Hostility of left vs. right must end, and end now
America, you’re being handed a big flashing neon “Cease and Desist” notification.
The inflammatory political rhetoric that has supplanted civil discourse — and the violence aimed at conservatives at Trump events and college speaking events — must stop. The irresponsible stunts by Hollywood fools like Kathy Griffin, last seen holding up a bloody mock-up of President Trump’s severed head. The reckless words of people like Madonna, who at the Women’s March in January used her soap box to express dreams of “blowing up the White House.” Enough. Do they understand how much they sound like Islamic State jihadists?
And just this week during a publicly financed Shakespeare in the Park performance, cast members acted out a barbaric scene with Trump in the role of Julius Caesar, being stabbed to death. CNN host Fareed Zakaria declared that a “masterpiece” and urged his audience to go see it. “Brilliantly interpreted for the Trump era,” he called it.
Surely anyone elevated to national status as a CNN host must be aware that four United States presidents have been assassinated — catastrophes that brought seismic trauma to our nation. Is this what the putative opinion leaders, artists and thinkers of our nation want?
And by the way, that also holds for the 2012 production of “Julius Caesar” in Minneapolis that portrayed then-President Obama in the title role.
It is nothing less than media malpractice, a normalization of hatred and violent rhetoric by left-wing radicals masquerading as mainstream pundits. And they own when, as happened yesterday, a madman influenced by a confluence of hateful and violent expression towards conservatives acts with potentially deadly consequences.
James Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter, a Rachel Maddow fan and Occupy Wall Street activist, who sprayed dozens of bullets into a GOP baseball practice. Hollywood, the left-wing media, and all the pols spewing hatred, questioning the president’s legitimacy and pushing Russian conspiracy theories, need to ask themselves if their toxic rhetoric could be fueling extremism.
That includes Democratic U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, and Democratic Chairman Tom Perez, with their profanity-laced rants directed at Republicans. Language matters. If you want civil discourse, you have to start by practicing it.
Enough is enough.