Trump infuriates Londoners with tweet after latest attack

This was the second tweet, too. The first one took the Mayor's words "no reason to be alarmed" out of context. (That phrase followed information about increased police presence to be expected.)

It appears Trump used the terrorist attack to ridicule international leaders, stir up fear, rile up his base, and push his travel ban, all in one tweet.

Londoners might have other stuff to worry about at the moment but Americans and the rest of the civilized world have time enough to collectively headdesk.

incredibly inappropriate and just fucking wrong.

even if Trump had not been taking Khan out of context -- even if Khan was telling citizens of London not to panic over terrorism -- Khan would be right.

As a resident of NYC during and since the 9/11 attacks -- you CANNOT let yourself be paralyzed by fear of terrorists. You have to go on.

The unfortunate bottom line is, especially if you live in a city like London or New York, there's some chance of a terrorist attack. It's more likely you'll get hit by a car or die of a heart attack, but still -- it could happen, and it's likely they'll just keep finding new methods. You need to lift your chin and refuse to let fear dictate your life, as the citizens of London are doing now and as citizens of NYC did after 9/11.

FUCK Trump for trying to instigate additional fear and panic. FUCK him for choosing a time and way like this for tooting his partisan objectives. The only thing world leaders should have been doing in the wake of this attack is expressing and offering support.


ETA:

Heh.  The firm I was working at on 9/11 may actually have taken the "life goes on" approach one step too far.  At dawn on 9/12, the office manager sent everyone in the firm a message from the partnership saying that it was "business as usual -- we will expect you in the office today." 

Now.  If this had been an attack like the one in London, I could applaud this message as an excellent "stiff upper lip -- don't let panic rule your life."  But, see, it wasn't.  It was not just a matter of body count and emotional trauma.  The transportation system was down entirely, and the bridges and tunnels were closed.  That meant if you lived off of Manhattan (as most of our support staff and many of our lawyers did), getting into it was pretty damn near impossible.  (For me, it meant a three-mile walk each way, but it was at least possible.)   Courts were closed. The stock market was closed.  Most of the businesses we represented in NYC were closed (and a couple, located in the World Trade Center, no longer existed).  The entire fucking island of Manhattan below 14th Street was closed, for fuck's sake -- I had friends camping with me who couldn't get back to their apartment for days, even to get a change of clothes.  For all of those reasons, Mayor Giuliani had issued a plea that all non-essential workers stay home.    And for all of those reasons, the businesses we represented outside of NYC weren't expecting a damn thing out of us.  Not to mention that any work lawyers really wanted to do that day could really be done at home -- I can write a brief at home as easily as at the office.

I got a call from my secretary, sobbing that she was home with her kids way out in Brooklyn -- the schools were closed, she had no one to take them, and no way of getting into the office.  I told her not to worry, that I'd give her excuses.  And then I trudged my way into the office. 

In light of the circumstances, that was taking "don't panic, life goes on" a little bit too far.  But a smaller attack that didn't completely fuck up the city?  Yeah, it would have been the right call.