With each racist assault — on a judge, an athlete, a
country, a member of Congress, or a city — and with each kind word for “very fine people on both sides,” our president allows the
stew to boil and radiate more dangerously.
You can feel the effect: in the F.B.I.’s burgeoning caseload of hate crimes and white
supremacist investigations, and in a stadium full of Americans who, even
knowing they are on television, chant in unison, “Send her back.” That burst of
negative energy was met, not by efforts to control it, but by 13 seconds of
presidential silence, the same silence that his fellow Republicans have
adopted.
Our president thinks he is doing something clever. He lifts
the control rods for a calculated and deeply cynical purpose: to harness the
political energy unleashed. It will heat his re-election bid, he likely thinks.
But unconstrained, it will damage the nation, in all directions. Only fools
believe they can ride the gamma rays of hate.
According to a “manifesto” widely attributed to him, the
Texas terrorist who killed at least 20 people in El Paso on Saturday wasn’t
directly motivated by Donald Trump. But he is a horrific example of what can
happen when the control rods are lifted.
Every American president, knowing what lies deep within our
country, bears a unique responsibility to say loudly and consistently that
white supremacy is illegitimate, that encouraging a politics of racial
resentment can spawn violence, and that violence aimed at people by virtue of their
skin color is terrorism.
Mr. President, because of what you have done, you owe us
more than condolences sent via Twitter. You must stop
trying to unleash and exploit the radioactive energy of racism.
You hold the biggest control rod of all. You must push it
back into place, for all our sakes. The vast majority of Americans believe the
core ideals of our founding documents and we expect our culture to reflect
those ideals. Show us you believe in them, too.
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