By Kolawole Ojebisi
United States 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate and former First lady, Hilary Clinton, has questioned why people still support US President Donald Trump despite his behavior, which according to her, has become a mystery.
According to Clinton, it’s a mystery to her “why anybody with a beating heart and a working mind still supports him”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hillary said:”It is a mystery why anybody with a beating heart and a working mind still supports him.” She said when asked about Trump’s photo shoot last week in front of a church that had been set on fire as part of riots.
“It was beyond my comprehension,” she continued. “We have never seen anything like this. He is without shame.”
The former US Secretary of State did not hide her revulsion at Trump and his style or manner of handling issues of national significance. Speaking on the United States president’s response to Floyd’s death at the hands of a white police officer, Clinton said it initially seemed promising before he changed course from the issues of police brutality to bashing rioters as ‘anarchists’ for destroying cities across the country in the wake of mass protests.
“When we have a terrible killing like we did in Minneapolis, he makes some steps toward — in the very early hours after we all saw that horrific video — to look like he’s going to be empathetic, to look like he’s going to try to talk about this stripping bare of the continuing racism and inequities of law enforcement and justice system,” she said.
“And then he pivots again because he’s not comfortable doing that,” she added. Clinton also praised protesters demanding reform in the police system.
“If you look at the young people who are the primary movers of the peaceful protests in response to Mr. Floyd’s killing, I’m hopeful that this can break open not only some hearts but some structural impediments to equality and justice in a way that defies the distraction of the second-to-second demands of social media,” Clinton said.
“And it may well be that a leader like [Donald] Trump, who depends upon distraction, has finally been brought down to Earth because people are watching in real time what is happening and how inadequate his response has been to these historic moments,” she added.
She noted: “If it’s about a terrible pandemic with an unprecedented virus, he tries to ignore it, tries to keep the attention on himself, Then when it becomes impossible to do that, he tries to seize the moment and turn it into a daily rally, like he loves to do,” she said.
“And then when it becomes impossible to ignore, he tries to change the subject, he tries to withdraw from the spotlight so he can come up with some other diversion and distraction for the body politic and the press,” Clinton continued.
She also claimed that she thought President Trump would transform into the type of person who becomes presidential on Inauguration Day in 2017, and that George Bush who she sat beside was not pleased either.
“I heard him get up and give that speech that was the absolute opposite of anything that could have brought the country together,’ she said of the January 2017 speech. ‘Politics should be about addition, about finding common ground. No, he was speaking to his outraged base.”
“He just turned to me and said, ‘That was some weird s—.’ And every single day has been a surprise, an unpleasant surprise, about how there seems to be no bottom to this man and his presidency,” she quipped.
