Blaming the President

There's a tendency for the party out of power to hold the President personally responsible for tragedies. This often veers into conspiracy theory. One example for President Obama is Benghazi where many Republicans are convinced that Obama called off a rescue mission, leaving four Americans to die. Various Congressional committees have investigated this and none has found any proof.

But that's nothing compared to the left's need to blame Republican presidents. This was most recently on display after the tragic shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue which left 11 dead. The shooter previously announced that he was against President Trump and had voted against him. Regardless, Democrats and the news media lost no time in blaming Trump for the shooting. Trump, according to them, has raised the acceptable level of violence through loose talk to the point that shooting Jews is acceptable. He also used coded references. By complaining about George Soros, the billionaire who has donated millions to oppose Trump, is sending a dog whistle about Jews. never mind that Soros is a non-practicing Jew and Trump's daughter and son-in-law are practicing Orthodox Jews, Trump must be sending signals about killing Jews. This is a case of projection - they hate Trump so much that they can't admit that something bad can happen without Trump being the instigator.

This happened earlier. A news report listed Trump as the collaborator during a hurricane.

This is not unique to Trump, though. The left did it to President Bush.

After Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, I watched the contributors for the Daily KOS comb through the state budget. They were positive that the levee failed because funds had been cut to pay for Bush's foreign wars. The levees actually failed because the cement parts weren't sufficiently robust. There was even a theory that Bush ordered the levees to be dynamited in order to floor the poor, black sections.

But that pales next to the 9/11 Truthers. To them, it is inconceivable that something as big as 9/11 could happen without the government's cooperation. They invented a conspiracy where the government secretly planted explosives in the Twin Towers and blew them up. Never mind how impossible it would be to secrete enough explosives to do that, they invented an imaginary form of thermite that could do it.

These are all irrational responses fed by hate for the purpose of justifying their hate. But they are not unique to Trump.