October 25: The following is from an opinion piece written by Jared Yates Sexton that appeared in todays’ Globe and Mail. He is an associate professor at Georgia Southern University and the author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage. He writes about the attempted bombings of CNN and Democratic party officials.
“We now sit in terrible expectation of tragedy, and all because a portion of the country has been force-fed lies and rumours designed to keep them angry and complicit in politics that never serves their actual interest.
Mr. Trump, our conspirator-in-chief, owns no small portion of the responsibility. He has made his career on scapegoating the Clintons and hinting at the more deranged conspiracy theories peddled by fringe media. He cut his political teeth framing Mr. Obama as a foreign-born infiltrator, at times hinting at the possibility he could be intentionally subverting the United States. In nearly every speech he gives, he points to the reporters and journalists doing their jobs and calls them the scum of the earth and the enemy of the people.
I’ve met my fair share of pundits who believe this is all a ruse by Mr. Trump to create a binary world in which it’s Him vs. Them. Certainly it’s gotten him this far, so there is a validity to the strategy, but at what cost? Mr. Trump has continually fueled dangerous rhetoric that spins a story of a world with shadowy figures operating at the margins, a massive conspiracy that is funded by Mr. Soros, led by the Clintons and Obamas, spearheaded by the Democratic Party and carried out by a complicit media. In this world, this treacherous and perfidious world, the United States is a country under siege. The borders are open and we’re vulnerable to attack. And these people, the very same ones who were destined to receive bombs in the mail, are complicit.
It’s a lie, a shoddy lie at that, but it does more than inflame passions and inspire people to the polls. It inspires them to take action. It inspires them to grab their gun and pull the trigger. It inspires them to send bombs. It inspires them to declare war and murder and terrorize and erase any facet of free society until all that is left is the dull shade of fear and unadulterated fascism.
We live in a new world now, a world where the cold war of American politics has transformed into a live combat zone. The message has been received. Mr. Trump’s and the Republican Party’s base has heard them, loud and clear.”
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-make-america-hate-again-when-political-rhetoric-turns-violent/