(Todd A. Smith)
Back in the day, tragedy often brought Americans together.
After Sept. 11, Republicans, Democrats and Independents rallied behind former President George W. Bush when he promised that the terrorists who toppled the World Trade Center would soon hear from all of us.
However, almost a quarter of a century later, the Republican Party seems void of a unifying leader.
While both sides of the aisle often use tragedy to garner support for their political ideas, I cannot recall a politician or a political party choosing to blatantly divide the country at a time when true leadership would bring people together despite ideological differences.
Yes, Democrats often use mass shootings to promote universal background checks and assault weapons bans.
But that politicization seems to come from a genuine place of wanting to save lives.
However, when someone like President-elect Donald Trump blames immigrants for a terrorist attack committed by Shamsud Din Jabbar, an Army veteran born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, does not rescind his erroneous statement and then falsely claims always to be right while speaking of himself in the third person, then the country is in for another volatile and turbulent four years when it desperately needs a leader that will heal us and not hurt us.
In the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, Bourbon Street in New Orleans was the place to be for thousands of revelers.
Locals mixed with tourists.
College football fans partied the night away before the Sugar Bowl game between University Georgia and Notre Dame, scheduled for later that evening at the Caesar’s Superdome.
Police officers were in full force in the French Quarter and many cops had barricaded entry points onto Bourbon Street.
However, all their efforts did not stop a Houston resident from driving around police barricades and plowing down dozens of partiers, killing 14 of them.
Without knowing all the facts, Fox News erroneously reported that the truck used in the terrorist attack had come across the United States-Mexico border illegally through Eagle Pass, Texas.
Although Fox News has a history of reporting fake news, which has caused the network to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in defamation cases, one would think that their history of litigation would have caused them to double-check their “facts” before reporting.
Nevertheless, news reporters are human and sometimes make mistakes.
Therefore, Fox News did what all news organizations should do when they report misinformation, they rescinded their story and corrected it.
However, many people will only hear or read the first story that Fox News got wrong.
As a result, that fake news could lead to more hate and division when it comes to the immigrant community.
While viewers and readers can make mistakes, political leaders must be careful about making similar mistakes because people believe their elected officials, even if they have a history of lying for a living.
President-elect Trump has often told his followers/worshippers to only believe what he says and not what they hear from news reporters who dedicate their lives to telling the truth.
Therefore, if Trump has people willing to worship at his altar, he must use that idolatry for good and not add more evil and destruction to an already volatile world.
Instead, Trump uses his pulpit to add more confusion and chaos, which are characteristics of the devil, not God.
He lies about violent crime being up under President Joe Biden.
He lies about illegal immigrants committing more crimes than Americans.
He lies about not lying.
And he lies to play on people’s fear and hatred of others.
What makes his behavior so diabolical is that he knows he is lying.
He knows his cult followers will believe everything he says, even if they have proof he is lying.
He knows that such lies will hurt the country.
But he is still willing to lie because it helps him, personally.
That is not a leader.
That is a loser.
And while Trump might have won a couple of presidential elections and might have won in the game of financial fraud, he is a loser in the game of life because he is proud to leave the world worse than how he found it.
Most leaders want to leave the world a little bit better than how they found it.
But Trump could not care less.
What makes that even worse is that his Republican minions do not care either.
While speaking about the terrorist attack, Speaker Mike Johnson took to Fox Newsto criticize President Biden’s border policy, even though the alleged terrorist was born and raised in America.
Therefore, the attack had nothing to do with immigration.
When an NBC reporter told Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) that she was on the right-hand side of a press conference, he used that moment to criticize what he apparently sees as a left-leaning news network.
What America desperately needs is leadership that genuinely cares about the country and its people, not scoring political points at a painful time.
Instead, America has conservative grandstanders and B.S. artists who do not give a care about the future of the country and the people.
Hopefully, America can one day return to a time when leaders used tragedy to unite instead of divide.
That will not happen over the next four years because of Trump.
But maybe his second administration will show Americans what real leadership is not.
