In anticipation of Donald Trump's rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Tuesday night, pundits have been relentlessly asking: Which Donald Trump will show up—the aide-scripted teleprompter guy, or the crazy unplugged guy who just can’t help but play one America against another America?
But perhaps the more interesting point isn't so much a matter of how Trump plays when he gets there—it's that he's not even welcome to begin with. Shortly after Trump delivered his repulsive defense of white supremacists and neo-Nazi violence last Tuesday, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton began publicly urging Trump to postpone tonight's rally, along with a cohort of state lawmakers. They also objected to Trump’s assertion that was he considering pardoning former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of illegally targeting immigrants during immigration patrols.
Downtown Phoenix’s congressional representative, Ruben Gallego, was part of a group of three Arizona House Democrats that wrote an open letter to Mr. Trump on Thursday asking him not to pardon Mr. Arpaio, citing the former sheriff’s “brazen abuse of the public trust.”
“He’s basically trying again to feed more meat to the alt-right,” Mr. Gallego said Friday on CNN of Mr. Trump’s visit. “I just don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
The lawmakers’ sentiments are totally understandable in the wake of remarks from Trump last week that, far from soothing the country, only stoked more division and violence.
But their rejection of a visit from a sitting president is also pretty unprecedented. As controversial as President Obama was at certain times in his presidency, it’s hard to recall a single time when a contingent of major political figures asked him to reconsider a visit on account of his presence potentially fostering violence. Protests of any sitting president are common, even expected. But the call from a big-city politician, regardless of party, to the leader of our nation to exhibit the "sound judgment" not to show up is highly unusual territory for us. Even Arizona's Republican governor, who plans to greet Trump at the tarmac, is steering clear of his event.
Naturally, Trump's choice is an abject lesson in poor judgment.
He just gave a primetime address Monday night in which he hoped to persuade the nation that he can be trusted to escalate U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan without providing any benchmarks or deliverables, or even a State Department that's capably staffed to execute credible diplomacy in the region. Now, less than 24 hours later, he ostensibly plans to revel in the adoring glow of some of his most nativist supporters in proximity to the U.S. border with Mexico. Once again, the country could be treated to Trump call-and-response chants of "Mexico!" paying for his precious border wall (even as he works to get billions in taxpayer funding for it) and "Lock her up! (as if Hillary Clinton's campaign conduct was even half as corrupt as his own).
"I believe the true intention is to really inflame people's passion to further divide the country and that's why I said the president should delay this trip to Phoenix," Mayor Stanton observed of Trump's motivations.
So what if Stanton's fears come true and Trump's visit does provoke violence? Will other mayors fearing similar outcomes also call on Trump stay away? And maybe other entities will follow suit—remember the Wisconsin Harley Davidson factory that called off a Trump tour earlier this year? They issued a statement claiming Trump was never scheduled to come, even though White House advance staffers were already on the ground. In part, it read:
"We are proud to have hosted Presidential visits at our facilities. Three of the last five presidents -- Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton -- have visited us at our facilities."
But not Trump. Like Stanton—and many CEOs in the wake of Charlottesville—Harley Davidson execs were worried about protests along with the possibility that Trump's toxicity might attach to their brand.
What does that mean for our nation? Seriously, how can a president lead a country where his very presence is too divisive to be tolerated?