One Tweet Perfectly Nails Trump's Border Shutdown Hypocrisy Following Brussels Attacks

Impact

After multiple terror attacks across Brussels, Belgium, left at least 34 dead and 230 injured on Tuesday morning, Twitter user Bobby Big Wheel encapsulated the hypocrisy and double-standards in GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's response.

Read the tweet: "26 dead in Brussels: 'Close the borders, it could happen here!' 26 dead in Newtown: "That's just how it is in America, get used to it.'"

"I would close up our borders to people until we figure out what's going on," Donald Trump said on Fox News' Fox & Friends, according to the Hill"We have to be very, very vigilant with who we let into this country. We are taking in people without real documentation."

"We don't know who they are or where they're from," Trump added. "We don't learn. I will tell you I've been talking about this for a long time. This whole thing will get worse as time goes by."

Bobby Big Wheel alludes to political figures like Trump, who offer comparatively mellow responses to mass shootings. In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, for example, which left 14 dead, Trump simply wished luck to law enforcement in the immediate aftermath. 

Major players in Trump's Republican party have had similarly hypocritical responses to mass shootings. After San Bernardino, then-presidential candidates provided substantially less dramatic reactions than they did to the Paris or Brussels attacks, offering instead their "thoughts and prayers." 

The inaction drew the ire of Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy who knew all too of the tired sentiment. In 2012, Murphy served as Representative of Connecticut's 5th District, which included Newtown, where a gunman opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School, killing 20 children and six staff members.

Capitol Hill remains stubbornly tied to the lobbying powers of the National Rifle Association, which was able to thwart tighter gun control after Sandy Hook, despite calls for a legislative overhaul.

"The National Rifle Association outspent supporters of new gun controls [expanding background checks] by hundreds of thousands of dollars as the Senate considered and ultimately rejected legislation," the Hill wrote in April 2013. 

In no uncertain terms, Bobby Big Wheel's tweet identified the double-standard in American politicians' responses to domestic mass shootings versus terrorism abroad.

March 23, 2016, 11:03 a.m.: This story has been updated.

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