Trump’s condemnation of hate rings deafeningly false

When President Trump took to Truth Social to decry (as do I) the brutal and tragic murders of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington – declaring with solemn gravitas that “Hatred and radicalism have no place in America” – the disconnect between his words and his record was so vast it bordered on grotesque parody. This is, after all, the same man whose political career has been a masterclass in stoking the very hatred he now piously condemns.

The pattern is undeniable. From his refusal to unequivocally denounce neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville – infamously finding “very fine people on both sides” – to his systematic dismantling of programs designed to monitor domestic extremism, Trump has been not just a passive observer but an active enabler of the toxic ideologies now metastasising across America. The numbers tell the damning story: during his first presidency, the FBI reported a 20% surge in white supremacist violence, even as his administration slashed funding for hate crime prevention and disbanded the DHS unit tracking right-wing terrorism.

This selective outrage extends beyond America’s borders to Gaza, where Trump’s policies have helped enable a humanitarian catastrophe. His first-term decisions – moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, cutting all aid to Palestinian refugees, and brokering Arab-Israeli normalisation deals that deliberately excluded Palestinian interests – laid the groundwork for the current horror. Now, as the death toll surpasses 62,000, Trump offers “full-throated support” for Netanyahu’s campaign to “finish the job,” dismissing Palestinian casualties as inevitable collateral damage. The moral bankruptcy is staggering: Israeli lives are mourned as precious losses, while Palestinian ones are written off as the cost of doing business.

The timeline is impossible to ignore. In 2016, Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric coincided with a 91% spike in hate crimes against American Muslims. Today, his dehumanisation of Palestinians has helped fuel a wave of attacks on Arab students across U.S. campuses. From Charlottesville to Gaza to the streets of Washington, the pattern repeats with tragic predictability: Trump fans the flames of division, then feigns shock when the fire spreads.

True leadership isn’t measured by the eloquence of one’s condolences after bodies fall, but by the courage to confront the conditions that make such violence inevitable. On that count – through his words, his policies, and his poisonous legacy – Trump stands indicted by the bloodshed he now claims to decry. The embassy killings are yet another horrific chapter in a story he helped write, one where hatred always finds a home.

 

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