Trump at pains to reconcile campaign message with violent events

 

 President Trump speaks during an election rally in Murphysboro, Ill., on Oct. 27, 2018. (Photo: Nicholas Kamm / AFP)

If Donald Trump’s political rise was made possible by his angry and defiant inflections while campaigning in the 2016 presidential election, that same bombastic tone has proved more difficult to sustain in a week marred by politically motivated violence and death.

As much of the nation recoiled Saturday from the news that suspect Robert Bowers had opened fire in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing at least 11 people and leaving six more wounded, the president faced a decision — for the second time this week — as to whether to cancel a planned political rally.

“We can’t let evil change our life and change our schedule. We can’t do that. We have to go,” Trump said of his rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Ill., and his attendance at the Future Farmers of America Convention in Indianapolis. 

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t fight hard and be strong and say what’s on our mind, but we have to always remember those elements: We have to remember the elements of love and dignity and respect, and so many others.”

The balance that Trump must now achieve in the final nine days before the midterms, whose outcome could stall his agenda, is how hard to hit his political opponents and the news media that reports on his administration. That uncomfortable dynamic was on display during the president’s rally in North Carolina on Friday night, just hours after Cesar Sayoc, an apparent Trump superfan, was arrested for allegedly sending pipe bombs to critics of the president.

“In recent days we have had a broader conversation about the tone and civility of our national dialogue. Everyone will benefit if we can end the politics of personal destruction. We must unify as a nation in peace, love and in harmony. The media has a major role to play, whether they want to or not,” Trump said Friday as his crowd broke out into boos, then a chant of “CNN sucks!” Trump responded to that by adding, “And they do indeed, they have a major role to play as far as tone and as far as everything.”

When compared with Trump’s muted speech on Thursday, the day it was learned that pipe bombs had been mailed to leading Democratic figures among others, Friday’s speech drifted back to Trump’s unapologetic, incendiary rhetoric that has defined his rallies.