In the past week, we as a nation have watched in horror as heinous crimes were committed against our fellow countrymen. A series of bomb threats occurred against many top-level Democratic Party members, including former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. These acts have absolutely no place in our country. Everyone, Democrat or Republican, must agree this was pure evil and must be condemned universally.
That being said, it seems as if there has been a jump by the anti-Trump movement to blame this “newly” heated climate on our president. Some say that because of Donald Trump’s “divisive” rhetoric we have seen an unprecedented amount of political violence in the United States.
This assertion is dishonest and disgusting. To say that due to Trump’s heated rhetoric the U.S. is a more dangerous place to live than it was in the past is just blatantly untrue and to say that all of the blame for this heated political climate falls solely on Trump is absolutely ignorant.
The American political climate has been contentious for a very long time. Need I remind you that we fought an actual civil war due to political disagreements. We also had an entire civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s that got quite violent.
To imagine that the U.S. does not have a long history of political violence is to be completely ignorant of history. To be clear, I am not justifying the acts of terror that were committed last week by any means; I am putting them into perspective.
I will say that Trump has said things that are not correct from time to time. To applaud a congressman for body slamming a reporter or to tell people at his rallies to punch the people that are acting out against him are not good things to have done. Despite this though, these absolutely do not equate to sending bombs in the mail to top level democratic members.
When a Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a Republican congressional baseball practice, almost killing a member of the House of Representative, we rightly did not blame Sanders. We did not blame him even though as the shooter was going on his rampage he was screaming about how the Republicans wanted to kill people with their healthcare bill. A talking point that was championed by Sanders.
Despite Sanders’ rhetoric, it is completely unfair to blame him for the acts of one crazy supporter, and we must hold the same standard for Trump.
It is quite striking how the same people that can support Hillary Clinton’s direct call for the end of civility, Eric Holder’s quote, “When they go low, we kick them” and the countless Democratic Senators that have come out and told their supporters to get in the face of Republican lawmakers, can put the sole blame of our heated political climate on Trump.
When prominent Democrats, in elected positions or not, say that we cannot be civil with the other side, they are also raising the heat of our political climate and to put all of the blame on one side of the political aisle.
It is completely unfair for us to blame Trump, or anyone for that matter, for these bombings other than the bomber himself. To do so is to create even more tension in our political climate, which will further intensify the divide in our nation, not mend it. We must calm down the rhetoric on both sides as we absolutely should be civil with our fellow countrymen. We should not condone any form of violence at all against one another. We must work past the blame game.
Instead of pointing the finger at everyone else, we must see what we can do to make our country better. The first step in fixing a problem is realizing there is one. The second step is trying to figure out how you can fix it not blaming everyone else for it.
