When a tragedy strikes, no one wants to make a “political agenda” out of it. Or so that’s what we’re told.

And yet, it’s okay to do just that when a train derailment happens, killing six people and injuring many others.

I was close to the tracks when it went down. My hometown is a mere 30 minutes away from the accident, and it affected all of us. Every single person in Washington state was shaken to the core when we heard that an Amtrak train had derailed in our homestate – had killed people we may have passed on the street.

It not only affected those on the train but those who travel I-5 every day. Who had to drive past the wreckage, preserved just as it had been when it fell for investigation purposes. Who saw the train fall. Who had to see the results of that tragedy.

And that is just what this was: a tragedy, due to negligence. But this is not the time to push a political agenda, as our President tried to do. Just hours after the train collapsed, he tweeted that it was the time to push for his infrastructure plan to “be approved immediately." But the Amtrak train was on its inaugural run on new tracks from a brand new infrastructure plan just approved in Washington. How could this be considered a reason why President Trump's infrastructure plan should be approved?

Everyone always says to not politicize a tragedy. That was said with Las Vegas, with London and with Orlando. So why is it okay to do such a thing with a train derailment? Infrastructure had nothing to do with the derailment, so it is not the time to use it to support an agenda.