Voters need to note who is stoking violence
In a dark week in the middle of a grim year, America has reached a new and dangerous low. First, on Aug. 25, a baby-faced 17-year-old vigilante brought a high-powered rifle to a chaotic street protest, and when people came for his gun, he shot two men dead.
Four nights later, a member of a conservative group demonstrating in favor of President Donald Trump lay dead in Portland, shot in yet-unexplained circumstances when protesters against police brutality clashed with defenders of Trump and police.
Many factors are in play in these tragedies, but make no mistake that the origin is in the numbing regularity of Black and brown men and women being killed by police in circumstances that range from questionable to egregious. Except that many are not numb: Years after the Black Lives Matter movement began, the stalking and killing of Ahmaud Arbery by vigilantes and the police killing of George Floyd have pushed people past the boiling point.
Rage has spilled over and is not easily contained — especially when the killing happens again and again. That is the root of our present nightmare.
But when rage, however justified, turns to violence and destruction of public and private property, people who are harmed by the destruction push back. And some people who otherwise sympathize with the Black Lives Matter movement lose the will to defend it.
It is our unique and severe misfortune in this country, at this time in history, to have a president like Donald Trump and a subculture that stokes division and glorifies guns.
We have come to a point where the “divisions” that so many have lamented for the past four years are the basis not just for political campaigns or even social-media demonization but for armed conflict in the streets.
In a circumstance where a leader with any decency would work desperately to calm and heal and offer hope, Trump has battered a traumatized nation with more and more of his favorite poisons — anger, fear and hate.
He has done nothing to acknowledge the grievance of Black Lives Matter or to encourage needed changes in law enforcement — actions that might give angry protesters reason to rein in the destructive element among them.
Instead, he apparently has decided that his hold on power depends on doing the opposite — telling white Americans that the protests are an assault on their way of life and a threat to their safety.
Given the cult of guns in America, especially among Trump supporters, it was only a matter of time until Trump’s prediction of blood in the streets became reality.
The urgent question is how to stop it and return the focus to the righteous demand for change.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke the truth in a speech in Pittsburgh Monday, a speech intended to rebut Trump’s constant refrain that, with Biden as president, America would become a hellscape of crime and disorder.
Biden is right that it is Trump who has eroded the rule of law with his own corrupt actions and inflamed disorder with his angry, us-against-them rhetoric. Trump “can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it,” Biden said.
“Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?”
We don’t, and we pray that voters don’t either.
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