Beto O'Rourke Is Doing What Donald Trump Is Simply Incapable Of

The Texan is demonstrating real leadership in the wake of a horrific mass shooting by unequivocally condemning racism.
And Americans are responding.
By John Nichols

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After a horrific mass shooting that left 22 men, women, and children dead in El Paso, killed by a white man who targeted Latinos and whose “manifesto” echoed Trump’s anti-immigrant hate speech, O’Rourke responded not as a 2020 presidential contender (or as the Senate candidate some would like him to be) but as a passionate son of his hometown.

The former El Paso City Council member and congressman held nothing back. He condemned Trump as “a racist” who “stokes racism in this country.” He challenged those who might coddle Trump or make excuses for a president who takes no responsibility for vile words and deeds. O’Rourke refused to go along anymore with the standard candidate-reporter exchanges regarding the man he proposes to challenge. “What do you think? You know the shit he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals,” O’Rourke said of Trump. “I don’t know, like, members of the press, what the fuck? Hold on a second. You know, I—it’s these questions that you know the answers to.”

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Then, as the president prepared to make a trip to El Paso that local officials have criticized, Trump unleashed on O’Rourke—with a venomous Tuesday-night tweet that screamed: “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement—& be quiet!”

O’Rourke responded immediately, and devastatingly, with a tweet that simply said: “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism. El Paso will not be quiet and neither will I.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/beto-orourke-trump-shooting/