President Trump
on Monday claimed he would have run into a Florida high school to prevent a gunman from carrying out this month's mass shooting.
"You don't know until you test it, but I really believe I'd run in there even if I didn't have a weapon,” Trump told a gathering of governors at the White House. "And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too."
It's always about Him, the adulation of Him, the intelligence of Him, the great courage of Him.
Take a second to consider how the media would have reported a similar boast from, say, president Hillary Clinton! But at least we don't have to suffer through e-mail scandals (largely, because those scandals are not viewed as scandals when done by the Trump administration) or have a crooked woman running the country.
The normalization of the Trump values proceeds, however much some of us want to fight back.
On the topic of that quote: None of us know how we would act in a dire emergency, until we find ourselves in one. Practice and training help, but even those who have trained and practiced may find themselves freezing when things turn real. And yes, there are heroes and heroines*, people who sacrifice themselves for a greater chance of rescue for others.
But running into the building (how would Trump run?) without a weapon would have been utterly useless, and speculating about that while completely safe is disrespectful to those who were actually there.
Why write about Trump's inane comments (while bad stuff takes place behind the curtain)? Perhaps I should not have done so. But I still can't get over the responsibility Trump voters have for our current miseries. It's not ultimately Trump that is the problem (the country can absorb quite a few carnival barkers), it's Trump in the White House that is the problem.
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* I have heard a story from another country where the head mistress at a school shooting offered her own life in exchange for the lives of the threatened youngsters. The shooter took hers, and perhaps one or two of the others were saved by her sacrifice, given that someone could pass on the story.