While the president continues to occupy himself largely with ranting and raving on Twitter and going after his political enemies, the global system continues to be faced with serious problems that no amount of angry social media posts will ever solve.
In Muenster, Germany, this Saturday, a driver who eventually shot and killed himself rammed a delivery truck into a crowd of people gathered at a restaurant, wounding 20 and killing at least 2. Neither the identity nor the motive of the driver were initially revealed by police, who asked locals to “avoid the city center,” in the description of CNN.
German government spokesperson Ulrike Demmer took to social media in the aftermath of the incident, commenting:
‘Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones.’
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer offered his own statement after the attack, saying:
‘With dismay, I learned of the terrible incident in Muenster. Police in Muenster and throughout (the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia) are now working hard to investigate the matter.’
President Trump did not rush to social media to offer his own condolences, although he did post a message to his personal Twitter page revealing that he had spoken with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to offer his condolences on the occasion of a horrifying bus crash that left 14 members of a Canadian junior hockey team dead.
Although again, there is no established motive in the case of the Saturday tragedy in Muenster, the president has in the past used terror incidents of a similar nature as an opportunity to push his policy proposals.
For instance, after a terror incident in London last June, the president quickly used the opportunity to stump for his proposed ban on Muslims traveling to the United States.
After taking office, the president evolved his language, turning his proposed Muslim ban into nothing more than a “travel ban” — although the president’s proposal still covered an array of Muslim-majority countries around the world. Remarkably, it didn’t even cover countries where individuals who have actually carried out attacks in the United States were from, like Saudi Arabia.
He did the same after a September attack in the United Kingdom as he did after the June attack, reiterating his calls for a harsh travel ban.
On Saturday, after addressing the incident in Canada, the president turned to ranting about some of his favorite talking points on social media without having made any reference to the incident in Germany.
For instance, he defended his trade war-inducing stance towards China and his immigration policy platform, which recently led him to sign an order for the National Guard to be deployed along our border with Mexico.
Although the president did not himself rush to address the issue, in the face of hatred against Muslims being spewed online in the wake of the attack by individuals aligned with his past viewpoints, one individual from the affected German town took a stand.
They wrote, in part:
‘I am from
#Münster and we are too smart for this hatespeech bullshit against muslims or refugees or immigrants or whatever crap you come up with today. We stand together.’
Reuters shared the report that the man behind the attack was a German with “psychological problems.”
Check out images of the scene below.
https://twitter.com/OnlineMagazin/status/982645287075401728
#Münster ramming incident LATEST:
– Several dead
– Around 30 injured
– Nature of the incident remains 'unclear'
– Driver committed suicide
– Authorities not looking for any further suspects
– Danger is likely to be over https://t.co/Q3jQHZZNum pic.twitter.com/fo6puh6QVJ— RT (@RT_com) April 7, 2018
