/family-of-el-paso-victims-speaks-out
Text of interview here. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/08/749099244/the-couple-killed-saving-their-baby-in-el-paso-had-just-found-a-future-together
307
@Ann I was physically ill yesterday .and this brings it all back again...I am overwhelmed with sadness -This photo has been seen around the world and we will never forget it -nor will the rest of the world. That poor man was exploited he does not comprehend what he has done
391
@Ann I think Trump was trying to reassure people, as President and leader of security services, that everything is under control and the police and hospital staff are doing a good job, the kid is going to be OK, this is America.
12
On guns: Why are the House Democrats not returning to Washington to re-pass various gun control reforms? Yes, they did this months ago, but do it again, raise the stakes, draw attention, put the pressure on the Republicans. Play offense. Have a debate in the House where Republicans will have to go on record. Same with the Senate - Dems should be holding vigil outside, demanding McConnell return immediately. Make it public, use the media.
Always, always, always the Democrats are reacting. You have the House - try to set the agenda. If the Senate fails to follow it's on them. I love President Obama, but this is the same mistake he made - the belief that the nation is smart enough to figure all this out - clearly and sadly it is not. You must be demonstrative in dramatic ways to break through the noise, particularly with Trump's constant distractions.
5
Every year there are about 15,000 gun homicides in the US, together with about 23,000 gun suicides. The press pays attention to the mass shootings which are less than 1% of the total. It would, in fact, be very hard to put in place gun regulations that would prevent mass shootings by people like the shooter in El Paso. It would be relatively easy to greatly reduce the suicide and homicide numbers. We're not focused on the real problem; we're focused on the most news-worthy.
1
This picture is indescribable. Words fail other than to say the man is heartless, cruel, damaged and without a soul. For Trump to have allowed this event to be photographed and used in such a perverse way defies explanation. What level of depravity is this man not capable of?
6
Point blank our Republican leaders are cowards....right on Maureen. They are many other bad things as well, but this one is great for starters.
3
Please take this comment in all sincerity as a question and not as the beginning of an argument: I have heard Trump repeatedly accused of referring to mass immigration as an invasion or an infestation. Including by Ms. Dowd. I have seen Trump using "invasion" repeatedly. But I can't find the place where Trump refers to the movement of * people as an "infestation." Yes, rats in Baltimore -- but where does he refer to illegal immigrants as an infestation? Would some commenter please direct me? Thanks --
2
@sillhouette
This is the first one that I found.
Donald J. Trump ....
✔ @realDonaldTrump
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
101K
7:52 AM - Jun 19, 2018
5
Robot Wife has plastered on her Photo Shoot smile with no comprehension of the word "Shoot" other than in the context of the phrase "Photo Shoot".
7
No shock even after Sandy Hook! Why?
Maybe trying to conjure images of small children [or any other victims of shooter massacres] splattered by executions are beyond imagination.
What If there was to actually view a few of these mass murder crime scenes? Hey 'guns for all' supporters: would that alter your loving embrace of war weapons in civilian hands?'
6
The thumbs up sign from Trump is even worse when you realized that the baby suffered two broken fingers when his mother dropped atop him to shield him from bullets, seconds before the baby became an orphan.
6
It's simple. By denouncing racism, Trump would lose too many of his most rabid supporters (half?). He might gain a couple thousand new fans. Racism and violence DEFINE him and his republican party.
8
The Republicans are the enablers. They don't pull the trigger; they just drive the getaway car. People say, contact your representative. Who would that be? I might as well call my local NRA chapter.
4
The Anchondo’s appear to be smiling as well. The late dad was apparently a Trump supporter. This pic is just bizarre on many levels.
7
Dems should not settle for a weak bill that does nothing but take the heat off Republicans.
4
Graeme Wood of The Atlantic got it right: That photo is obscene. That is exactly the word to use to describe it. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/trumps-el-paso-photo-is-obscene/595888/
6
It’s as if the GOP thinks gun-fetishists have more rights than the rest of us.
4
@gemli I have missed you and your comments. So glad you are still watching, reading, writing. I do understand that because nothing has changed since Jan 20 2017, you have already said it all. But keep those comments coming, please!
2
Let things die down? What happens if there is another mass shooting before congress comes back?
1
What a crazy place, what a crazy picture. It beggars belief as does this entire period under your orange haired loon. There's this feeling that surely Trump cannot be any more outrageous after he does something awful and then of course he does, he keeps doing, saying, the most appalling things and people just say; Ah that's just Trump being Trump.
I don't think his base reads the NYT but I wish they did and I wish they read the thoughts of the readers here and across the comments section as they might learn that 'their' man is slowly dragging down the ideal of 'truth, justice and the American way' .
That picture is just so wrong in so many ways.
3
"We’ve heard Trump talk about talking sense into N.R.A. officials"-- Come on, when was the last time Trump talked sense about anything, to anyone?
4
A picture is worth a thousand words, but “grotesque” sums it up.
4
That photo of that pair of con artists with the infant , now an orphan, is the height of cheap, theatrical exploitation. It was reported that the king of Twitter was upset that there wasn't adequate coverage of his insincere good will stops in Texas and Dayton, Ohio.He was seeking photos to use in the 2020 campaign, portraying him as some kindly figure: HAH!
How dare these two poseurs even attempt to show empathy for the very people he demonized from the first days of his election campaign, targeting them as invaders,criminals, rapists, drug smugglers and 'bad hombres'.
I only hope there are enough other Americans out there who have had their fill of this low rent carnival show and vote accordingly in 2020 and also remove his enablers and sycophants in the Senate to ensure a cleaner slate going forward.
8
The people who are victims of the violence and insanity of racism should at least be spared the atrocity of being "comforted" by Donald Trump.
2
I am curious, Maureen, after reading your recent scathing Sunday columns about Donald Trump: what does your brother think about all this? Is he still the all -in booster as in the past? Although I would expect no change in his views, the uncomfortable twisting, rationalizations, false equivalencies, and obfuscations that all Trumpers use would be interesting to read.
3
What about Melania the shadowy first lady. She's the one who tweeted the picture so she must think it is fabulous and shows what a terrific caring couple they are. To think they occupy the White House, supposedly the house of the people, makes me nauseous and angry too. How I miss Barak and Michele Obama and the true goodness and kindness. Would they ever smile while holding a recently orphaned baby? Never. How did this came to be? I will never understand.
9
So, Maureen, tell me again (as you told us so many times before November 2016), just how bad was Hillary? I am sorry to tell you that she looked at least decent then, and looks better now. Your wish was granted and she was not elected, but as the old saying goes, "Be careful for what you wish, because you just might get it."
10
Tiny Trump and his Gang Of Pissants are seriously undermining that Hill. We all can only pray it's solid enough to hold up for the duration...
1
The look on that baby’s face says everything- “Get me out of here” is written all over those eyes looking toward his relative and that tense mouth. And Trump gives the thumb’s up, oblivious.
2
Maureen: How is our brother Kevin feeling about Trump now? Let us know if he intends to vote for him again. Thanksgiving at your family home this year is going to be a lot of fun.
2
45 gives a ‘thumbs up’ while teams of trauma and vascular surgeons tried to plug the bulletin wounds from a gunman who showed up to shoot invading Mexicans. Eight wounded and hospitalized survivors were asked if they wanted to meet 45. All declined. So, his PR folks staged this photo op with a surviving orphan and his new caretaker. This has gotta be the bottom of the barrel in the Trump presidency but we all know it will get even worse.
5
That photo of That Man and his heartless wife (“I really don’t care do u?”) turns my stomach. But I am wondering why the orphaned baby’s uncle chose to pose like that, cuddled up to That Man, and smiling? He should be grief stricken, not snagging a photo for his brag wall.
People are strange, and so often disappointing.
7
I do not disagree with anything you wrote but I keep wondering when you will apologize for your part in a Trump presidency? Every column I read I wonder will she ever acknowledge turning over her column to her Trump supporting conservative brother ?
You helped make Trump more palatable during the election. It is time you and your brother acknowledge the error.
7
There are people on both sides of this photo who were half edited out. For the rest of their lives they’ll be thanking God they are unidentifiable.
2
The photo with this column says it all about Trump.
Either he is completely clueless about what is going on or he cares only about good photo ops.
Probably both.
3
Yes defeat them but you don't by nominating a Neo con on non social affairs and an identity obsessed social engineering liberal zealot like Hillary on social affairs.
This is exactly what middle America that elects president does not want.
1
The bottom line is that Donald Trump has put a target on the back of every Hispanic or Latino immigrant or citizen in this country by casting them as the enemy of white people. Even if he is defeated in 2020, his deplorable, hate-filled rhetoric will thrive in the white supremacist community and their enablers. The terrorism he's unleashed will not go quietly into the night.
3
Scholars of genocide know the nomenclature that creates the conditions for mass killing and pogroms. Trump is the predicate. Charlestown and El Paso wouldn't have happened without Trump at the helm.
3
The picture is sickening. Clearly, this president used what should have been a somber consolation of the families of the shooting victims as a chance to score points with his “ base”. The thumbs up was bad enough- at least he wasn’t winking.
4
When French truck drivers get abused by their bosses they strike and bring Paris to a standstill. People who still care about this country need to get organized and have a nationwide general strike. The craven pols in DC will do nothing for us. Use the internet and shut it down until we force change. We're becoming a mid-level banana republic here. Bigly sad.
4
“The shining city on the hill is an ugly pile of rubble “
that’s the sentence that will be remembered for years to come...
In fact that could have been the entire column ...this is the perfect summation of what America has become , particularly under Trump ...a pile of rubble , collapsed in on itself having rotted from within because no one with strength of will or backbone stood up for her and just watched as everything that made America genuinely great was dismantled ...pluralism, tolerance , kindness, inclusiveness ... all vaporized under Trump and the Republican Party...turned to dust....
3
If Sandy Hook couldn't do it, nothing will. The news cycle moves on...
Meanwhile: Trump's "thumbs up", like the cruelty of his immigration policies, is a feature to his base, not a bug.
It angers the "elites" and "Liberals".
When the POTUS vociferously, publicly, repeatedly yells about "infestations", "invasions" and "rapists and murderers", is the expected effect stimulation of humane impulses in his target audience?
3
Although Melania Trump is described as “perhaps” having more empathy and decency than her husband, the fact that SHE put out this shocking photo on Twitter and smiles almost as broadly as her husband while holding the Anchondo’s orphaned child, leaves no doubt in my mind that she and her husband are perfectly matched for lack of empathy and lack of gravitas. The only thing missing from the photo is Melania’s infamous jacket.
8
"His father was a Trump supporter." Sort of says it all, doesn't it?
Wake up, people.
1
I am sick and tired of the spread the blame language, and cannot stand any phrase that includes “we” as in “we have decided that we cannot stop the deluge of shootings” as MD writes.
We??? I never decided that. There are plenty of things we can do.
Let’s call out who’s really to blame for the massive immediate carnage that occurs with a rapid fire high capacity assault weapon. NRA MITCH, Trump, and every R politician, and the Ds from the red states. If Mitch’s family got obliterated in 1 minute by an assault weapon, would he do anything?
4
Still trying to process that the baby’s deceased father was a Trump supporter.
2
Seems the kid was only person pictured with sense to turn away from camera...
4
"Our Republican leaders are cowards."
Not anymore than most politicians facing the public wrath. And that just makes them more dangerous. Trump is like Reagan but without the brains. Not that Reagan was flush with grey (and white) matter - just enough to be a clever boots. It enabled Reagan to see the possibilities in Gorbachev's offer (and Thatcher's imprimatur). He probably saved the globe's bacon for a time. Like Trump he wasn't belligerent in the usual right wing sense. The GOP has become a very dangerous party.
2
The First Couple: Divorced from reality.
4
Maureen, where was this kind of commentary BEFORE the 2016 election? You seemed to do whatever you could to disparage the Democrat running, while kissing up to the ultimate (Electoral college) winner. Don't come back now with that timeless photo of one of our great presidents and lament how things used to be.
5
Folks, let us stop,expecting a man with the emotional development of perhaps a twelve year old boy (and that is on a good day) to know how to behave in any situation which requires maturity, empathy, seriousness, kindness, intelligence, or consideration of others. Ditto for those around him, including the useless wife. Why would any think it was appropriate to pose smiley with an orphan infant as if this baby had just won the lottery? Any normal adult would know such a picture should be kept private, if taken at all, for the family. Shame on Melania for allowing it to be posted.
As to guns. It is simple. The Republicans are the party of assault. They assault our safety, our national security, our constitution, our environment, our education system, our reproductive rights, our health care, our justice system. They have no interest in protecting us. At all.
7
class vs. crass
no matter how much trump attempts to debase Obama, he will NEVER be the president or the man Barak Obama is.
3
The NYT understands nothing.
If it could, we would live in the dramatically better world.
The most important trait that Trump and the NYT share is the same ideology, the similar credo and the identical worldviews.
They take credit for everything good and blame somebody else for the failures. That’s the key characteristic of eternal children incapable of growing up and accepting responsibility for own actions.
The real grown-ups take credit for the good as wll as blame for the bad things happening in their lives.
Do you know who killed those twenty people in El Paso? Actually, the NYT and many others from the left press. They have made the people scared and afraid for their survival.
The weakest and most unstable individuals crumbled under the pressure first and started shooting.
I came in the US as a refugee a quarter century ago. Do you know why? The Croatian Parliament foolishly kicked the Serbs as the constitutional nationality from the Constitution in December 1990. They got intimidated and terrified and the shooting spread all over ex-Yugoslavia.
The repetitive statements by the NYT that massive illegal crossings of the US border should be decriminalized, thus allowed and accepted without any resistance have terrified a lot of people. That fear killed those innocent bystanders in the local Walmart.
Unless the NYT reverses own editorial position, a lot of other people are going to be killed.
If we cross Rubicon, there will be no return.
The time is running out.
@Kenan Porobic
So you think refugees should now be turned away? 25 years ago it was not a crime to cross the border and apply. Should we have been terrified of you? You came from a crime ridden, communist country and yet we allowed you entry. Be grateful at least if you can't be kind.
5
"Even as we absorbed the grotesque image from the hospital, we had to watch the heart-rending footage of Hispanic children sobbing and stranded in Mississippi because their parents...had been rounded up by ICE."
Cruelty has, unfortunately, become acceptable, thanks to the Trump administration. He says such actions by ICE should be seen as a deterrent, a needed action that will keep brown-skinned people from crossing our borders from Mexico. This reader finds ICE to be much scarier than those coming to America via Mexico. ICE may be part of the nation's law-enforcement community but they have attributes similar to that of the Gestapo, and that is very disturbing and raises questions regarding why am I supporting such cruelty with my tax dollars.
6
More like dull town in a bump...so sad!
1
Do these words raise eyebrows of any readers????
"The infant’s uncle, Tito Anchondo, told reporters that he brought Paul to the hospital to meet Trump, while other victims refused to do so, because he wanted to tell the president about the pain of the family. His slain brother, he said, was a Trump supporter. He told The Washington Post that he felt consoled by Trump."
I'm baffled by the uniquely human phenomenon of being consoled by those who have made statements that foment violence toward the group to which one is a part. I'm also baffled by how fluid an Us/Them sense can be, but nonetheless. I guess Jared Kushner, upon hearing is father-in-law claim both sides have fine people in Charlottesville when they chanted Jews will not replace us, assumes they are referring to other Jews.
7
Trump has spent his life trying to separate suckers from their money, to convince people to follow him into what became failed ventures: real estate developments, casinos, Trump University, Trump Airlines and the USFL, to name but a few. To be honest, he is clearly good at getting people to invest in something that will be good for Trump while they bear a good portion of the risk.
He's done the same here. They've bought into the racism he's selling. Like with the bad deals he sold people in the past, they haven't figured out yet they've been taken. Hating immigrants, blacks and Jews don't make his "investors" better off. It gets them nothing. If they wiped all the brown skinned people from the U.S. tomorrow, the Kochs, Waltons, Bezos, Apple and Google would still have all the money. And these white minions would continue to be their serfs, begging for the scraps off their tables.
So they've been sold a bill of goods by Trump and the GOP and have squandered the one thing of value they have--their vote.
6
thanks to Maureen for a beautiful and spot on column. thanks to Maureen for working so hard to get Twitler elected. all that Hilary bashing worked out so well for the country.
4
The smile and thumbs up in the face of manufactured tragedy speaks volumes. Trump views the photo op as a light-hearted joke when people died because of his words. SAD!! It always has to be about him.
3
The picture of Trump with the infant whose mama and papa were killed by one of Trump's killers is revolting and shocking. Anyone who ever loved a child would have it dawn on him that this infant's loss should never be exposed in such a heartless way. The huge grin and thumbs up gesture of Trump standing next to this infant is grotesque and borders on monstrous. What future awaits this angel? Does Trump care? Foolish question about one who seems to have no heart or soul.
3
Is Trump grinning because now there's only 1, not 3, Latinos is this country?
The body language and look on the face of the woman family member shows that she's aware of and appalled at the situation. Wonder why she agreed to be in the photo- maybe "respect for the office?" Hope she tells that baby the truth as he grows up.
4
Nah, they're scared of their own shooters, too.
So very true. America’s political system is corrupt and broken. Money gets you elected, along with misinformation. So few politicians are there to serve the people, rather they serve their donors and their ego, relying upon things like the NRA and Trump propaganda machines to quell voices opposing their selfish agendas. Yet ironically, America struts the world stage telling everyone they should be more like you. Its tragedy and farce in plain sight, and when all else fails you just invade and destroy other countries, and end up stealing their resources so the 1% can stay obscenely rich. All while the planet burns, and America is absent. I for one can not say you are any better than the authoritarian Chinese. What a shame.
3
Same old story: he’s the symptom and not the disease. Millions of your fellow Americans voted for this clown and want this circus to continue. That is the real problem.
6
Trump may not love hunting but he's definitely a gun rights supporter. from the NYT piece by Ashley Southall on Jan. 24, 2019, "Mr. Trump told The Washington Times in 2012 that he had a concealed-carry permit and two semiautomatic pistols. Four years later, he told a French magazine that he “always” carries a firearm."
1
Why are the Trumps smiling? The baby's parents have been murdered. The murderer repeated the "invasion" rhetoric of Trump to explain his mission to kill Mexicans.
An American tragedy. Trump is complicit.
2
When I first saw this photo I thought this was "fake" news, a photoshopped meme. The question, "How low can they go?" has been answered.
4
How low can they go?
Everytime we think Trump has hit ultimate bottom, he digs in deeper.
Could be her best article
I found this column trite and boring. The main points have been said over and over by other journalists and news commentators.
When it comes to denouncing Trump, Maureen, your heart isn't in it.
I am still waiting to read a a column by Maureen explaining just why she proudly voted for him, and if she feels any guilt when seeing all those children in pain who have been separated from their parents.
@Ellen she didn't like Hillary. She also didn't like Trump. You're emulating Trump by just making things up, "proudly voted for him".
Think about it Ellen, you remind me of Trump with your utter lack of concern for the truth.
Grow up!
3
I can always count on Donald Trump to do the wrong thing.
3
There will never ever be any gun control. When nothing happened when kids died, nothing ever will. Politicians are self serving, power hungry cowards. It is time we move away from that conversation. However, there’s one thing media can do. They can stop publishing the names of perpetrators and thus depriving them of their 5 minutes in the light. The killers should be deprived of their names existing in infamy forever. That will reduce them to nothing and deter future assassins.
Thank you.
Thumbs Up. Not even the GOP "dog whistle" survives this presidency.
2
Spent on for another Sunday!
Devoid of empathy, absent any cares they could possibly upset victims beyond their existing traumas and placing their mutual malignant narcissism on display for all, the Trumps’ hubris knows no bounds.
Hillary’s broad use of “deplorables” was unfortunate and incorrect. Yet, it captures the essence of Donald and Melania Trump to their cores. Deplorable, indeed.
The man lies at will, and sycophantic pundits like Dowd feed on the provocations of every tweet and soundbite. He is not a Democrat that hates hunting, nor is he a republican interested in fiscal conservatism; he is a narcissist sociopath and has played and pressured his way into his ultimate dream of unchecked power. That, by using this weaponized vanity, he could in one term effectively cripple, if not destroy this two century plus old republic is breathtaking.
1
The performance of a stripper on a pole has more integrity than the performance of the Trump’s posing, holding a baby whose parents were slain by one who embraces Trump’s hatred for Brown people.
The crazy thing about Trump’s rhetoric is a wall could not have protected El Paso from terrorists within our country.
Instead of spending $8 plus billion on a wall, such money should be spent targeting domestic terrorists.
4
I just want to know if you are still speaking to your brothers who were giddy with joy about the Trump election. Remember you let your brother write your column and he raved about how great things were going to be. Is he still over joyed? I’m just asking.
Franb
2
Who ever imagined that Trump was even remotely interested in a "...shining city on a hill..." ? One or more mediocre golf courses run by illegal immigrant labor was always more like it.
I'm not quite sure what planet Maureen is living on but the President and first lady did the right thing by visiting both victims and heroes of the two mass shootings. If they didn't go Maureen would be telling us how they don't care. Either way the extreme leftists in the media will get a piece of the Trumps.
2
Trump's hate rhetoric was the tinder that mans hate flamed on. Using hispanic children as pawns seems to b a very Trump thing. I am sure trump thought that added a point to the visits popularity. All Trump cares about. Notice he dumps the kid on Melania. Women's work.
Trump was just happy to nail a good pol-holding-baby shot without actually having to touch the germy little thing.
1
I am sure the shooter, if he knows of this photo, is grinning and smiling... a thumbs up in this situation is beyond the pale --it is showing off and promoting the double murder of the parents as a positive. It is hijacking a somber moment of horror and tragedy into a bizzarro world of distortion and misfired self-promotion. Is Trump a white supremacist smiling and blessing the killing of both parents? Or is he lost enough in a fog of narcissism that he thinks showing off a newly orphaned baby an opportunity or a thumbs up? The former might be as horrible as the later.
3
I try hard not to indulge in hatred - for anyone. When I saw this photo, the revulsion, the degree of hatred I feel toward this inhumane black hole and his mannequin wife, made me sick with anger.
That they stand there, smiling, using this now orphaned child as a prop for their egos, a child whose fate they are largely to blame for, is beyond my ability to tolerate.
3
I doubt any written records will be left behind when this administration is finally extracted from the White House, but if there are, they should be gathered and burned at a national bonfire on The Mall. We need to start over from where the Obama Administration left off. What a hateful period in our history.
2
I disagree that this is not limited to campaign season. It only happens during campaign season, even for Trump.
The problem is that Trump has viewed every day in office as part of campaign season, and his campaign is myopic, dishonest and sadistic.
2
Trump smiles holding an orphan thumbs up with Melania beaming. You can't make this stuff up.
2
If the massacre of children at Sandy Hook didn't motivate Congress to act regarding gun control, I honestly cannot imagine what would. At this point, I have to agree with the idea we, as Americans, are accepting of human sacrifice in mindless homage to the 2nd Amendment.
Christ. Just typing those words is nauseating...
4
In this deep moment of sadness how did the President and First Lady arranged a photo op with baby victim of this most tragic event? What was the purpose?
3
Knowing Mr Archondo was a Trump voter makes this whole tragedy so much sadder. I will never understand how a brown person could vote for a racist. Is it the tax breaks or did he want to pull up the ladder behind himself? Our own selfishness is killing us.
4
After Newton, it was clear to me that Republican lawmakers have no souls. All their Christian prayer breakfasts are just hypocrisy, feed for the fools back home that think they care about duty, honor, family, and country.
1
It must be a Washington DC thing, but I never cared for the picture of the president bowing to the black child rubbing his head. Too racial cliquish for me. Had the little child an Afro, would he not relate? What if it was an adopted African-American albino child? He can't "see" himself in the president, if he is not dressed the part, and fully looking like a mini-me?
That's what identity politics does. It cheapens the lens from which you view the world. President Trump and his wife consoled the orphaned son of a supporter. You betcha the family will cherish that photo as the young man grows. He is an American too. Even if he and President Trump do not share the same hair color or background.
Don't you understand that, Maureen? E pluribus unum. Not "split us up into factions" like the Democrats are doing in their primary race, and then accusing Trump supporters of harboring racism in our hearts.
We still want every individual that enters this country documented and tracked. We want secure borders. We are not persuaded by crying schoolchildren to abandon enforcing our immigration policy. Hold Congress accountable. Too many years of do-nothing presidents -- albeit nice promo work, like the royal family role (Bush Jr, Obamas) -- have led DC to expect little less...
We want more.
For Americans today, and like little Paul pictured, for Americans tomorrow. For all of us.
1
This picture, almost oppressive under the weight of its malevolent subtext, will serve to epitomize trump and his horrid presidency.
1
Buyer's remorse is so hypocritical, Ms. Dowd. You worked so hard to get Trump elected in 2016 when you well knew he was malignant in all aspects of the term. Yet now you turn on him. You got what you worked so hard for, now live with the consequences.
4
So many levels of revulsion in that photo:
The sociopath Trump, grinning/mugging for the camera using the same faux smile and thumb’s up that he uses when he crashes weddings at his golf resorts, eagerly using a Latino baby as a prop, whose parents were killed by a gunman parroting Trump’s anti-immigrant screeds.
The aunt and uncle, who duly trotted their nephew to be Trump’s prop, when his parents were killed by a gunman parroting Trump’s anti-Latino-immigrant screeds. The uncle sporting a clueless smile, while the aunt’s expression suggests some degree of dawning awareness of just how crassly Trump was exploiting the situation, and that they were shaming themselves, their nephew and their family for posterity.
Finally, the Trump-avatar Melania, an empty mirror of Trump’s smile, never one to cross the money, no matter how low Trump takes her. Way to “Be Best!” Melania!
6
The other picture, or video, to bring into this conversation is Trump's meeting with Nadia Murad, the Nobel peace laureate. The gross self-absorption and indifference to human suffering that he displayed then is the same as displayed in the picture of him and Melania with this small child.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/opinion/trump-nadia-murad-meeting.html
1
What a disturbing place Trump's gunslinger white America has become in every aspect.
Effectively, it is an unjust tyranny of the armed and dangerous.
4
What I don't understand is the Uncle. If I understood him maybe I would understand why people support Trump. How is it possible, under such tragic conditions, to take a child back to the hospital and smile for a picture.
5
Isn't it time to drop the charade that we are fundamentally a nation of good sense and decency? When has that ever been true? Only in the movies.
15
Perhaps I'm too cynical but if the president's aides were so anxious to have some positive photo ops, I wonder how much the uncle was paid to bring that child to the hospital.
12
Probably less than Epstein’s suicide watch.
Why did the US inflict Trump upon itself (with help from the Russians)? First to appreciate the depths of our shortcomings as a people (national community) visited upon us by the Reagan Era. Second to pull up our socks regarding our possibilities and capacities to be an enlightened people who love life and know how to live it well. Trump is an existential threat to our national well-being, even to the existence of human life on the planet. Job One for us is to clean out the mess in the Oval Office, a catastrophe that will keep accumulating with increasingly dire results as long as we let it. We have the tools, now we have to use them to protect the American Dream.
6
She is right about one thing. Trump could almost salvage his legacy by championing a ban on assault weapons.
1
I prefer a thumb gesture that occurred a few hours earlier in Dayton:
An elderly lady put on a nice dress, then stood at the curb in the heat, waiting for the Presidential motorcade.
When the President arrived, the lady raised on arm and made the thumbs down gesture. With her other arm, she held high a sign that read:
"Welcome to Toledo").
A nice civil protest against a publicity seeking prez who that morning couldn't even correctly name the section of a state or city he was traveling to. Some compassion for mourners in their hometown!
22
Politics has always been a reality TV show even before there was TV: carefully picked bits of information held up as key, the charisma of the pols posing, the spin to distract, the underlying use of force and fear just over our shoulders where we can feel rather than see things for how they really are, the giving of false evidence, the little people doing all the work while receiving crumbs in recompense, bending the knee to stay safe, their lives forfeit to the unhinged appetites of their masters, the appearance of things the key element in our subjugation of mind to the requirements of those holding power as their right. What has changed since Greece, Rome, Byzantium? Only the tech to broadcast a worldview carefully constructed to keep things just this way forever.
3
Ms. Dowd: Thank you, thank you for putting coherent form to the thoughts of millions of us.
What a powerful commentary!
13
@Armand Beede of course, it doesn't make up for the horrible gaffe of dissing hillary during the 2016 election to give trump support. i'm sure that nobody in their right mind would expect trump to win, but she helped.
7
Trump was welcomed in the hospital. It was like finding an oasis in the middle of a desert for him. He smiles. Yes, he is self centered, but he’s also a person. It’s not that he’s indifferent but he is preoccupied, here. We can and should demand that the President fulfill the responsibilities of that powerful office, but he’s never fulfilled those expectations.
4
@Casual Observer
Please, suggest that the President was also a person is far from the truth. Who goes to a hospital after a mass shooting and take the opportunity for pictures with an orphan baby? Ah, and don't forget the thumbs up!
3
@Casual Observer
Seriously? Trump is a sociopath and could care less for those wounded survivors. He was there for a photo op, and the result was ghoulish at best. What did the moron Trump’s thumbs up and phony smile, as a smiling Melania held the recently ORPHAN baby, mean? No awareness, no introspection, not a scintilla of humanity, just “we won” “I got a good photo op” Despicable.
2
@Casual Observer
"he’s also a person"?
Not any person that I'd ever let near my children. As for those commenting on Melania's having been the one to post this sick photo, like the old saying goes, "When you marry for money you earn every penny."
She is exactly the same as her husband. Not a shred of empathy.
3
In 2008, we elected a HUMAN to be our President.
In 2012, we re-elected that HUMAN.
In 2016, we elected a . . . WHAT?
What will we elect in 2020?
8
@Robert Henry Eller we need to settle pretty soon to give the nominee time to plan all the things this country needs to do. ban assault weapons & magazines, infrastructure, health care, drug prices, highly taxing the rich, more labor unions, yadda, yadda, yadda.
My first reaction to this photo was to affirm that there seems to be no bottom to what the Trumps will do to twist the public narrative toward their tawdry agenda.
But then I thought about it and deleted that comment on Twitter. Instead I appealed directly to Meliana, in this message to her FLOTUS account:
Dear Melania - On the day that your husband ascended to the presidency, through the tears I cried at seeing my own beloved POTUS and FLOTUS transfer power to your family, I focused on you. Because your beauty and grace got me through that day...
I still want to believe that the decency and class I saw in you at that time resides in you. I am sure you met a lot of wonderful people at this event. Perhaps the man who handed you his orphaned nephew was one of them...
...but I really have to wonder how you would feel if something terrible happened to you, and someone stood in front of a camera, holding Baron in this way, gesturing for the cameras this way. I mean you no disrespect, and no harm, but please reflect on this message, as a mom.
I have made a decision to pray for you, and all who assist you in your role, so I can come to a better understanding of this incident. In the meanwhile, please know that I respect your office, and want to see good things come of it.
Thank you.
I have no idea if her office read my message, but I felt much better after sending it. And I continue to pray for the Trumps, in their apparent disregard for the suffering in El Paso.
6
@Amylouise Donnelly
I don't think Melania cares, or reads.
2
@Amylouise Donnelly
The entire Trump clan, including Melania, is incapable of self-reflection. You may as well have yelled your thoughtful comment out the window. It would have had a better chance of "reaching" her.
2
Republicans embarked on their policy of "A gun in every face," more than a decade ago through state-by-state dismantling of all laws regarding ownership and use of firearms. We now have a Republican Bill of no Rights. "You have NO RIGHT to be safe from a man with a gun! His right to menace shall not be infringed."
Why did they do this?
We're going to have another civil war and the "well Republican militia" will need good tools to win it - weapons that kill lots of people really fast. As with the last one, if you ain't white, you ain't folk. But this time, folk is restricted to the Christian, male, white. Women are wanton.
The GOP plans to rule over us, not the NRA.
6
Republicans represent the people who assert that they have those nasty guns and have not allowed them to harm anyone, so why should we give them up?
You endorse that reign. Why else would you refer to them by their brand, "Grand Old Party"?
Look, either kiss them or kick them. But when you do both, they just giggle.
A picture is worth a thousand words. It's all about trump.
8
@Jane this is the photo that should be front & center during next year's election.
Contrast the baby alive because his parents sacrificed their lives to save his, with the weird, synthetic enthusiasm of Trump so excited to get a selfie with a survivor. This photo is simply the most depraved thing I've ever witnessed.
40
The man standing next to Trump is Tito Anchondo, the shooting victim's brother. He was interviewed on NPR on the morning of August 5, and in that interview he made an appeal to meet with the president, because both Tito and his deceased brother Andre have been Trump supporters. His appeal reached the Trump orbit, and this photo op was quickly arranged.
This is the Trump White House mining gold from the senseless tragedy in El Paso.
19
I also listened to the NPR interview. Tito is an extremely articulate and hard working man. I am wondering if Mr Trump, after this quickly arranged photo op, is the man that he was hoping to meet. Is he still proud to be a conservative republican?
It is my hope that Tito will move from being a “small business” Republican to a man who will re evaluate his party on the family values that he holds dear.
I am so sorry for the tragic loss of your brother and sister in law in these angry times. Your hispanic heritage like my Irish heritage are making this country great.
It's so curious that the brother of the deceased father does not see that Trump is part of the deranged hatred against Hispanic-Americans.
Why doesn't he connect the dots? I am genuinely puzzled.
The most objectionable picture I have seen of Trump. Here he grinning like a fool with the casualness of a an ugly thumbs up while “consoling” family whose relatives were massacred at El Paso. Incredible hubris from the president.
28
When I first saw this photo I immediately thought, why not just wear your matching "do I look like I care" jackets. Another shining example of outrageous insensitivity, narcissism, arrogance beyond words. Well done Donnie and Mel!
16
The depths of the hypocrisy and vileness of Trump and his wife astound me. I hope the 42% who love this man are proud of themselves right now.
11
They are. They were scared to death of having a not-man as president.
Many western Democrats are hunters. But most don’t have, and no one needs, the weapons of mass destruction that are assault rifles. Ban them now.
18
So the brother of a victim who was murdered by a man motivated by Trump's racist and terrorist speeches, brings his nephew to meet and take a picture with the president! He disrespects his brother by being used as a photo-op. The perfect imagine of how delusional and sick Trump supporters are.
18
For some reason the picture is sickening. Knowing trump's mouth and policies caused that baby and others to be orphans.
9
To anyone who still has a sense of decency, fair play, and true patriotism, what's occuring in our country is NOT NORMAL. We allowed (through the ineptness and corruption of the Electoral College) a despicable, evil, cretin, Donald Trump into the White House, and he's worse than what was imagined. I sincerely don't believe Trump will be re-elected, hate, lies and racism can only get you so far. Yes, Trump has his die-hard deplorable racist base, but decent people, of all colors outnumber them. Yes, Trump is backed by Steve Ross and his ilk, billionaires without a conscience or humanity, but again they're a relatively small number. Those of us who care about our democracy, and want to live in a humane, respectful country, free of this Trumpian nightmare, must have the courage and faith that we can prevail in 2020 and vote this evil stain, Donald Trump out. Yes we can.
14
Well said.
1
Mugging for the photo like they helped deliver him in the back of a taxi. Clueless narcissists both of them. Melania has gotten a pass because we felt sorry for her, she does not deserve it. If this photo sums up our nation all is lost.
21
Trump follows his basic instincts. His gross behavior is simply Trump being Trump. His reckless tweets, his self absorption and his public vulgarity have become so common place as to lose their ability to shock. The new normal. So Maureen’s column simply repeats the tales of the Donald.Americans will need more practical reasons to Dump Trump than a reminder that he is clearly unhinged.
5
Why is Trump smiling? Why is he giving a thumbs up? Thumbs up to what? Death by assault weapons that explode the victims’ bodies? Our President is simply not a normal human, with no capacity to empathize with others.
16
A little weary of Marueen Dowd trashing President Trump—admittedly an easy target. The main takeaway for me, though, was her very deft comparison of the photograph of Barack Obama and the boy touching his hair to those of the tone-deaf Trumps in El Paso. Even more devastating would have been a video clip of the former president’s perfect timing in singing “Amazing Grace” at the 2015 memorial service in Charleston for the nine people gunned down by another racially-motivated shooter. Thinking of these contrasts, I’m wondering whether we will ever again see a combination of talents like Obama’s: a keenly intelligent, genteel, graceful, empathetic, person who had such terrific instincts in saying the right thing and in relating to different types of people. Don’t see anyone like him among current Democratic candidates. Of course, Obama had his flaws and foul-ups, and much credit goes to his speechwriters. (And Ronald Reagan, politics aside, also had charisma and charm—and good speechwriters.) Still, what a sense of loss.
8
The El Paso shooting was an aberration.
Hate crime murders are rare. The most recent FBI Hate Crime Report shows that in 2017 there were 15 hate crime murders committed by 14 offenders. Six of the murderers were white, seven were black and one offenders race is unknown.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017/topic-pages/tables/table-3.xls
Interracial murders make up a small permeant of murders.
The most recent FBI Uniform Crome Report shows in 2017 there were 694 white victims, 281 black victims and 107 “other race” victims of interracial murders.
It also shows that 336 whites, 611 blacks and 220 person of other races committed interracial murders.
Oddly, 211 Hispanics were killed by non-Hispanics while 211 Hispanics were killed by non-Hispanics in 2017.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls
1
Seriously? The likelihood of the attacks of September 11, 2001 was unlikely. The small risk has been long forgotten because the significance was very great. The people were seriously considering abridging everyone’s rights to prevent a reoccurrence. Many Muslims in our country were denied their rights due to nothing but fear. The fear from these recent events and the fears being amplified by advocates to advance their causes is dominating the perceptions of the issues.
9
@Casual Observer
Muslims Americans haven't been denied any rights. Travel to American from a few Muslins countries has been restricted until they provide rulable identity documents for their visa application, but travel has been restricted from one Christian and and one Buddhist country for the same reason,
So, what is your point as those statistics bear no meaning in the face of a now-orphaned child?
Perhaps “Massacre Mitch” McConnell will be pleased to note (and make partisan use) of your research; the rest of us wanting an assault weapons ban, not so much.
2
This column made me sad and frustrated.
2
A sickening image, which encapsulates his presidency perfectly. In my opinion, he's a sociopath, incapable of expressing proper emotional responses, lacking empathy. His presidency is a tragedy for our country — a man (and his equally tone deaf wife) using an orphaned baby as a MAGA photo-op, a man who tosses paper towels at hurricane victims, a man who states there are "very fine people" on both sides at a white supremacist rally — a man entirely unfit for office, who degrades our nation on a daily basis. It's all a pile of rubble, Ms. Dowd.
13
That baby's facial expression is worth a thousand words.
4
“We shouldn’t let things die down. Because people keep dying.”
The mass killers won’t let things die down. We have no say in the matter.
4
Why is Trump smiling? Why thumbs up? It looks like he is celebrating something positive. It can't be that the FLOTUS is holding an orphan who just lost his parents. It can't be that Trump is celebrating the killings. Is it that he has no feelings for what is happening? Could it be just that someone is taking his photo. He is the center. That is the happy occasion.
9
There are few words to describe the ghoulish photo of the Trumps grinning with an orphaned hispanic infant. This photo was like a prize in an evil scavenger hunt. I found it heart stopping and my reaction was fury. I am sure that the gas lighting effect of the convoluted message was designed to do just that. Sicken and demoralize and confuse the truth. We all know in our hearts what is going on and we must not back down.
6
"But point-blank: Our Republican leaders are cowards"
That's point 1.
2. They are Greed driven,
3./4., They are Lustful, Gluttons
5/6, They are loaded with Envy and Wrath
6. They are Slothful and they all sleep in the death bed of #7,Pride.
And this is the delusion, not just of the Rulers (not one of them is a Leader) but of numerous "republicans" who smile and nod and do nothing but feed at the trough other peoples misery.
6
What do you suppose the thumbs up means? That this lucky child is being photographed with the so called President and his wife? The scene is bizarre. Why is everyone smiling? Neither Trump nor Melania is capable of any actual emotion
7
It is basically a PR pic. Trump is trying to do damage control as he is being painted, and rightly so, as divisive, racist person. But this effort is so transparent that it is disturbing to see. All I see is “how can we spin this massacre so I don’t get hurt politically and retain the presidency.”
7
"Our Republican leaders are cowards." Exactly. In contrast, the 8 El Paso victims who refused to meet with Racist-in-chief Trump showed real backbone. I'm so proud of them, my true compatriots! And yesterday, Olympic fencer Race Imboden "took a knee" to protest Trumpism, reminding us all of what it means to care about American values. So today I think of these 9 new heroes as I walk across our Old North Bridge here in Concord. Let's not let things die down!
6
That image is obscene beyond words. Two thumbs down!
6
It's at times like this we can only remind ourselves of MLK's famous quote that the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice.
And we remind ourselves that at some point Donald Trump will be a cautionary tale of how close we came to tyranny and how Mitch McConnell was the ultimate enabler and coward.
All of this won't happen without a great deal of pain. But it will happen because Trump is dangerous but venal, McConnell is devious but transparent, and Americans can be fooled for awhile but ultimately they too bend towards justice.
4
Nice W. B. Yeats touch, Ms. Dowd. And thanks for speaking truth to power.
3
Until Donald's matching "I Really Don't Care" jacket comes in, he and Melania will have to be content with these kinds of photos to make their point.
Where the rest of us would have tears of grief in our eyes, they smile and he gives the thumbs up, as if celebrating a big achievement.
Given I no longer put anything past them, maybe they were.
7
Unfortunately, “we the people” keep electing bums to office against our own interest.
4
Another way to read the photo is that, despite the despair of the situation, new life can still spring through hope, outreach and mutual support. Yes, maybe that is overly optimistic. Yes, politicians are inveterate baby kissers, which can be creepy. Still, one might prefer a more positive read on the photo to Ms. Dowd's dour view.
As for Ms. Dowd's persistent pessimism and baked-in snark, I'm reminded of some lines from Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus":
Ash, ash --
You poke and stir ---
flesh, bone there is nothing there
. . .
Out of the ash
I arise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Plath herself was a pessimist. Despite enormous talents, she killed herself, leaving two small children. Can we not look for something positive to rise from the ashes, not to eat one another up, but to make some true progress in coming together for everyone's good?
2
The picture is a horrible encapsulated depiction of this precidency. An instigator fired up by the Trump rethoric kills the parents, and then he makes a thumbs up smiling while Melania holds the baby. A photo op for the President built on the future suffering of an innocent victim who will never meet his parents. Is Trump capable of human reactions at all? I'm starting to think it could be a brain medical condition that makes him lack empathy on any level.
5
If white, New York realtors were the targets of shooters, guns would be quickly banned in New York, just as they are at NRA conventions.
8
Thank you Ms. Dowd.
Please Congress (republicans and democrats) impeach and convict The Criminal in Chief before he destroys our country.
4
This story is -- certainly -- one of the most sickening and grotesque displays of moral vacuousness I've ever contemplated.
It reveals a shadow of darkness that -- at one time -- may have been covered by the promising Age of Enlightenment.
At one time -- the Enlightenemnt held promise and possibility for humanity, but this image of a smilingTrump with thumbs up, signals an erasing of whatever good enlightenment could have provided.
The official White House photo by a woman named "Andrea Hanks" means --- that there exists --- absolutely --- NO moral conscience --- NONE -- NADA -- no light -- emanating from within Trump's administrative offices.
Welcome -- once again -- to the Dark Ages.
Welcome to Trump's Endarkenment.
Honestly, seriously -- we must -- send all these people back to the cave where they came from.
5
It isn't "point-blank" to say that our Republican leaders are cowards. That's been obvious at least since 2008, when the GOP abandoned its duty, and ever since as we've seen the Republicans walk away from their stated positions and sell their souls for tax cuts. Now they're hostages to the mob whose votes the need. Cowards? They can't attend their own town meetings.
Obviously they'll politicize this, reduce it to head fakes and marginal recommendations. Our Republican leaders aren't "ours" and they aren't leaders. They're bought. They serve their owners.
We know all this. We want to change it.
We might hope that The Times has some suggestions, but there's no clarity or courage in snappy cynicism from Ms. Dowd who offers, as we might expect, wordplay: "We shouldn’t let things die down. Because people keep dying." She labored longer over that line break than she did over this flaccid, silly little prescription. Cowardice is using bloodshed as an opportunity to look clever.
2
It is a sickening picture. My first reaction - he's signaling approval of the gunman who orphaned this baby - is hard to shake. That the White House took the picture, since no press was allowed, and Melania tweeted it out is gut-wrenching. They don't care, do you?
10
The pathology of his ineptness is a thing to behold. He seems to lurch from one act of desecration to another. It's mind blowing that such a man is in the most powerful position. Jesus.
3
The world used to look up to America....not anymore.
4
Is the US electorate dominated by white people who are more afraid of dark skinned people than of deranged murderers? Are the loonies with guns acting as proxies for the "decent" white people who abide invertebrate representatives? Is offering thoughts and prayers to shattered families good enough for the same people who walked on the moon, conquered dread diseases and fought tyranny around the world? We shall see.
2
Flashing a thumbs-up and big grin while posing with a baby whose parents were massacred just days ago? Truly, trump has no soul.
The photo reveals more. It shows a Hispanic man, certainly in shock and grief, still eager to give trump what he wants most—adulation and deference as the center of attention. Such empty people elected trump. For trump, this was not about survivors, families, not even an orphaned infant, just trump and his sick ego on display.
10
The Trump Drain on the American Swamp pipes these people into his administration and brings the rest of them out of the shadows into the sunlight
via misogeny and violence. This
is the America we never openly discussed until Trump, the racism that underpins society.
2
It's hard to know where to begin in listing the reasons why Donald Trump should not be president. His unfathomable ignorance and utter lack of intellectual curiosity might be a good starting point. His lack of relevant experience would be another. Certainly, his mercurial temperament figures, as does his disinclination to accept responsibility for his actions. Of course, there's his status as a pathological liar and as a self-professed sex-offender.
The list goes on . . . .
However, the most fundamental disqualification is the glaring fact that he is--as Maureen Dowd suggests--"Devoid of empathy and humanity . . . ."
That makes him not merely unqualified; that makes him an absolute abomination.
5
"Devoid of empathy and humanity, Trump is mugging with an infant who will never know his parents."
That photo is sickening. The president and his wife look so happy! How can they grin next to a baby who just lost his parents in a brutal massacre by a shooter who espoused Trump's rants about invading hordes of Mexicans?
That photo shouldn't be shown ever again. It's a travesty, as much as Trump's immediate use photos from Dayton for a campaign video designed to illustrate how "commanding" the "consoler in chief" is!
We've entered vomit territory. There is only one person on God's earth that can force himself on grieving communities (even when asked not to) and turn a somber event into all about him.
Trump, McConnell, and LaPierre (a quasi cabinet figure himself) won't do gun control unless they can somehow make Democrats pay for it.
Never mind the entire country has been paying for years.
7
Couple this photo with the under reported Trump quote "El Paso Shooter ‘A Coward, He Just Gave Up,’ Donald Trump Says, Twitter Asks, ‘Trump Didn’t Want Him To Stop?’
4
We know what kind of a person he is. Nothing new here. Just amplification each day, orchestrated by the likes of the Miller and his ilk.
2
The only thing missing, at least physically, was Melania's "I really don't care, do U?" jacket. These people really do deserve their fate in the next life. Anyone who rationalizes this picture, the appalling lack of self-awareness, or the willingness to trade on tragedy deserves the same.
6
Its really terrible that trump made a fool out of Tito and his family for a photo op. I am sure that ten seconds after the shutter clicked trump and melania forgot they existed. Its really terrible that the victims haven't been buried yet and America is moving on, the new deal is Epstein's death. Of course the country needs gun control however what it needs more is a culture where people don't want to exterminate other people and races. Our first step is to get rid of trump and pals, declare White Supremacy a terrorist group and go after them with the full force of the federal government. This should be a bipartisan goal because DEM or GOP, liberal or conserve, pro life or choice if you listen with a open mind you must admit trump and they are poison.
3
trump is unworthy.
2
There's nothing going on in the hearts or minds of Don-the-Con and Melania. Literally, nothing. Like robots, they face the camera with perfuntory expectations. Let's vote for some human beings in 2020.
4
That precious baby is the only one in the photo with any sense...he knows enough to look LEFT, disregarding anything the Trumps et. al. think they are doing.
3
Notice Melania smiling. Du you care? She must have lost the coat.
6
His insensitivity (and her's) is fathomless.
3
I wondered if the Trumps even knew the history of the infant ? It was just another photo-op. His smirk is just disgusting.
And I regretted that it did not chose that moment to vomit forcefully down her dress.
THAT would have been the image we could keep.
2
That child is the nexus of the current state of America. He should be Time magazine’s next Person of the Year.
2
Every day we wonder how much more grotesque donald trump can be. Holding a baby whose parents were killed by someone espousing the same hateful rants as trump, all the while SMILING with a thumbs up, is beyond description. I have given Melania a pass up until this point, but seeing her holding that orphan and smiling is just beyond sick. Evidently she really doesn't care, does she? The jacket was correct. All while her husband employs the very illegal immigrants that he encourages his base to hate. These two are beyond despicable!!
9
You are exactly right and the cowards will still be there unless voted out. Keep that in mind.
1
This photo makes me queasy. More than all the racist rhetoric. More than the sycophants lining the Oval Office. More than children in cages, and all the corruption and outright thievery. I can't understand how this poor baby's uncle could allow his brother's orphan child to be used as a prop. Why do I care more about the Hispanic Community more than some Hispanics? My white privileged family is horrified by Trump's treatment of Latinos and will go to the polls to defend their dignity and rights. Why would this man do this? He's supporting a man who had a hand in making this child motherless? Why?? I hope he regretted the decision walking to his car. And look at Melanie? How about holding one of the sick babies pacing his/her cage on the Border - with no diapers, and no chance of seeing his/her parents again. Does anyone else believe Melanie is KGB? I guess we should be grateful she's not wearing her "I Don't Care" jacket.
4
We’re being governed by a sociopath who, as it’s pointed out, lacks empathy on any level. Trump may not be actually, physically pulling every trigger, but symbolically he is. He incites, he hates, he dehumanizes, he lacks morals or ethics. He’s a killer no matter how you analyze it.
3
What is wrong with these people? One of them trash talks the culture of the others, providing validation for the person who killed the brother and sister-in-law of the baby’s uncle, and all of the adults seem to have no respect for the dead.
I’m not even sure this baby’s parents have been buried yet!
3
Trump has zero empathy or compassion for others, even an orphaned infant. That is par for the course for self-absorbed malignant narcissists. Is anyone truly surprised by this photo?
2
Trump is a conman, mugging for the camera with the same empty grin and thumbs up gesture, forgetting that his wife is holding a child who won’t know his parents. A new low for him? No, just another day.
Trump has no moral compass, no empathy, or sense of others’ loss. We deserve much better from our national leaders and I appreciate you reminding readers of Obama’s humanity and efforts to relate to even our youngest citizens.
2
Warped society. Warped country. Warped leader.
Pity the child.
Wonder about the uncle.
Go out and buy loads of body armour to survive the sophistication of the land of the free, the American dream and trumps toxic lies.
2
Grotesque and deeply sickening, the official White House photo of our grinning thumbs-up president and his wife holding the 8 week old infant, Paul Anchondo, survivor of the El Paso massacre whose parents were shot by a young white supremacist last weekend. The infant's parents were Latino Trump supporters, so perhaps it makes sense Trump was grinning and Melania smiling?
The pain so many Americans are feeling every day under Trump's tragic governance is unresolvable. America's gun culture teamed with Trump's racist and anti-immigrant views have brought us to a terrible pass in our divided country. SMH. I just don't get it. How can we keep hope alive for our democracy during these incomprehensible times? How long
till Donald Trump's caravan moves on?
2
The first thing that I noticed was that Trump and his wife are smiling happily while they hold the child whose parents were murdered by a right wing pro-Trump extremist. I'm looking at the child with tears in my eyes while Trump and Trumpina are mugging for the camera. How totally sickening.
3
There’s video games and mentally ill folk here too. But no mass shootings. Spot the difference. My stomach heaves at that photo and my heart goes out to all these poor victims and their families. If only they were foetuses the Republicans might ‘care’.
1
I really should not need to delve into specifics here.
I weep for America. I am shell-shocked by the demented clown I am forced to observe every day representing my country before the rest of the planet.
3
A sureal photo, indeed, one for the ages. Trump is so consumed with himself he is incapable of feeling any grief for this orphan. I'm not sure what to say about Melania. The first lady apparently has been drinking coolaide. WOW!
2
I keep thinking about that innocent baby, now parentless, being used as a camera opportunity by our soulless president and it sickens me. All of a sudden, I then visualized the Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana and his followers as they drank the poisoned brew and died. Tragedy. Please, please, something stop this evil from poisoning our collective bloodstream before it is too late!
2
Makes one wonder why did Mr Trump flip to become a republican when he has more in common with democrats. He suddenly became Christian. He suddenly became anti abortion. Suddenly pro gun. Suddenly became racist (oh well he was always that we are told) and white supremacist? The evangelicals who embrace him are even bigger hypocrites with double standards because they don’t care he is much divorced much married much adulterous.
3
And yet Trump after 2 and a half years is one of the most beloved Presidents among Republicans.
A man who has shown his true colors from the beginning and who has sunken to new lows with each passing day is a hero to the GOP.
In that picture this child has lost his parents. Things will never be the same for him. This is a time of great sorrow for this infant. And there is our President grinning like a baboon with a thumbs up sign.
3
Thanks for this well-stated column, Maureen. But where were you before the 2016 election? Constantly and disrespectfully referring to President Obama as "Barry", denigrating Hillary as if she were 100x times worse than Trump. How difficult was it to see, if you already didn't know, that trump is a poser, a fake whose relationship with fake news is a long one (John Baron, anyone?), a mean foul-tongued narcissist who has no idea how to lead, much less govern. I hope to see in your future columns more of this one's responsible reflection of the pathetic idiocy and failed leadership of the poser occupying our white house.
5
We never had a “shining city on a hill. “The WASPS called it that.
For waves of immigrants we had to scratch our way out of poverty. And we faced racist bigotry with each subsequent wave of human migration which has been a reality since we hominids climbed out of the primordial muck.
America is regressing as if in the throes of political and moral dementia.
Was it our water? That poisoned our spiritual paths.
1
I went back to view the Obama picture referred to and shed a tear. All right, a flood of tears.
2
The question is whether any small steps will do anything.
A ban on drugs lead to multi-nation violence, death, political killings, government corruption with street prices as low as ever.
It's not the weapons. It's why are there young men wanting to murder fellow citizens that's the issue. That's what's aberrant. That's the source of the problems that need addressing. More harassment of otherwise law abiding folks will just increase the anger, fear and violence.
@David The contention that placing restrictions and legal licensing laws on gun ownership will not have positive results never addresses the question as to why we live in the only nation in the world that undergoes mass shootings on a regular basis. The United States is NOT the only nation in the world that has "young men wanting to murder fellow citizens" in its population. Such a contention is completely impossible and ridiculous. Yet this is the continuous contention of the N.R.A. It is far past time that we, as a nation and a people call this out for what it is: a lie.
Our nation is a shooting gallery. The only thing we can do is pray that we, our children, our family members, do not end our lives as targets.
1
How much more evidence do we need ? We’ve seen , heard, read Trump in action over 1000 times. Most people can discern one’s character , kindness (especially the lack thereof ) in a few personal interactions or observations, where the one in question has either crossed a yellow line of decency, or intentionally didn’t because they recognized its indecency. After a hundred instances , then another 100, and hundreds more, and now again, i’ve said or written “still, after all this time no signs of humility or empathy from this President” . That should be written into the legal qualifications for POTUS: 35 years old , with sufficient demonstration of humility, integrity and especially empathy.
7
@Joseph Morguess: Trump is a read within 5 minutes of watching him.
For a while I thought about what American History books in the future would contain about this despicable Trump presidency. Then I realized that there are no more American History textbooks, only the online collages of articles about our “time”.
The disgusting career of president Trump, as a presidential criminal other than Nixon,would be put in a historical food processor for palatable consumption by a naive American public.
The result will probably be, by that future generation if we’re lucky enough, a shrug and shaking of the head of such unreasonable idiocy.
This summer is only the beginning of a horrific slog with this administration.
4
There was a column yesterday, It’s Too Late to Ban Assault Rifles. There are now over 15 million assault rifles out there. We need to be more creative. Ban and tax ammunition. By all means ban assault rifles. Stricter background checks. Stricter qualifications to own a weapon. Face it, as long as the cowardly, disgusting Republicans are in charge of either house in the Congress and the White House, it is a fools errand. Nothing will be done. Vote for Democrats. Everywhere on the ballot. End this Republican rule of terror, hatred, and lies.
8
@RogerJ: Tax .223 ammunition and primers for reloading cartridges $100 per round. That may begin to cover the remaining life-long costs of medical care for the survivors of these two recent mass shootings.
3
@RogerJ
There are plenty of average, every day, hunting rifles with the exact same lethality as these. They just don't *look* so scary. For closeup killing there are many handguns that are far *more* lethal.
When the Assault Weapons Ban expired, there was no increase in gun murder rates. They just kept falling, even as more and more guns were being bought. Our violent crime rates are less than half of what they were at its peak in the early 1990s.
All of these mass killers passed all their background checks. They were able to get their guns legally. So it doesn't matter how more often one gets run. I don't remember ever hearing of any other killer, since Prohibition days, using a 100 round magazine like the Dayton one. So magazine limits might (and only might - a magazine can be swapped out in under two seconds) have lowered the toll in that *one* instance.
You want to lower these mass killings? Convince the media to stop using the names of the killers. Don't give their "grievances" a day in the sun. Treat them as common criminals. That's the primary goal for almost all of them. That's why the body count keeps going up. They want to equal or better that of their "heroes." They want everyone to know their name.
You want to lower the homicide rate? End the War on Drugs. When was the last time you heard of two liquor store owners shoot it out over customers? Focus on harm reduction, not punishment. It's the fact that it's illegal that makes it so violent.
Every time I see that Obama photo I want to cry for what we have lost and for what we now suffer with.
8
Hoping this comment does not come off as insensitive or mean spirited towards Mr. Tito Anchondo.
Looking at this photo, I have seen this phony grin (yeah, phony) of this person too often. It is the exact same one he uses when pitching a tortilla bowl of nachos or some other dubious product. I cannot read the faces of the baby's aunt and uncle.
Listening to an interview with Mr. Tito Anchondo several days ago on NPR ...... a few words he said stuck with me and has left me bewildered.
Here are his words: (First sentence referring to people blaming our president (in part or in full) for the recent shootings.
"I can see why people would believe that," Tito says. "And yes, maybe he said things in bad taste. But I think people are misconstruing President Trump's ideas."
Mr. Anchondo has just suffered a devastating lose. One I will most probably never have to go through. And being interviewed during this difficult time and being held to these words is also something that would prove hard for me.
That said, ".... maybe he said things in bad taste," is not just being too kind to this president, but to me an indication that Mr. Anchondo has not been paying attention to this president's antics or hear's what he wants to hear (which is something I just heard a gentleman being interviewed this morning on NPR say, regarding this same president, "I don't pay attention. I hear what I want to hear.")
As far as people misconstruing the president's ideas, how about ........ NO.
8
This photo should be on EVERY “ get out the vote” poster.
4
And they were going to do another one today at the Bud Billiken Parade. Stop trying to sacrifice things!
The Republicans are far more than cowards - they are full accomplices to the horror show that is the Trump Administration. They are a soulless political party with no moral compass or humanity.
9
When I first saw the photo of the Trumps with the baby of the parents murdered by the El Paso gunman, I assumed that the photo was taken from Trump's El Paso rally prior to the mass shooting, and it was a strange coincidence that the baby Melania held was the child of murdered parents from the mass shooting. When I learned, however, that the photo was taken a few days after the shooting, well, that changed the picture completely.
Garry Wills said it best in his short but profound essay "Our Moloch" (NYRBlog Dec. 15, 2012): https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch/
I saw Trump's trip to El Paso as a "Victory Lap." The photo's caption should read: "Hey, Look! Another Mexican (American) orphan! Mission Accomplished!
11
@Big Text Yes, I saw it as an effort of him trying to get it over with, doing the consoling part of his job as president. I think it actually was a combination of your point and mine, including taking political advantage of it by using footage of it in a cynical campaign vid. But doing it for moral and ethical reasons: not so much.
1
Trump separates children from their parents at the border and keeps them in cages. He arrests hundreds of hard-working chicken processors in Mississippi without any thought as to what might happen to their children. His incessant rantings about illegal immigrants have led to mass shootings in which children are left with no parents. Why has he not been impeached?
8
"But point-blank: Our Republican leaders are cowards."
Beg to differ Ms. Dowd. The Republicans are traitors, giving aid and comfort to the enemy. They put party over all. politische Partei uber alles! In Trumpistan, the end always justifies the means.
The Republican Congresspeople - in both the Senate and House - are beholden to a malignant narcissist and will do and say anything to cover for "fearless leader". They know what and who Trump is, yet they dance to his tune every time.
The only way to recover democracy is a gigantic demonstration throughout the country, followed by impeachment hearings and ultimately trial in the Senate where Trump will not be convicted. All this followed by Election 2020 where Trump is trounced severely.
He will brand the election a fraud and you know the rest...
5
By the way, let‘s remember who assured the fellow Americans that our government should have intervened in Vietnam and gladly acted as the governmental loudspeaker, who assured us that we should have support the worst dictators in the Arab world as the way to make Amerika safer, who warmongered that we should invade Afghanistan and Iraq in pursuit of a single individual named Osama bin Laden, who told us to export the American industrial base to China to get much better paid jobs, who assured us that the housing bubble would have made all of us wealthier, and who told us that Trump could never be elected…
Who did it?
Trump or the NYT?
1
"Devoid of empathy and humanity, Trump is mugging with an infant who will never know his parents."
6
Thank you for this column.
3
I don’t know. We didn’t lose a bother and a sister-in-law to a mass shooting. We don’t have an infant nephew who is now an orphan. The man who had a brother and a sister-in-law killed in a mass shooting and who now has an orphaned nephew says that President Trump comforted him. Maybe we are the ones who are sickos. Maybe this is the America that Americans want.
“Honey – I had to leave for work early so I am leaving you this note. I heard on the news that they are expecting mass shootings downtown today. Please remember to wear your body armor. And maybe you should take an extra high capacity magazine to work with you, just in case. Love you. I’ll see you for dinner tonight - I hope.”
Remember the picture of Barbara Bush holding a baby with AIDS? That’s empathy and humanity. Trump is incapable of either.
2
Could we stop calling the shooter's document a manifesto, and call it what it really is: a screed.
1
"Psychopathy is traditionally a personality disorder characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits." Wikipedia
The psychopath, and the picture of him confirms the definition, occupies the White House, and 41% of U.S. public said they approved of his performance in office.
What does it say about this country?
4
Exactly, that is frightening.
Latino children are sacrifices Trump offers to his hateful base.
Images of this baby, immigrant kids in cages, and the child who drowned with his father crossing the river are unfortunate emblems of Trump era.
4
That picture of Trump grinning next to the poor, orphaned baby being used as a political prop is as disturbing as anything I have seen come out of this administration. It is as vile and profane as someone urinating in the font of a church.
5
This picture, the malevolent grinning dunce and his clueless trophy bride holding a child whose life has been brutally obliterated by a MAGA drone, will serve to epitomize this dreadful period in our history.
16
I didn’t realize it was Melania that first tweeted the photo.
It’s shocking that he would be smiling and doing a thumbs up like that.
It is equally shocking, if not more, that his wife would see nothing wrong with the image and present it to the world.
12
Trump famously said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight and his supporters would still support him.
But Trump supporting sane gun control measure is apparently a dealbreaker for Trump supporters?
Fearless Trump, swaggering his way through the Swamp, slaying regulations, bravely ignoring political correctness, boldly defying the laws and norms is cowed by the NRA and Wayne La Pierre? Charlton Heston or John Wayne, maybe. But Wayne La Pierre?
The Big Bully in the White House could use his bully pulpit to push through sensible legislation. He could issue an Executive Order reinstating the Executive Order by Obama reinstating increased background checks for mentally disturbed.
The Big Bully and his Trumpublican Senators like all bullies turn into sniveling, groveling cowards in front of the stronger.
It is time for this country to find leaders and get rid of the cowards.
PS. One has to wonder who thought that photo was a good picture to publicize. Melania wouldn’t have posted that picture without getting the green light from Trump or a senior aide. It is the equivalent of Dan Scavino’s “Rock Star” tweet about the adoring crowds (?) at the hospitals: totally inappropriate for the occasion. Someone is really out of kilter in the WH.
3
From the woman who insisted that Hillary’s shortcomings were just as bad as Trump’s. You own this Mo.
7
Before he became president, all Trump cared about was money, fame, sleeping with younger women and settling scores with people he thought wronged him. As president, he seemingly cannot fathom that the racist garbage that comes out of his mouth and fingertips provides motivation and leadership for the lunatic fringe of his otherwise fearful, angry base.
Nonetheless, a godless Northerner has become the 21st century Nathan Bedford Forrest for the New South.
2
Sorry, this photo was tweeted *by Melania* on purpose?!
If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that the First Lady is trying to tank her husband’s reputation (or what remains of it)... surely she’s savvy enough to realize that this is not what they call “good optics.”
The funny thing about that photo is that Trump seems to be saying “Of course this is a photo op, but you’ll still vote for me anyway.”
4
Obama was a mensch. Trump is a con artist. Trump says what he thinks people want to hear and what will get him in the news. Obama tried to treat us like adults. I guess we didn't care enough about the difference to vote in another adult.
9
May this picture be the one that will forever represent the Trump era. May it appear thousands of times around the world for decades to come and in history books for centuries to come. Two craven souls are using an infant orphaned by a mass shooting provoked by Trump’s racist rants, as a prop. Trump and Melania are smiling, he is giving a thumbs up. They have to be numb and dumb to be doing this, signaling to the world they lack important brain programming.
6
NEVER had Maureen Dowd been better. NEVER has a single photograph told a story better than this one has done. Show it around. Again and again. It tells the story of what this election is about... the feelings it arouses in each and every one of us who considers ourselves decent ... can win an election! He's rancid. Throw him out. Down the drain. With our garbage. Make him disappear. His posture... his expression... in the face of such tragedy can only be understood with feelings and not words. Show this picture on every campaign poster. On TV. In social media. In print media. It's painful to see... it says that we have living in our White House an incomprehensible fetid ethos so incomprehensible to our core of decency that we don't have an adequate vocabulary to speak of it. This picture says it all. Ms. Dowd is right on... more now than ever.
2
There was no plan for the children of those rounded up in Mississippi. That exemplifies the shear incompetence (let alone humanity) of an administration that has to jump hoops to the whims of a childish, not too bright tyrant.
5
"Devoid of empathy and humanity, Trump is mugging with an infant who will never know his parents."
Trump is a paranoid, mentally ill, slime ball. In his mind Trump really believed that posing with a child would bolster his image. There wasn't a thought about the welfare and plight of the child. There was no compassion or empathy from Trump or the First Lady. They were both devoid of emotion.
Later Trump would berate his staff members on Air Force One about the lack of good press from the visit. HIs concern was for his image and his ego.
Trump is clearly an egotist and racist. He didn't cuddle or hug the child he was holding. The infant was an object through which he could convey his false image. What we saw was the cold, brutally cold, image of the President desperately seeking approval.
He failed miserably. An orphaned child is not a display piece.
5
Trump stands next to an orphaned baby and grieving family members—-grinning, with a thumbs up.
What a damaged human being he is.
7
"President Barack Obama in 2009 bent over so the son of a departing staff member could feel his hair."
Can you imagine Trump letting someone touch his hair?
2
And again, I find it difficult to read any column from MD. She helped elect this person and now she is trying to distance herself from any responsibility. SHAME
8
The photo is just simply shocking. What is there to be "thumbs up" about? Why are Trump and Melania smiling? I hope the poor, innocent baby who just lost both parents days earlier, and now serves as a campaign prop, never sees this agonizing photo.
5
I want to touch Trump's hair just to see how unreal it is.
2
That picture is equal parts surreal and disgusting.
7
I am weeping for America.
4
The infant's uncle and another member of the family mugging at the camera with Trump and Melania betrays breathtaking ignorance and lack of critical thinking skills on their part. Both Trump and Melania's smiles look so phony and forced. How can these people sleep at night? Thumbs up? Because a baby abruptly lost his parents?
7
Everyone in this photo makes me sad -- Trump is, yes, the worst example of a human being, but his wife Melania, the First Lady of the United States standing there holding that baby with her "fake" everything right down to her finger nails. The family is in shock (I hope) -- what could they possibly be thinking -- it's fine to support your President, but there is no way to spin this into a happy occasion -- they could have supported the President and honored their lost loved ones by writing something in the local paper or how about waiting a few days or how about not taking a photo or at the very least, why proudly publish it -- what are they going to say to the child -- this is you with the President of the United States on that happy occasion when your parents were gunned down. Yes, indeed the photo is sad, pathetic and about as un-American as you can get. And, Ms. Dowd, I'm sure Trump had to look up the word Totemic, but he still will not get its real meaning, especially since you connected it to President Obama -- good job!
4
"If he wanted to lead a crusade to get real background checks — or even a ban on assault weapons, which he said in a 2000 book that he favored — he would be formidable."
Is this a ruse by Ms. Dowd to flatter the White House narcissist and trick him into doing something positive for a change? If it is, I hope it works.
2
It is impossible to square in your mind how we could put into office an individual so cravenly narcissistic that he could turn two murderous rampages into a photo op with a suddenly orphaned infant.
There are no limits to this individual’s disgraceful personality.
5
You have to wonder why the El Paso shooter mentioned Trump in his manifesto. Actually you don't, he did it to say hey, I was a racist before Trump was a racist.
1
Why is Melania smiling? Does she really think that orphan-baby has a bright future? without parents?
Trump's smile is understandable, that's how he is.
Whys is the murdered father's brother smiling?
I don't get it.
5
Trump's sole thought in this photo is "What a great campaign image." Let's all have that same thought and vote every GOP politician out of office.
McConnell is proud that he is known for killing Congressional legislation and he never met hidden political cash that he didn't want to protect getting to politicians' kitties.
Trump and his cronies pride themselves....think of that....pride themselves.......for their cruelty. The killer in El Paso did not say he was acting against illegal immigrants. He said he was aiming at Hispanics, period. He, like sometimes ICE these days, made no distinction between legal and illegal ones.
Trump lied and said his father came to this country from Germany. Take him at his word and as there is no record of his father legally immigrating.....Trump is just like a DACA child. Kick him out.
2
So is Trump's thumbs up for his opportunity to use an orphaned baby for a campaign post vs the other pics of caged children at the border? Tone deaf does not encompass the utter emptiness of empathy by our corrupt president for anyone but himself.
Note: The El Paso murderer took pains to say he was aligned with Trump regarding his distaste for Mexicans. And then he began shooting at anyone looking Hispanic. This gunman did not discriminate between illegals and citizens; he was aiming to kill all Hispanics he saw.
This is on Trump's doorstep. He advocates violence as when he suggested 2nd Amendment people might have different ways than words going after Hillary Clinton.
And the NRA's La Pierre looked for a safe place to get away from all the people he had armed courtesy of the GOP Party. This puts the lie to "we are safer with decent armed citizens," from La Pierre's own actions.
1
It’s my understanding that a Trump staffer arranged for the baby to be brought to the hospital. Would it be too cynical to wonder if an offer of (generous) expenses to be paid to the relatives for them to do so?
3
The basic question is do we want Trump impeached or do we want him out of the Oval Office?
Yes, both could happen, but the likelihood is small. Smaller yet is the probability that the present Senate would convict him on an impeachment, leaving him in office and able to say he couldn’t be removed from office as a rallying cry for 2020.
American ethics call for impeachment for his actions, or at least an investigation. The practicality and importance of the situation call for removal of the man by any means. Impeachment is a risky route; voting him out, the better option.
While it can be argued that it’s not a binary choice, failure to remove him via the impeachment route deeply weakens the option of removal by election.
I’m torn, as are many others. What will history say of us if we don’t follow the true north direction and impeach? What will history say of us if we aren’t able to remove him from office because we impeached and failed to convict, and thus failed to remove him from office? More importantly than what history says, what is the correct way to proceed to remove this scourge from totally destroying the image of America and forever wounding our ideals?
3
@Inkspot: That sorry punk lost by almost three million votes in an election spoiled beyond redemption by that abject fool James Comey.
That photograph alone - with an accompanying reminder of the setting, the persons in the picture, the massacre that preceded the photo-op and who caused the massacre - should (and I know previous norms no longer hold ), SHOULD be all the eventual Democratic Presidential candidate needs to defeat Trump.
10
I read recently that women fighting to get the right to vote once maintained a 24-hour, six-days-a-week (this was the 19th Century, mind you) protest outside of the White House for more than two years. Many of the women were arrested. But they managed to keep this going without social media, TV, even telephones. They cared that much. Eventually they were victorious, though many of those who sacrificed for the cause died without knowing the impact they had. If women in hoop-skirts and corsets without energy drinks or smart phones or fast food could maintain a round-the-clock presence to keep pressure on Congress and the president to give women the vote, surely today's citizens can muster the strength to demand gun control. Prepare to be inconvenienced, and even arrested. But aren't the lives of 20 first-graders worth at least that?
7
A clarification for the commenters referring to a constitutional right to own guns:
There is nothing in the Constitution about "owning" guns, or about "buying" guns. The second amendment specifies the rights to "keep and bear arms." Sounds like a military ("well regulated militia"?) context to me.
9
Rubble is what they wanted.
Deep in the heartland, the dis-affected occasional electorate heard their own angry complaints accompanied by simplistic jingoistic solutions just like the jeering within their own minds.
He didn't create them, he validates them.
He doesn't lead them, he enables them.
The assignment: "Go to Washington with a thirty-pound sledge hammer: break everything you see!" ("None of it ain't never done nothin' for us.")
They will elect him again
because the Electoral College distorts and defeats the will of a more enlightened popular majority
seeking informed gun control, comprehensive health care, reproductive rights, meaningful systemic changes to arrest our contribution to climate change, peace rather than conflict . . .
Free Us from the tyranny of the Minority!
[an apologetic nod to De Tocqueville]
Let the Will of the informed and educated rise to action.
End the 18th-century distortion injected by the Electoral College
From the rubble, we'll rebuild.
14
The baby has two siblings,also orphans.
They were spared this.
8
One thing might move trump. If he believes the NRA is too weakened to help him and he sees gun control as a winning issue. He only cares about himself, something LaPierre might find out if he's of no use to trump.
8
The horror just keeps coming, from every direct. I’m not Hispanic but I’m sure my cardiovascular health has deteriorated since 2016. I KNOW my emotional health has.
24
I do wonder if Hispanics are likely to be reassured by Maureen's reference to research indicating a correlation between an increase in Hispanic premature births and President Trumps anti-Hispanic tweets? How will that help them?
We know the man, and we know he will not change. Does this lament, true though it be, contribute to what we need to know?
This type of column is a refrain that is losing its melody. A melody too often hummed wears out the song.
I challenge Maureen and the ensemble of Times columnists, from whom I take large sustenance, to forswear the “Oh, ain't the man awful” tune for a week and describe something positive in our political landscape.
One week. Away from the dark.
6
@Willy White: The acceptance of the Trump travesty leaves little doubt that the US is fundamentally masochistic and eager for the world to end.
@Willy White
I agree. This constant refrain is causing numbness. Please NYT, give it a break.
And Ms. Dowd, too often your words ring hollow due to your behavior prior to the 2016 election. Give it a rest, please. Please consider instead producing another piece on consuming edibles. Maybe this time you could take up a seasonally inspired theme? How about “consuming edibles during a summer vacation” or something equally un-Trumpy?
@Willy White, I'd like to point out to you that you, and the rest of the world, has the ability to cease reading anything, and everything, that disturbs you. On the other hand, columnists have an obligation to write about what they believe is important. Therefore your problem is easily solved. Read only what pleases you and skip what you don't like, or agree with.
1
This is simply a photo of a 70-something year old man, completely self-absorbed, who by now has become bored with the constant photo-op life that is his presidency. There was no particular thought in his mind as this photo was being staged except to appear positive with the people who supported him enough to come meet him when most of the victims' families wanted nothing to do with him. The grin and probably even the thumbs-up most likely appear in many other staged photos he takes with donors who pay for the privilege. Yes, he is out of touch and incapable of empathy. Is there anything else going on here? I don't think so.
14
@JH: I doubt Trump actually wanted to see how much damage .223 ammunition does to the human body.
Trump loves a Photo Op and it does not matter what there circumstances are. It’s thumbs up which means I’m great or maybe means hey look what I instigated from my rally... 20 brown people dead. As to the chicken plants in Mississippi. I hope that some federal authority has visited the owners and managers of these plants and had them also taken them into custody. Theses owners know for certain that there workers are undocumented just as Trump had long term employers at his Trump Country Clubs who were undocumented. It’s modern day slavery and these people should be charged as such including Trump.
8
Trump will never do it, but he could oppose McConnell, Barrasso, et al. to tighten or end access to assault rifles just by using the slavish devotion of his followers. He would win. His narcissistic ego would be satisfied for a time. It would be Nixon going to China.
That said, I hope that when Trump finally leaves or is removed from office, a movie is made about it. And though he claims he's retiring after his next film, I hope Quentin Tarantino directs it. A Django Unchained or Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood ending would be appropriate, if not a Hateful 8 one.
4
As far as I am concerned, the innocent blood of every person that has died senselessly in a massacre that could have been prevented by serious gun safety laws is pooling at the feet of the NRA and the Republicans they have bought with their dirty dollars. Since they evidently have no conscience, the rest of us that do must vote them out. We must work overtime to break through all the distracting, non-sensical noise they will use to attempt to conflate patriotism with gun brandishing. Real patriots PROTECT their countrymen, women and children.
8
We’ve known who he is since he and the “first family” descended the escalator at the Tower. That was well over two years ago.
Since then, those who oppose this dreadful man have justifiably criticized him, called for his impeachment, are mindful that an anonymous trump has been indicted by the SDNY.
He’s still in office and his deplorable behavior has worsened as he faces the possibility of losing re-election and facing criminal prosecution.
Polls demonstrate in spite of this some 4 out of 10 support him.
If all this is so, how can we believe that we are a great country?
Once he leaves office, the haters will still hate, the Republicans in office will still do nothing in the face of the swamp he’s created.
We are a mediocre democracy, shamed by our racism and our history. Our election process is tainted by the electoral college and gerrymandering. Our courts are being polluted by often incompetent, inexperienced extreme right wing ideologues.
MAGA? A sick joke.
My country ‘‘tis of what?
8
A Republican president named two African-Americans as Secretary of State, considered the most important Cabinet post. (Powell and Rice.)
Clinton named one black to the "back of the bus" job of
Secretary of Commerce.
1
@acule What exactly is your correlation here or even the point since it's not on topic? Clinton was never president so hard to say who she would have pushed forward. How's the numbers for Trumpsy?
Anyway there are far many African-Americans working in the Democratic party or even Green party than in the Republican party.
1
1. Two whole ones? Well wasn’t that white of Reagan.
2. The claim about Bill Clinton is a flat-out lie. He appointed a far-more diverse Cabinet.
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/27/us/transition-clinton-s-cabinet-choices-put-him-center-balancing-competing-factions.html
1
I am old enough to remember the 1972 election, and the joke afterwards the subject of which was the Upper West side Liberal who stated on the day after the election: "How could George McGovern have lost? Everyone I know voted for him."
Well, Maureen, you just might be saying the same thing on November 4, 2020.
1
What a self-serving, unctuous group of people. There was no reason (other than pure exploitation) that a newborn should be used in such a photo-op, days after their parents had been killed. If you, as the adult family member of a shooting victim, want to allow yourself to be USED, I have no problem with that.
But I suspect that without the photo-op the Trumps had little interest in meeting with him and hearing what he had to say. To sell your soul for a little fleeting adulation is one thing, to use your recently orphaned nephew is another thing entirely.
13
Remember the "Good Old Days" when the greatest faux pas by a U.S. President was when he didn't wear an American Flag pin on his suit jacket's lapel?
9
@Bicoastaleer on the Wabash: you forgot the Tan Suit Scandal!
Further questions about the photo: What is their relationship to the parents of the infant? Who are the other two people in the photo and why were they cropped out? Neither the male or female looks sad. He looks like this his greatest moment and he can't wait to put the photo up in the autobody shop where he works. She looks completely detached. Are either of the couples responsible for the infant? Nobody is looking at the infant. Trump makes an unbelievable thumbs up gesture, a sign of victory. How could anyone but a malignant Narcissist consider the events a victory? Melania looks uncomfortable, her smile forced. I'll give her credit for feeling sad...the only one.
5
@bahcom
The autobody shop where he works?
@bahcom Where are the family members of the mother? They are grieving.
Regarding that smiling picture of Trump:
There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on the back of a tiger.
They returned from their ride,
The lady quite inside,
And the smile was on the face of the tiger.
5
When asked last week if he thought that Trump’s anti immigrant rhetoric might have influenced the El Paso shooter, my clueless senator, David Purdue replied that the suggested correlation was insulting and disgusting. What is insulting and disgusting is the stranglehold the NRA has on American politics, the fact that the GOP is allowing the carnage to continue by their inaction on sensible gun legislation and their continuing lockstep with an obviously mentally ill president.
11
The penultimate paragraph says it all. Just whose America is it today, anyway? Folks who care about good and bad, or the gun lobby?
3
Psychopath -- I saw the word as I scrolled through the article and thought we were finally acknowledging the truth about our WH Resident. How else to interpret the joy in others' misery displayed here and on so many occasions?
10
There nothing that says “Mission Accomplished” like a picture in the middle of a disaster.
7
I sure wish you had even once compared Trump to Obama like this BEFORE the election. How did it take you so long to figure out who he was? And that he would do a lot worse than use the wrong email address?
14
"... stranded in Mississippi because their parents, many working at a chicken processing plant, had been rounded up by ICE. …"
ICE failed to arrest anyone from management or C-suite.
To see an immigrant here on an Einstein visa (Melania, who is who is as far from an Einstein as it is possible to be) holding an orphan victim of white supremist domestic terrorism sparked by a white supremist president is about as bleak and forlorn as it is possible to be. I don't what the definition of evil is for the evangelicals and bigots who I blame for electing and for continuing to support the antichrist, but the photo captures its essence in all its full glory.
12
We're in an episode of the trump show where terminators attack us at will while skynet rounds up enemies of the state as the benificient emporer looks on from the castle balcony. Can't wait for next week's exciting episode.
4
We hear conservatives telling Dems not to politicize the gun issue after a massacre. And this doesn’t?
6
So depressing that Melania agreed to pose for this and then publish it. This photo ends any hope I had of the possibility of her being able to show him what compassion looks like and to think beyond oneself.
5
Melania will pose for anything. Nudes, clothes, standing with devil, Donald.
1
There is a photo Donald Trump Jr. and of Erik Trump smiling broadly while holding a leopard that I guess they shot. When I saw this picture that Melania posted, it was like watching the same thing. Mission accomplished.
Nothing will be done about the assault rifles. Sure Trump thinks the NRA is going broke....but the big game hunter of Hispanic people using ICE is still scared of the gun lobby. Bet you my bottom dollar.
4
Write what you want. He will be re-elected in 2020.
2
So why then, Ms. Dowd, did you repeatedly criticize and cut down Obama when he was president? And do the same for Hillary Clinton, helping to ensure Trump's victory?
7
I've been reading the Times, daily for more than 50 years, especially the opinion pieces and the musings of various columnists, you being one of course, and I read the comments to get a feel for what matters to Americans, and whether the groundswell I always believed will begin, is beginning
The power each and every one of you have, to cause major change to occur in our corrupt corporate owned government, is formidable, and must be causing recurring nightmares for many of the narcissistic psychopaths who are running and ruining our nation.
I sense now, more than ever, especially since the rise of the Trump abomination, his seeding of government with like-minded abominations, the outing of the paedophile Epstein, and the fall, and developing fall of other of the evil creatures riding us, that good decent Americans are finally starting to fight back; this is the time for everyone with the ability to speak, especially you and your associates, as the the lady at the Herald did in her tireless effort to expose Epstein, you must dig, dig deep, be without fear, tell it all, and be remember as the people who wielded their pens to win the war the corrupt are waging with increasing relentlessness as they seek to destroy all we stand for, our gleaming City of Hope, on a hill beckoning, and welcoming all.
Over two years we have all watched as hope, the thing we keep fighting for, gets trampled into the dirt that the minions of the Trumpist philosophy are creating.
Time to stop it.
5
There is little “good sense and decency” left in America with 60 million people still supporting Trump.
4
How dare the Trumps pose with that orphaned infant in a smiling photo op! That child's parents were murdered in that mass shooting...her world, her grandparents' world has forever been changed. I continue to be amazed at how Trump can be inappropriate and void of empathy and class repeatedly. Democrats, get your act together or you're getting this guy re-elected.
5
"But point-blank: Our Republican leaders are cowards."
This line should have been the headline, not buried at the bottom of the essay.
1
While the killer was a psychopath, Trump is a sociopath. And a narcissist. And a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. And Oppositional-defiant. Dare I go on? That such a person represents our country is a moral outrage of inestimable proportions. In my youth I thought you could, with patience and effort, explain yourself or what you understood to anyone else. Not true. Many Americans are driven by the dark emotions that prevent them from considering anything that is not already part of their belief system. Sigh
7
Indeed. Yet what of Mitch McConnell and so many of the GOP who abet this nightmare?
1
Down writes: " ... Even as we absorbed the grotesque image from the hospital, we had to watch the heart-rending footage of Hispanic children sobbing and stranded in Mississippi because their parents, many working at a chicken processing plant, had been rounded up by ICE. "
This dreadful scene is only mentioned in passing, but is a horrible event equivalent in power and depravity to Kristallnacht of 1938. Crying children will be Trump's legacy.
3
The photo is revolting.
It is a true insight into the Trumps and into Trump supporters who are willing to afford him cover even when he inspires carnage directed at brown skinned Mexicans and Americans.
The photo will haunt and cause pain to the Anchondo family. I wish the Anchondos would have asked the actual victims of the shooter why every single one of them refused to meet with Trump and assist in his propoganda trip before their actions allowed Trump to cause further harm to his victims.
1
Yes, when children were mown down like ducks in a carnival game and it was ok, it was pretty obvious there is simply no tipping point even for discussion of meaningful gun control. How about this, you hoard of candidates (Democrat or Republican) that are running for president, Senate or Congress: guns ? Regulate the bad ones, just like abortions, offer some type of medical coverage that includes covering preexisting conditions and affordable prescriptions and fund schools and infrastructure, decriminalize at least some immigration and everyone would vote for you. You would be a rock star. Even this old, white, liberal , feminist, medicare eligible Granny. PS. Another good one, MD.
1
This picture exemplifies what a sad example Donald Trump is of a human being. No empathy, no humanity, no humility, and worst of all, no shame. It’s always about him and nothing else matters. And for those who point to the economy, relaxed environment regulations or appointment of conservative judges as the reason they support him, shame on you! You’ve made a Faustian pact that will have a negative effect on America’s future for generations to come.
3
We have reached a point at two and a half years into the Trump presidency, where we are comparing images that define the legacy of a president. Use any photo - any of the thousands taken of Barack Obama, and you will find a presidential, professional and empathetic human being. I dare say that Donald Trump extolls the worst of a nation looking for its soul. There is no turning back from the impact that the Trump administration has made on the American psyche. It will be generations to come that will recall the loss of trust, pride and empathy that we once hadd for every human being. The contrast of Obama and Trump could not be more stark. Where do we go from here?
VOTE!
7
I am horrified and sickened, as we all should be. The photo of an orphaned baby who lost his parents to a domestic terrorist held by Melania standing next to a grinning Trump is just utterly bizarre and surreal. The photo captures Trump's narcissism and lack of empathy perfectly. The Trump Presidency has become a symbol of our Country's darkness and decay. The forces of good will ultimately prevail but this is certainly a dark time.
998
@PEG
Yes, thanks. Only when the darkness affects the trump voters in economic, general security and worsening health care terms, will the dark clouds move on. And that may not take too long because the wages of working people are stagnant, the health care systems continues to be impossible for millions and too expensive for millions more. And our health care system, twice as expensive as other countries, give outcomes worse or no better than other countries. Over 50% of people have recently stated that they would take a "medicare for all" (MFA) health system over their employers plan. When people learn that the MFA plan would cost less than they pay for premiums with their employer plan, more and more will support MFA. The time is coming and the media are criminal in promoting lies about MFA. Get the truth and pass it on. Listen to Sanders and read, read, read and tell your friends and neighbors.
20
@PEG
Notice that a member of the victim's family is also smiling. Smiling in the wake of tragedy is call putting on a brave faces,
3
@PEG - You are not alone in this recognition of disgust at the stain of the Trump presidency on America's noble, Constitutional traditions and values that so many citizens of all ethinic backgrounds have fought for, and so many died for.
So many millions of Americans hang their heads in respect for the victims and in disgust at the leadership from the White House and Senate.
Voting the GOP down will become our way of showing the respect deserved for victims across America that this Republican Party has been set against destroying and humiliating and worse...
15
The picture of the Trumps with the infant conjures up some bad Lifetime movie where a demented couple breaks into a well to do suburban home, kills the homeowners and takes their baby because they are infertile. Yes Mo, it is sickening.
3
No sensible gun reform will happen until the R's are removed from power: House, Senate and White House.
To confront the confederates, evangelicals and losers in the red MAGA hats, I propose a BLUE hat, called a TOTT hat: it stands for "Take Out The Trash."
4
Throwing gasoline on a fire—do you suppose we will ever come to our senses and realize that it will never resolve anything—unless what is wanted is to reduce everything to ashes?
To Republicans who ever used the phrase “shining city on a hill,” consider Matthew 23:27: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
5
This is a sickening photo, just when you think things can't get any worse. I wish I hadn't seen it.
3
This photo of Melania holding the orphaned baby makes me ill. Trump stands there with a "winning" smile on his face, so pleased, thumb's up! He can't see himself, nor reflect on what is so wrong. Zero insight, zero empathy. It was his words who encouraged the murderous shooter to pitilessly kill that child's parents. He called Mexicans "rapists," and emphasized time and again about how there was an "invasion" from Mexico. There's no point now in saying Trump is a disgusting human - - everyone is aware of it. And this photo op - - the person who set it up is vomiting, I'm sure. The first step is to ban all sales of assault rifles. But Trump and GOP won't see the "sense" of it. Don't forget that. And don't forget that poor baby's parents.
4
I remember a president that was close to tears when visiting a community that had been grieving over a mass shooting.
There were no "photo-ops", touched-up photographs, a video released by the White House communications people, no grandstanding. There were no angry tweets from the presidential aircraft or bragging about the size of a rally held in that city.
That president wasn't Trump. And Trump is far from presidential and will never be considered a leader, a unifier. Just a loud mouth bully who is better off under a shade tree mumbling to himself.
I am disgusted and appalled that Trump and the First Lady would stoop to such parading given the horror that three cities in a few short days experienced.
Yes, Trump supporters will apologize stating that is how Trump is, and he speaks for the people, his people.
And, his people can have the insensitive moron.
9
Every time I see Trump with one of his phony forced grins, which isn't much cause it's so hard for him; I can't help but think of Jack Nicholson's Joker in the first Batman movie, after the reconstructive surgery. Looks just like him..check it out
2
If I was Trump or Melania or Ivanka, I’d be haunted for the rest of my life by the picture of that little girl In Mississippi who was separated from her father.
But for that you need to have a conscience.
https://www.complex.com/life/2019/08/child-tearfully-begs-for-fathers-release-following-mississippi-ice-raids
5
Trump has made clear, his purpose is to discourage the Latino population from crossing the southern border by making their situation in the US as unpleasant as possible. It's horrifying to contemplate, but this may include inspiring terror that the US is so unsafe for them they may be gunned down.
2
The image is grotesque, and absolutely fitting. A Trump supporter and his wife are killed in a mass murder against people of their own race, a mass murder incited by the president of the United States of America. The man's brother, smiling, said he felt "consoled" by the inciter-in-chief, who is positively grinning: This is just a sick situation.
Right now, we don't need to focus on Melania Trump holding the murdered couple's 2-month-old son who is alive because his parents shielded him from the shooter.
Right now, we don't need to focus on the power of ideology holding the uncle of the baby.
Simply behold the grinning sociopath giving his usual thumbs up -- the grinning sociopath who is the president of the United States of America.
1
The only thing that would make this bizarre photo even more
sickening would be Wayne Lapierre standing with them, an NRA poster, and a couple of M16's and AR15's hanging on the wall behind them.
That photo would definitely bring it all together in one place.
Trump's son could put a copy in his trophy room, along with a copy of the check from the NRA for Dad's re-election fund.
4
What if there was a mass shooting at a rich, white country club in Kentucky? Or some Republican fundraiser? Or any other gathering place for the wealthy elite? What do you suppose would happen next?
2
Nothing. The Republican Congressional baseball team was attacked, and they did nothing. Their obeisance to the NRA is so complete that even being attacked themselves couldn’t move the needle.
2
I want to know why Tito Anchondo supports Trump. I do not understand why anyone does, but especially a person from one of Trump's targets. I wonder if Tito's poor brother had lived, would he still support Trump?
5
My take on this cluelessly odious photo is that Trump is so delighted to be photographed with an Hispanic fanboy - the brother (in-law) of a race-motivated mass shooting victim, no less - that he totally forgets the tragedy of the occasion, and his own complicity in it. Notice that he is not just smiling, he is positively beaming.
2
If I were Trump or Melania or Ivanka, I’d be haunted for the rest of my life by the picture of that little girl In Mississippi who was separated from her father.
But for that you need to have a conscience.
https://www.complex.com/life/2019/08/child-tearfully-begs-for-fathers-release-following-mississippi-ice-raids
3
Normal Americans weren’t having “giddy dreams about race and modernity” during the Obama years.
2
I will not back down. The Republicans keep taking money from the NRA, because money is more important than all the lives of people killed and injured. Maybe something has to happen to their families? They are a bunch of cowards.
We must stop the sale of assult weapons.
VOTE BLUE 2020
2
From the smiles on their faces, and trump's thumbs up, you could never tell this poor baby was orphaned by a crazed gunner who echoed trumps sinister rhetoric, while his parents gave their lives to protect them. Where is the sadness on these faces, even on the face of the baby's uncle.It seems to me normal people would be in mourning??? The parents of this child had just died in a bloody massacre, but you could never tell a thing was wrong from looking at this grotesque photo.
5
Yes, Maureen, Republican leaders are cowards and liars...have been for the past four decades. You should know that already because it sounds like you've hosted some of them, like the "courageous" Susan Collins.
2
"Devoid of empathy and humanity, Trump is mugging with an infant who will never know his parents."
Look at the photo. Again.
He's the President of the United States of America.
Makes you proud, doesn't it?
4
It’s interesting to me that it was Melania who released THAT picture out to Twitter. She who rarely makes any impact on anything at all. I wonder if she realised just how repulsive the photo is and what its impact would be. I wonder if that’s EXACTLY why she put it out there. I can’t imagine that she now has anything but loathing for the ‘man’ she married. It’s not a stretch to believe she might possibly ‘white-ant’ him; given how miserable the woman generally looks, I’m pretty sure she wants out of the WH asap! And THAT picture sure has helped.
Is there ever going to be anything in the news again that doesn't make me just want to break down and cry? How do we endure this monstrosity in the WH???
1
What I see in this very disturbing photo is the Trumps holding up the baby as if he is a trophy. Trump smiling, you can just hear him "We succeeded in getting rid of some more Mexicans".
1
Congratulations Maureen. I think you finally get it. Trump - bad, Obama - excellent!
2
The question begs- why do 1/3 of Hispanics vote Republican?
1
@JoeG Having lived in Latin America, (and worked for 20 years among Latinos here) I've observed a strong impulse towards authoritarianism among many Hispanics. I suspect it could arise from the disorder and weak rule of law in their native countries. Revolution and coups change regimes there more commonly than democratic elections.
As to a substantial percent of HIspanics voting Republican, who was it who said, "Democrats want to fall in love, Republicans want to fall in line"? Authoritarians want us all to fall in line.
2
I posted this same comment under another NY Times "gun" article. But here it is again.
You want to send Donald Trump a message? Try this, a meat boycott. Tweet you friends and cut back on eating meat. Donald Trumps biggest supporters are the farmers, the beef, chicken, corn and soybean farmers. Stick with fresh vegetables (now in season), fruits, etc. from you local farmers market. Tweet your friends or post on Facebook.
Save money, lose weight, do something good for the environment and send DJT a message.
We need to get rid of the second amendment. Then we can make some real gun laws.
4
The photo op of the trumps with Paul Anchondo gives me the creeps. Melania is holding the child with all the warmth of a January night in Siberia. Both she and Donald look like they are making every effort not to actually come in physical contact with these people.
5
Thank you for putting this obscene picture in your opinion piece. I hope that future generations puzzling over it see its bizarre kinesthetics.
Why the grins on Trump and Melania? I can only read this as triumph. And the thumbs up? For a murderous job well done? Is that poor, orphan baby -- who was not supposed to have been released to misguided Tito without the blessing of CPS -- a trophy?
The semiotics of this picture show me a victory lap in the aftermath of stochastic terrorism. God help us, and most important, our Latino friends and neighbors.
3
The ever so privilege Trump family is so ignorant in their wealth. Who in their right mind would even consider that their picture taken together with this orphan child, who by God’s good grace, was miraculously shielded and spared by this blessed child’s loving parents, and “The Donald’s” thumbs up gesture along with Melanie, would be appropriate and pass the smell test. Certainly not them or the White House advance team. These parents paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect their child, before they too were killed. The problem is, this loving American family would be whole today along with the other innocent victims, if Donald J. Trump hadn’t use his hate speech rhetoric in his re-election campaign platform to influence his red state White Supremacy Nationalist racist gullible base. The alleged killer wanted to seek out and murder Mexican citizens and he ended up massacring many American citizens as well. It’s both tragic and a disgrace to lose ones life for innocently going to a local mall to shop for supplies to welcome in a new school year or to buy a birthday gift for the orphan child, and for President Donald J. Trump to believe he is so wonderful that he will get a pass at this disgraceful photo op. He is a very sad and sick individual and should have to bare some responsibility for triggering this despicable act. No matter what he says! The Trump family is so rooted in their privilege, that they have no conscience in what’s right, or wrong for that matter.
Shameful!
2
Ms. Down can now apparently read minds! Tell us Maureen how big a landslide will Trump win by in 2020?
By now we all know how deplorable our current President is what we should be paying more attention to is our morally corrupt opinion makers like Ms. Dowd are. She is just as much of an opportunist as the two morally devoid people using a two month old baby for personal gain.
Let’s not forget her role in this deplorable man’s elevation to this position and the damage that has done to our great country.
If Trump wasn't bought by NRA
As sooo many Republicans are--
If NRA, whose membership is .01515 of US Population
Didn't rule Gun Legislation--
Maybe just maybe -- the rightful parents could
be holding their baby today--
Instead of being Photo Op
For a President without any remorse for their deaths.......
3
The picture reflects the sick reality of the Trump’s (Melania included) lack of regard for any shred of common decency and compassion. They are using a child whose parents have been murdered by white supremacists as a campaign prop.
He is monstrously evil and has no moral compass. And those that support him are a cult of collaborators and are complicit with all his evil misdeeds.
M
3
It is difficult to take anything Democrats say about the need for gun control when they are the leading supporters of killing in American, i.e., abortion.
The real reason Americans don't want gun registration?
Who would hire a jerk who owns assault weapons?
The GOP has surrendered itself to a racist, bigoted, narcissistic sociopath. There are no longer any credible excuses. Some are leaving. Those who stay have made their choice and those among us who love our country will never forget its betrayal by them.
2
The most heartbreaking background detail of this ghoulish picture is that the baby's Hispanic father was a Trump supporter. I call to Hispanics, blacks, farmers, working people of all colors, to recognize that Trump is not on your side. He has never been on your side. His evil words and policies might even get you and your family killed. Wake up, and throw the bum out!
4
So, the photo here of the King of the Con would suggest that the first lady has abandoned her anti-bully campaign. Too bad! I had hopes way back when that she might rein him in. Silly me!
America has a new image in the world and its an ugly one thanks to Trump;s malignant narcissism which colors his every action and tweet with hate and falsehoods. Trump has damaged our nation in ways that reflect his vile nasty nature which has no place in the highest office in the land ,it will take years to get the Trump stench out of the Oval Office.
1
It is misleading to call the shooter in El Paso a psychopath. So far as we know he is a rabid follower of the white supremacist movement. To imply that he has mental problems lets him off the hook. He is a criminal. Don't give him some possible defense.