As anything in life, there are good approaches and bad approaches to different situations. Following the presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump’s recent visit to Albuquerque, it’s fair to say there were good and bad approaches to events surrounding his visit. A good approach was seen through the officers of Albuquerque Police Department and State Police and deputies of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department charged with handling the crowds at the rally. They proved to be professionals well-equipped to handle the events before, during and after the rally. The restraint they displayed helped keep the situation under control and prevented more injuries or violence. They should all be proud of a job well done.
The same cannot be said about the approach taken by the group of individuals who resorted to violence after the rally. It really is an understatement to call the use of violence as a bad approach. It not only ran counter to the calls for a peaceful demonstration, it undercut and overshadowed the purpose of the demonstration: to denounce Mr. Trump’s hate-filled rhetoric. Violence is never the answer; those who participated in the violence should be held accountable.
Unfortunately, the bad approaches were not limited to those violent individuals outside the rally. Some of the invited speakers inside the rally, especially the “men of the cloth” and a former member of the New Mexico House of Representatives, also had bad approaches during their time on the stage. There were disparaging remarks about ethnic groups and crude jokes about Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders. It is a sad commentary that those speakers chose to appeal to the lowest common denominators of their audience. Perhaps they haven’t learned that this type of incendiary speech says more about the characters of the speakers than to the intended targets of the speech. Their remarks sadly mirrored the antagonistic tone and sentiment that have come to be expected at Mr. Trump’s rallies.
What was unexpected was that Mr. Trump mirrored what Senate Democrats have been saying for years about Governor Susana Martinez: she has done a poor job in stimulating our state’s economy. While she may not be “bullied” into endorsing Mr. Trump, we can only hope that hearing about her dismal job performance from a fellow Republican will help convince her that her “all crime, all the time” agenda is not working for New Mexico. It has done nothing to help bring our state the prosperity so many other states have enjoyed. If Governor Martinez would heed Mr. Trump’s observation of her job performance and begin to focus on our economy, we would all benefit. Now that would be a good approach.
