Republican Reaction To Orlando Racist, Homophobic, And Egotistical

Obviously, we will learn a lot more about the true motivations of the Orlando shooter in the coming days and weeks, but right now this clearly looks more like a hate crime than a coordinated attack by international terrorists.  Republicans, however, believe that anything that can remotely justify the use of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” will work to their political advantage. And so we get these remarkably tone-deaf statements from the two top Republican primary vote getters.

First, Donald Trump tweets, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”.  It really takes an enormous runaway ego to congratulate yourself in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history. In my prior post, I expressed my skepticism that this tragedy would do anything to change our murderous gun control laws and that another massacre will probably soon eclipse this one. But if that happens, I certainly won’t be congratulating myself for being right; rather, I would be mourning the loss of life and my inability to have stopped it. 

That was soon followed by Ted Cruz who declared, “Enough is enough. What we need is for every American – Democrat and Republican – to come together, abandon political correctness, and unite in defeating radical Islamic terrorism”. Well, thanks Ted; I’m sure ISIS is reeling from the fact that you’ve identified them with words, as opposed to the continuing battlefield defeats the group is suffering in Iraq and Syria with the help of the US and others.  More importantly, I guess your fellow Texan, Lt. Governor Dan Abbott, took your words to heart, abandoning all pretense of political correctness, when he tweeted this verse from the bible just hours after the carnage in Orlando ended, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”  His clear implication is that the victims in Orlando had it coming because they were gay. 

Hopefully, more responsible Republican leaders will possibly take Cruz’s point to heart and join the rest of us in abandoning our political correctness and denounce these racist and homophobic comments for exactly what they are.