A true leader calls for civility when the lines of decency are crossed
When Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his family received death threats, and when Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and his wife were hounded out of a restaurant by protesters, Republican leaders were quick to denounce what was happening.
But where’s the outcry from Republicans over the death threats made to Christine Blasey Ford, who was the first woman to come forward with accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh? Where’s the denouncement of the hounding that pushed Ford and her family out of their home after just 36 hours?
Terrorization and harassment aren’t partisan matters — what’s wrong for one American is wrong for all.
Yet that message is absent from the GOP leadership and the party’s punditry. Instead, they’ve bemoaned how the allegations against Kavanaugh have affected him and his family while vilifying his accusers as players in a scheme by Democrats to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Meanwhile, their man-child leader, President Donald Trump, antagonizes and blusters instead of calling for calm and civility, then stands back as his online mob pursues the people he’s identified as enemies. And Fox News, instead of decrying the threats against Ford and demanding out of a sense of civility that it stop, gins up hysteria by offering such nonsense as Tucker Carlson blaming Democrats for causing the problem when they “dragged her into the public eye.”
It’s all part of a pattern — Trump and Republican leadership bullying those who dare to speak out about unfairness and injustice, then whining about being victims.
It happens when they show no regard for women whose lives have been changed forever by whatever happened all those years ago, but express outrage that Kavanaugh is being forced to defend his good name.
It happens when they turn a blind eye to the mounting evidence that the allegations are credible — including a new claim that emerged Thursday and longtime Kavanaugh friend Mark Judge’s accounts of ghastly behavior by Kavanaugh and his running partners as young men — and instead label the claims as unfair attacks.
The Republicans are trying to have it both ways, exerting their will as cruelly as possible, all the while portraying themselves as victims.
This behavior by the GOP speaks to its strong sense of entitlement. As the saying goes, if you’ve been privileged forever, any step toward equal treatment feels like oppression.
Here’s the truth and fairness of the matter: The death threats against Kavanaugh and Ford are equally abhorrent. Regardless of where Americans fall on the political spectrum, such vicious harassment is unac- ceptable.
Political fights are built into Americans’ DNA, but civility is a critical need for the health of our democracy. Cruz’s opponent in this year’s election, Texas Rep. Beto O’rourke, got it right when, after the incident at the restaurant, he said Cruz deserved to be treated more respectfully.
The party of Trump, meanwhile, must follow suit if the nation is going to move forward. Republicans must stop trying to grind anyone who says, “Wait, that’s not right” into dust while decrying their own victimization.
It’s toxic, and it’s driving the nation further into the tribalization that threatens to tearitapart.