Vote Republican: For a Conservative, compassion-free world Americans can believe in!!

Many people opened their hearts and their doors to those affected by Tuesday’s Brussels attacks that killed more than 30 and injured at least 200 people on Tuesday. Some even donated blood. But prominent conservatives used the tragedy to draw links with refugees and border closures, and promote other extremist agendas. It’s an eery reminder of the hateful rhetoric that abounded in the wake of the November attacks on Paris, when more than half of U.S. governors demanded to stop all Syrian refugee arrivals. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump expanded on his proposed security measures…. “I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what is going on. Look at Brussels, look at Paris, look at so many cities that were great cities,” he said on Fox News. As for how to interrogate the attack perpetrators, he told NBC News that “waterboarding would be fine and if they could expand the laws.” “I would do a lot more than waterboarding,” he added. “You have to get the information and you have to get it rapidly.”

In the wake of the tragic attacks in Brussels, there’s been an outpouring of sympathy and kindness directed at those impacted. Unspeakably hideous as the attacks were, there are those- the majority on the Far Right- who’ve seized on tragedy and sorrow in order that they might exploit it in support of their own selfish and heartless political agenda.

Instead of recognizing that some moments should be immune from partisan backbiting and blame-casting, some Conservatives have responded with full-throated shameless attacks on the usual suspects- primarily Islam, Liberals, and The Black Guy in the White House &copy.

It fascinates me that when a White Christian commits an act of terrorism, the same pundits who hold Islam responsible for every bad thing to come out of the Middle East refuse to make the same connection with Christianity. Radical Islam is a clear and present danger to all we hold dear; radical Christianity is merely a disorganized, impotent gaggle of angry, disaffected loners with anger control issues. Radical Islam hates us for our freedom; Radical Christianity is apropos of nothing related to terrorism…because White Christians by definition can’t be terrorists. That’s the sole province of swarthy, wild-eyed Islamofascists who wish for nothing more than to kill good, God-fearing Christian patriots.

It seems Conservatives are fully ready, willing, and able to whistle past the graveyard when it comes to the demonstrably far larger threat to the Homeland presented by Christian terrorists. That doesn’t dovetail with the dominant narrative- that all Muslims are terrorists and Christians are victims- so it’s never addressed by the media our elected representatives. No one likes being forced to face an unfortunate truth, right?

It’s sad and rather pathetic that many on the Right seem not to possess the bare minimum of humanity necessary to understand that not everything can or should be manipulated for maximum political gain. Sometimes it’s about being human, about recognizing that politics isn’t life. It’s about recognizing, acknowledging, and acceptance that our highest responsibility is to each other. Politics may be important in its context, but in the wake of a senseless tragedy, when our focus should be on those suffering in its aftermath, our attention and focus should be on those who’ve lost loved ones and seen their innocence shattered. Some of the criticisms expressed have been truly, deeply insensitive and insulting.

Then again, this presumes that those who’d use a senseless terrorist attack to advance their own narrow partisan agenda possess even the barest shred of anything faintly redolent of humanity.