To be fair, the baby's family allegedly are trump supporters...including his now deceased parents and the uncle pictured who's taking care of him. So they probably weren't coerced. Still, standing there with a thumbs up like you're having a grand ol' time is the height of insanity and narcissism. You're not f***ing Fonzie.
I wonder if the parents themselves would have agreed to meet Trump if they had not died. Ghoulish... I know. In any case... Trump did get like 30+% of the Latino votes in 2016-- so not surprising to see Latino victims among the 22 dead. Being politically conservative, supporting Trump, being a U.S. Citizen (even if for many generations), won't save you in the eyes of these anti-immigrant Trump supporters. The other thing is... whoever manages the FLOTUS twitter account decided this was a good picture to share with the public?
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/trumps-el-paso-photo-is-obscene/595888/ If Trump had failed to visit El Paso, liberals would surely be criticizing him, rightly, for his absence. So it isn’t his presence alone that makes the photograph odious. First there are the smiles, so chipper in the aftermath of mass murder. For some reason, this Trump smile calls to mind the one in his famous tweeted portrait in which he’s eating a taco bowl (“I love Hispanics!”) served by Trump Tower Grill. Then there is the thumbs-up, also present to signal approval of the taco bowl, and in this case to signal approval of what, exactly? The narrow survival of the infant? The heroism of the hospital staff and first responders who cared for the wounded? Somehow neither of these possibilities seems quite right, and contemplation has brought me no closer to a better answer. I do not imagine that Trump is applauding the slaughter. But few gestures are appropriate for both a taco bowl and the death of a baby’s parents.
