Paul Waldman’s article is an attempt to characterize Republicans as heartless people who don’t care about brown-skinned people. In his article, Waldman says “This week at a rally in Nashville, President Trump did a little call-and-response with the crowd. ‘They’re not human beings,’ he said. ‘And this is why we call the bloodthirsty MS-13 gang members exactly the name that I used last week. What was the name?’ ‘ANIMALS!’ the crowd shouted lustily in response. Everyone was having a great time, which is not exactly the mood you’re usually in when expressing your genuine dismay at terrible crimes that have been committed.”

Waldman continued, saying “But ‘animals’ has become the latest conservative shibboleth, a marker of identity for which there is extra enthusiasm since it can be used to Trigger the Libs. It all started when in a White House meeting the president rambled on about undocumented immigrants being animals, and depending on whom you believe he might or might not have been talking specifically about MS-13. Liberals pointed out that dehumanizing language like that has many times through history been deployed as a prelude to campaigns of mass murder, and furthermore Trump is doing what he has done many times: used an individual crime to stir up fear and hatred of an entire class of people.”

I’ll let you judge whether President Trump was responding directly to the sheriff’s statement about MS-13:

Hint: The response in question is about 2:20 into the tape.

As for Waldman’s statement that “dehumanizing language like that has many times through history been deployed as a prelude to campaigns of mass murder”, it’s difficult to picture that scenario playing out. This sounds too much like Bill Clinton blaming the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City on talk radio. It sounds too much like the fever swamp lefties accusing the Gabby Giffords shooting on conservatives. Their initial assumptions were wrong, then. Jared Loughner was mentally ill.

It’s time to stop blaming things on conservatives. That doesn’t work anymore.

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