Leaders not providing unity
WASHINGTON — Americans are craving unity after a week of politically motivated and hatefilled violent attacks across the country. But national leaders are having a difficult time providing it.
U.S. Reps. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), who chair the House campaign arms of their respective parties, appeared together on television yesterday in a show of solidarity a day after a massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue claimed 11 lives.
But no sooner had Stivers proclaimed the need to “keep our dialogue civil” that both lawmakers engaged in a political blame game over the rhetoric ahead of next Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“Ben, your ads in Colorado and in Washington have been called sleazy and personal attacks,” Stivers said during their joint appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Lujan shot back.
“Steve, you've also been running racist ads in New York, in Pennsyl- vania, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and out in California,” Lujan said.
After the finger-pointing, both vowed to find common ground.
“Let's make sure that we look within ourselves and we find the greater good there,” Lujan said in closing.
“I agree with you, Ben,” Stivers said. “But let's, let’s both look within ourselves.”
The rise in anti-Semitic attacks and other hate crimes has Americans and civil rights leaders calling for the de-escalation of political rhetoric and joint condemnation of bigotry.
"You don't really have those reasonable voices kind of trying to bring everybody together," Tom Freeman, a Republican attorney in Lincoln, Neb., told The Associated Press. "It's just kind of round and round we go, and the sides just get more and more extreme.”
“Today’s climate of tolerating those who express contempt and hate for some groups has led inevitably to yesterday’s tragic event. This must stop now!” said Shira Scheindlin, former federal judge who now serves on the executive committee of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
President Trump condemned anti-Semitism after the synagogue shooting, but yesterday took to Twitter to attack a Democratic donor — one of several people targeted by mail bombs last week.
“Just watched Wacky Tom Steyer,” Trump’s tweet began. He went on to say the Democratic donor “comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic who should be running out of money pretty soon.”