November 01, 2018 11:58 AM UTC

Trump Ramps Up Racism After Synagogue Massacre

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: From the Sacramento Bee:

Bracamontes was next arrested May 4, 2001, on marijuana charges in Maricopa County, and deported three days later. Republican George W. Bush was president at the time, and was president when Bracamontes slipped back into the United States a short time later.

The date of his re-entry is not clear, but records show Bracamontes was married in Maricopa County on Feb. 28, 2002, when Bush was president.

By then, Bracamontes had been living near Salt Lake City where he remained until 2014, when he and his wife embarked upon a methamphetamine-fueled trip that ended with their arrests in Placer County after the deputies were killed.

Meaning that in addition to being twisted and outlandishly racist, this ad is also lying.

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It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018

CNN reports, and it would be a profound shock at any other moment:

In the most racially charged national political ad in 30 years, President Donald Trump and the Republican Party accuse Democrats of plotting to help people they depict as Central American invaders overrun the nation with cop killers.

The new web video, tweeted by the President five days before the midterm elections, is the most extreme step yet in the most inflammatory closing argument of any campaign in recent memory.

The Trump campaign ad is the latest example of the President’s willingness to lie and fear-monger in order to tear at racial and societal divides; to embrace demagoguery to bolster his own political power and the cause of the Republican midterm campaign.

The web video in question, which has over 3 million views via President Donald Trump’s Twitter account alone, depicts an undocumented cop-killer from California bragging about his crimes before cutting to selected clips of the migrant caravan of asylum seekers making its way north through Mexico toward the U.S. border. It’s being compared to some of the worst race-baiting political ads in modern political history, from the Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis in 1988 to the infamous Jesse Helms “White Hands” ad invoking white resentment to affirmative action.

But in context with current events, it’s actually far worse than any of those.

Given the horrific violence that misinformation about this caravan of people who intend to seek asylum from the U.S. government in the event they reach the southern border weeks from now has provoked, including the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 people last Saturday, this video making a totally unjustified connection from a violent criminal to this caravan is incredibly irresponsible. Less than a few days after an act of misguided violence over this same dreadfully overhyped caravan that shocked the nation, the President of the United States is inciting further violence rather than trying to bring Americans together.

After two years in which it seems like every boundary self-imposed by civil society and common decency has been shattered by this heedless monster of a President, this could honestly be the worst yet. At a moment when the President should be backing the nation away from the brink, this one is pushing us closer.

Whatever happens next Tuesday, this is a very sad moment in American history.