The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme wasn’t in any doubt about who to blame for America’s latest bout of mass shootings. Newsnight’s report began with footage of Donald Trump addressing the faithful at a rally. ‘This is an invasion,’ he warned, referring to the refugees massing on the Mexican border. ‘When you see these caravans starting out with 20,000 people, that’s an invasion.’ It then cut to Emily Maitlis in the studio. ‘That was in May,’ she said. ‘Today, Donald Trump called on Americans to condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.’ She added that the President had made these remarks ‘with a straight face’ and ‘with autocue precision’ — completely insincere, in other words – and then pointed out that he had not suggested any new measures for gun control. She concluded: ‘So how much should we align presidential words and terrorist acts?
How should America react to a man many blame for amplifying extremism in the first place?’
Those are good questions and it’s a pity Newsnight didn’t take them seriously. There are plenty of reasons not to blame Trump for last weekend’s slaughter. For one thing, the El Paso gunman railed against climate change alongside Hispanic immigration in the manifesto he published before murdering 22 people, and the President is a climate change sceptic, as liberals never tire of pointing out. For another, the Dayton shooter, who murdered nine, was a self-described ‘leftist’ who praised Elizabeth Warren and Antifa, the far-left protest group. Incidentally, the terrorist who charged an ICE detention centre with homemade bombs and a rifle last month was a member of Antifa and referred to his target as a ‘concentration camp’, echoing the words of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Congresswoman. Yet Newsnight didn’t ask whether the ‘inflammatory rhetoric’ of Warren or Ocasio-Cortez ‘inspired’ these nutjobs.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in