Trump: "Another targeted attack on Christians."

Trump immediately reacted to Sunday morning's tragic shooting and arson at a Michigan church.  

The church shooting fit the "we"-are-under-attack-by-"them" frame that justifies his targeting people and institutions he calls "the radical left." 

Trump wrote:

This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America. 

Trump has a go-to response to newsworthy events of violence. He acts quickly to seize the first impression. He condemns the act and blames it on his political opponents, describing it as part of an organized political movement with leaders, funders, social media influencers, public interest groups, the media, and voters, i.e. Democrats. Trump presents himself as representing and defending the normal, regular White Christians, i.e., real Americans.

It is a simple, clear frame: Trump-the-hero fighting a murderous internal enemy.

Trump did this with his immediate description of the assassin of Charlie Kirk. Blame first. Get facts later. Once the first impression is established, subsequent facts which contradict that impression simply muddle and create forgettable nuance. Facts barely matter, and they can be explained away or massaged into the established narrative. 

We don't know the motivations of the apparent shooter, and in any case it is almost certainly inaccurate to generalize him into some greater identity group and to presume his actions were part of some greater policy agenda.  But that is what Trump did.

Apparent shooter: Thomas Jacob Sanford. Trump 2020 Make Liberals Cry Again.

The apparent attacker of the Latter-day Saints church in Michigan was Thomas Sanford, a 40-year-old White native-born male Marine veteran. His house had a 2020 Trump/Pence sign, visible in a Google map image. He was photographed in 2019 wearing a Trump campaign shirt. Sanford was a hunter. He drove a Chevrolet Silverado pickup when he rammed it into the church and set fire to it.

I watched White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on Fox this morning as I made coffee. She said Christians are under attack by crazy radicals and that Trump is on the job fighting to protect us from this evil. The Fox chyron at the bottom of the screen put in quotes Trump's "Targeted Attack" on Christians, but failed to mention the now well-established information that Sanford displayed Trump campaign material. 

I don't blame Republicans, Marine veterans, White men, native-born men, hunters, or Silverado owners for the shooting. If Thomas Sanford did it, I presume he did it without the support of any of those groups. I blame Sanford.

But Democrats need to understand the asymmetry in the message war. Trump understands and exploits the media environment of this moment in a way that Democrats do not. Trump has a simple story he is telling, and he uses these events to illustrate this story:

Good American Christians are under attack, so very strong measures are necessary to protect us from radical leftist, anti-Christian, antifa, trans-loving, communist murderers, funded by the likes of George Soros. Donald Trump is protecting you. Democrats do not protect you because Democrats agree with those enemies of good Americans. 

Democrats are frustrated by how wrong and unfair that story is. The Democrats' story is about how wrong and dangerous Trump is for telling those lies and for his autocratic response to them. In both stories, Trump is the main character and the center of attention -- the star of the American adventure.

Democratic leaders need to emerge who will tell a story that is at least as clear and vivid as the one Trump tells. 

[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]