Trump: Not a comforter during national tragedy

As I watched President Trump during a recent week, I was moved to tears. One day, he informed governors that his power was absolute, total, that he would open the economy and they would obey his directives.

The next day, he informed Congress he would adjourn them and make appointments to offices they have yet to approve.

Remember Ronald Reagan’s speech when the Challenger exploded? Or George W. Bush standing in the rubble of the Twin Towers with that megaphone after 9/11?

Remember Barack Obama at a church in Charleston, after a serial murder of a Bible study group, singing “Amazing Grace”? Or Bill Clinton in Oklahoma City after the federal building was bombed?

I remember because, politics aside, those men were comforting us. They were being leaders who knew that Americans needed their strength, their humanity, to walk through terrible darkness and unite. They knew we needed each other, and faith in our government, to survive the fear, the pain.

Has that happened on that podium any time recently? Are you finding any comfort in Trump’s threats, rants, insults?

This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 10:25 AM with the headline "Trump: Not a comforter during national tragedy."