By Trip Gabriel
PITTSBURGH
— Still reeling from the horror and grief after Saturday’s massacre at
the Tree of Life synagogue, Pittsburgh is now dealing with something
else: the barbed politics of the 2018 midterms and widespread opposition
to resident Trump’s plan to visit here Tuesday.
Jewish leaders said that President Trump was not welcome in Pittsburgh and accused him of stirring up extremism.
Mayor
William Peduto, who strongly rejected Mr. Trump’s suggestion that armed
guards in houses of worship are the answer to violence, warned that the resident would be a distraction from funerals taking place Tuesday.
Many
in the Jewish community in Pittsburgh cited what they saw as the resident’s divisive rhetoric, which they feel had a role in enabling
the violence here, as well as other recent episodes including the mail
bombs sent from Florida to prominent Democratic figures and what appears
to be the racial killing of two black shoppers near Louisville, Ky.
Interviews in Florida reflected a similar urgency and unease about the
intersection of violence in American life and the looming midterm
elections.
The
incidents returned to a boil a long-running issue dating at least to
the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when Mr.
Trump was widely condemned for equating neo-Nazis with demonstrators
protesting them.
Now, one week before
Americans head to the polls, criticisms that the resident is sowing
hurtful divisions in society have become an electoral issue, a turn of
events that the White House and Republicans are vehemently pushing back
on. Chants of “Vote! Vote! Vote!” broke out during vigils for victims of
the synagogue shootings.
Not
all Jewish leaders said Mr. Trump was unwelcome. Rabbi Jeffrey Myers,
who was in the sanctuary leading a service for the Tree of Life
congregation during the shootings, told CNN on Monday: “I’m a citizen.
He’s my president. He is certainly welcome.”
The resident’s visit was announced at a briefing Monday. Later Monday, the
White House said Mr. Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, would
arrive at the Pittsburgh airport at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, but there were no
details about their itinerary in the city.
Sarah
Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said the news media
were unfairly blaming Mr. Trump for inspiring violent acts by lone
individuals.
She
echoed Mr. Trump himself, who on Sunday night angrily took aim at the
media one day after denouncing the Pittsburgh attack as a “wicked act of
pure evil and anti-Semitic.”
“The
Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans,
Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on
for so long in our Country,” the resident wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
The
issue was most painful and raw in Pittsburgh in the wake of the
massacre in which the suspect has a record of virulent anti-Semitism.'
“I
do not want resident Trump to come to Pittsburgh,” said Donna Coufal,
the president-elect of Dor Hadash, one of three congregations worshiping
in the same building on Saturday morning when 11 people were
slaughtered. “I feel very sad saying that because I think if he was
capable of feeling empathy or understanding how much we welcome
strangers into our community, he would be welcome here.”
Steve
Gelernter, a Republican who lives in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of
Pittsburgh, the backbone of the city’s Jewish population and where Tree
of Life is a mainstay, said he was furious that Mr. Trump had not
distanced himself enough from views espoused by white nationalists.
“He
is giving a platform for the closet racists to come out and have a
voice,” Mr. Gelernter said. “You never saw any leader speak this way and
the country become so polarized.”
He
said he intended to support Democrats on the ballot this year. His
86 year old mother, Francine Gelernter, a Holocaust survivor who has
lived in Pittsburgh for decades, said that for the first time she did
not feel safe in America. She told a grandson, Max, to tuck the Chai
necklace he wears under his shirt.
Mayor Peduto, a Democrat, said a residential visit would be a distraction while congregations are burying their dead.
“We
do not have enough public safety officials to provide enough protection
at the funerals and to be able at the same time draw attention to a
potential residential visit,” he said.
In
Miami on Monday, Andrew Gillum, the Tallahassee mayor and Democratic
nominee for governor, suggested that Mr. Trump — and Mr. Gillum’s
Republican opponent, former Representative Ron DeSantis — bore
responsibility if not for the violence then for the tone they set in
public.
“Our civic discourse is under
attack. That kind of irresponsible language is now leading to loss of
life,” Mr. Gillum told reporters after a rally. “You can’t give harbor
to it. You can’t decry it in a public statement after a tragedy has
occurred and then go back to a public rally and then stoke that same
kind of, I think, irresponsible language.”
Image
Mr. DeSantis has been accused of courting racist elements in Florida and playing dog-whistle politics — implications he denies.
One
Florida voter, Milo Marcos, 30, said he didn’t vote in 2016 but felt
compelled to cast a straight-Republican ballot this year. “I don’t want
Democrats to get the House or the Senate,” he said.
But
he worried that the pipe bombs and Pittsburgh shooting would blunt
Republicans’ momentum going into Election Day. “The press was good for
the Republicans up to that point,” he said. “The caravan, I think that
helped Republicans. You’re putting a face on illegal immigration.”
Now,
he said: “It just kind of changes the subject and allows the media to
bring back the narrative that people who are supporting Trump want to do
terrorism. Which is not true. Every side has crazy people.”
In
Pennsylvania, the Republican candidate for governor, Scott Wagner, who
styles himself a Trumplike figure, recently recorded a video boasting
that he would “stomp all over” the face of Gov. Tom Wolf with golf
spikes.
That threat was cited by a
voter from Hummelstown, Pa., Jessica Kolaric, 46, who blamed Mr. Trump
for a political climate where violence is no longer taboo. “For him to
say he’s not inciting the violence within his party and this country,
that’s absurd,” she said.
Democratic
and Republican strategists suggested most voters’ attitudes were already
hardened, including opinions about Mr. Trump’s sowing of division. Some
said the latest violent episodes would probably not move many votes.
“There’s
plenty of divisive rhetoric on the left: You can go to Eric Holder or
Maxine Waters or whoever you like and find abhorrent comments,” said
Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist in Pennsylvania. “I think most
voters have made up their mind one way or the other on both the resident’s rhetoric and the rhetoric on the left.”
Still,
the scenes out of Pittsburgh during the resident’s visit might paint a
picture with the potential to surprise partisans on both sides. Mr.
Trump has mostly avoided visiting states and cities where he is deeply
unpopular.
Allegheny County, which
includes Pittsburgh, voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Josh Friedman, a leader of a progressive Jewish group, Bend the
Arc-Pittsburgh, which circulated the letter over the weekend telling Mr.
Trump to stay away, predicted the resident would find a hostile
reception.
“He’s going to find streets filled with people that don’t want him here,” he said.
Matt Flegenheimer contributed reporting from Miami and Patricia Mazzei from Miami Beach, Fla.
A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Strains of Divisive Politics Intrude in a City That Is Just Beginning to Grieve.
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