Terrible Trump

[Content Note: Terrorism; mass violence; fearmongering.]

I've got a new piece at BNR about Donald Trump's ghoulish history of touchdown dancing after every act of terror:

Donald thrives on fear. He exploits death. And his campaign does not exist in a vacuum: It exists in a time of global darkness; in a time of division fomented by violent extremists at home and abroad. He has been used at least twice in terrorist recruitment media. While Donald did not cause global terrorism, his irresponsible and inflammatory policies and rhetoric also do not exist outside of it.

A person running for the United States presidency is given one of the most visible platforms on the planet. Donald has chosen to use that platform to respond to terrorist attacks not with measured statesmanship, but as though he's just run a football into the end zone.

Under the auspices of "concern" that the US is not being "smart" about terror, Donald implies that he is smart; that he alone has the capability to stop global terror. Under the auspices of "concern" for people, he warns that it's only going to get worse.

On the one hand, he feeds fear that more terror is to come. On the other, he promises to assuage that fear with his leadership. And embedded right in the middle is a sickening celebration that he's right about how dangerous the world is, and a revolting glee that more death has both proved him right and given him another reason to claim that he is.

His gruesome tweets—and commentary at his incendiary campaign rallies—create a feedback loop of catalystic terror.

Head on over to read the whole thing.

In other Trump news: This morning he tweeted that his Never Trump political opponents "were crushed last night in Cleveland at the Rules Committe." As my colleague Peter Daou noted, the tweet "took his insensitivity to another level" and "should be taken down immediately." It won't be.

It would be cool if the national media could care about this grossness one millionth as much as they cared about a Pokémon joke.