'Morbid, ghastly and predictable': Trump's favorite tactic to score points sickens writer

Donald Trump intends to exploit the murder of a young woman by an undocumented immigrant to distract from his own criminality at this week's presidential debate, according to a veteran journalist.

The presumptive Republican nominee's campaign publicized his arranged call with the slain woman's mother last week, and Trump has posted about three similar cases on his social media account to blame president Joe Biden for the murders. Sidney Blumenthal wrote a column for The Guardian laying out the ex-president's strategy for using the killings for his own political benefit.

"Trump is already showcasing the big surprise he will spring on Joe Biden at their debate," Blumenthal wrote. "It’s not a surprise; it’s his most morbid, ghastly and predictable trick."

"In the debate, Trump will cast the president as responsible for those who stalk, rape and kill innocent young women," added Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

"He will accuse Biden and his policies on the border of being the source of vicious crimes. Biden will be the villain. He will be shown to have no empathy. He will be exposed as secretly conspiring to unleash a reign of terror. He will be unveiled as the criminal. The chivalrous Trump will ride as the white knight to rescue vulnerable women from swarthy rapists and killers. The original scenario of this plot was The Birth of a Nation."

The former president has been playing up this bigoted schtick since his first campaign in 2016, when he paraded so-called "angel families" who lost loved ones to violence by undocumented migrants, and MAGA allies like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have sought to amplify his attacks on Biden over the issue.

"Trump’s planned attack in the debate is pulled from his repertoire of ploys like a hack comedian on the Strip drawing from a roomful of old joke files," Blumenthal wrote. "For years he has exploited these tragedies as set-ups and the anguished parents as props.

"According to Fox News, 'he has lent hope and compassion to those who have lost family members or other loved ones in recent years due to heinous acts committed by individuals who had come to the U.S. illegally.' Alongside its portrayal of Trump as the sincere consoler of the grieving, truly a minister of souls, Fox News helpfully highlighted a story headlined: Illegals Charged with Murder, Rape and Kidnapping in a Week of Shocking Crimes Across the U.S."

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Even when one of the suspects he highlighted was later acquitted, Trump insisted the verdict showed why Americans are “so angry with illegal immigration," and continued seeking out examples of these specific and unusual types of murders to justify his hateful and repressive policies.

"For Trump, the emotional manipulation of the compelling anecdotal fallacy is all that matters," Blumenthal wrote. "New 'angel families' are ordered up and brought to his attention to be used and discarded one after another. He will always find the next terrible tragedy involving some immigrant somewhere to illustrate his false narrative to sustain the problem whose solution he has thwarted in order to be able to inflame it in his interest. Then, wet with crocodile tears, he can stage lachrymose scenes of people’s genuine affliction by which to demonize Biden."