People Are Pissed About Trump's Response To Barcelona And TBH, They Have A Point
On Thursday, Aug. 17, a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona, killing at least one person and injuring dozens. The incident is being treated as a terror attack. President Donald Trump responded to the incident with a tweet condemning terrorism and a subsequent tweet in which he essentially condoned firing bullets caked in pig blood at Muslims to fight "Radical Islamic Terror" (we'll explain this in a moment). For understandable reasons, Twitter reactions to Trump's Barcelona statements show people are absolutely livid and fed up with the president's apparent double standard on terrorism. To put it other way, people are sick and tired of the fact Trump is quick to respond to any incidents that might have involved jihadists, but seems to give attacks perpetrated by white supremacists a pass.
It took Trump roughly three hours to respond to the reports of the attack in Barcelona. In his response, as noted above, he directly condemned terrorism. Comparatively, when Trump addressed the events in Charlottesville roughly 90 minutes after a fatal car attack perpetrated by a white nationalist, he didn't mention terrorism at all. Since that time, some members of the Trump administration -- including Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- have referred to what happened in Charlottesville as domestic terrorism. But Trump has yet to do so. On top of this, he also blamed the violence in Charlottesville on "both sides," even though it was a white nationalist who plowed his car into the crowd of people protesting against the hate groups staging a massive march in the city. Trump defended his slow response to Charlottesville by saying he was waiting for the facts. But we hardly have all of the facts regarding the incident in Barcelona at the moment and he was still willing to immediately decry terrorism.
This isn't the first time Trump has been quicker to react to a terror attack he believed was perpetrated by a jihadist (as opposed to a white supremacist) and people on Twitter are tired of the double standard.
People are also angry with Trump for his follow-up tweet, in which he contended America should follow the example of General John Pershing in its approach to "radical Islamic terrorism."
Legend has it that Pershing executed Muslim terrorists with bullets dipped in pig blood roughly a century ago. Trump once claimed this tactic prevented terrorism for 25 years. But, here's the thing, that story is complete fiction -- it didn't happen. So, Trump basically just condoned committing war crimes as an approach to terrorism by citing a false story. People on Twitter are furious about this and believe it's even more proof of Trump's double standard on terrorism.
Trump is arguably writing the book on how you should not respond to terror attacks.
