Yesterday, a truck ran into a crowd of people at an LGBT parade in Florida. While there were no facts to indicate it was intentional, Fort Lauderdale’s mayor, who was on the scene, rushed to the press to proclaim it was a deliberate act of terrorism against the LGBT community.

As RedState reported this morning, though, that was quickly walked back, as it became obvious that it was an accident. In fact, the driver of the truck was gay and a participant in the parade.

Needless to say, a lot of people were left with egg on their faces over their initial knee-jerk reactions. Tweets were deleted by several larger accounts, including “journalists” who rushed to propagate the narrative that this was some kind of right-wing terrorist event.

But the worst culprit in all this was the Fort Lauderdale Mayor, Dean J. Trantalis. He spoke from a position of authority when he made his false claims and spawned thousands of other false claims repeating what he said.

Now, he’s put out a new statement — and it just digs the hole deeper.

My statement following yesterday's events in Wilton Manors is below.
I want to thank our first responders for their efforts as police and medical personnel immediately attended to the scene. pic.twitter.com/lahwAQPO3C

— Mayor Dean J. Trantalis (@DeanTrantalis) June 20, 2021

Taking this piece by piece, the pandering here is just ridiculous. What do “hard-won victories for equality” have to do with a car accident? The purpose of the parade is irrelevant in this context, as there was no intention to actually harm anyone here. Fluffing the LGBT movement doesn’t change what Trantalis did; though, he’s clearly trying his hardest to soften the blow here.

But things just get more confusing from there. In what can only be described as a word salad of epic proportions, Trantalis seems to indicate that his initial assessment was “obvious” and backed by facts on the ground. Yet, we know that’s not true. So, what is he even talking about? Just taking probabilities for what they are, how many car accidents occur a day? In comparison, how many of those are acts of terrorism? The point is that there was no reason to assume this was anything but an accident, until there was evidence to the contrary.

So, why did Trantalis jump to such an inflammatory conclusion? The answer, in my opinion, is simply politics. Intersectionality demands victimization for its propagation, and Democrat politicians seem to thrive off that reality, constantly looking for any event they can tie to supposed extremism, racism, and the like.

Regardless, Trantalis had a chance in this latest statement to set the record straight in a definitive fashion, apologize for his behavior, and calm tensions. Instead, he danced around, relentlessly pandered, and took no responsibility for his dangerous actions as a person in authority.

I know it’s Fort Lauderdale, but the voters there should seriously reflect on the lack of character present in the person they’ve elected as their mayor.