Donald J. Trump today conducted an extraordinary event at the White House.
He sat silently and listened to survivors and loved ones from three infamous school massacres. They implored him to do something about gun violence. They spoke emotionally, even tearfully, about the inflicted by gunmen at Columbine, Sandy Hook and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Those are the names of schools where students and teachers died in once-unthinkable spasms of violence.
I applaud the president for staging this event. Was it all for show? Was it just a photo op? Well, many of these events are put together for public consumption. That doesn’t diminish the need for the president to hear the words that came forth.
As Trump was fielding comments from still-grieving parents and students, others from Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the scene of the most recent school-campus massacre, were in Tallahassee, Fla., urging state legislators to act on their pleas to end the school violence.
It’s not clear whether the students got through to the lawmakers. My hope is that they did, quite obviously.
As for Trump’s listening session today at the White House, as much as I applaud the president for conducting the session, I believe it is reasonable to wonder whether the president actually heard the folks who sat with him.
Trump does seem incapable at times of opening his ears and listening with all due attention to the concerns of others. The president appeared fixated on the notion of arming teachers. I disagree with that idea, but he did ask those in attendance about their views on whether teachers should be armed; it was a mixed response.
My hope is that Trump heard the concerns. I hope also that he actually feels the pain expressed by the loved ones of those innocent victims. As Politico reported: “It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it. I’m pissed. Because my daughter, I’m not going to see again,” said Andrew Pollack, who was pictured last week looking for his daughter Meadow wearing a Trump 2020 t-shirt. “It’s enough. Let’s get together, work with the president and fix the schools.”
Listening to the concerns of those who have suffered such grievous loss is a start. My concern lies in how all this will end.