Trump’s verbal ‘body slams’ may be influencing violence
What hath Trump wrought?
Rep. Greg Gianforte, RMont., last year pleaded guilty to assaulting a journalist. President Trump last week celebrated him.
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump said.
CNN’s Jim Acosta said one man at the rally then looked at him “and ran his thumb across his throat.”
Wednesday, a pipe bomb arrived at CNN’s New York offices, addressed to former CIA Director (and current Trump critic) John Brennan. Other bombs went to five others often villainized by Trump: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Maxine Waters and George Soros.
Trump denounced “acts or threats of political violence of any kind.” But it’s fair to ask: If a person who assaults a journalist is Trump’s “guy,” might some unstable person think sending a pipe bomb to a news organization makes him Trump’s guy too?
Only the perpetrator is responsible. But Trump has created this climate by whipping up supporters with often violent rhetoric. And only Trump can end it. Stop the mob, Mr. President.
Nearing the 2018 election, Trump has revived his 2016 tactics, spurring his supporters to resent dark-skinned people, immigrants, women, certain religions, minorities and the media.
Trump recently maligned all the targets of Wednesday’s attack. He roiled the crowd to chant “Lock her up!” and “CNN sucks!” and to boo “low IQ” Waters. He spread false conspiracy theories that Soros funded the migrant caravan. After Holder said “when they go low, we kick them,” Trump threatened: “He’d better be careful what he’s wishing for.” Trump called Brennan “a total lowlife” who “disgraced the country.”
It’s a particularly dangerous moment. Trump has turned partisan divisions into a proxy war over race and gender, stoking backlash to the first black president and the first woman to be a major party’s presidential nominee. The pipe bomb targets included three African-Americans, two women and a Jew frequently targeted by antiSemites — demographics that are among Trump’s favorite targets, mostly women (Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Clinton), African-Americans (Cory Booker, Waters, Obama) and Jews (Soros, Charles E. Schumer, Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein).
In Trump’s latest stump speech, he said these Democrats are responsible for “an assault” on the coun- try, are an “angry left-wing mob” who “wants to replace freedom with socialism” and are “openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to … overwhelm our nation” and “carve you up with a knife.”
No wonder people feel desperate.
Clinton recently said “civility can start again” only if Democrats win. Wrong. Also wrong: Holder’s “kick them” remark, Waters’ call to harass Cabinet officials, and those who hounded Ted Cruz and others in restaurants. Violence by the left, whether by antifa hooligans or the shooting at a Republican baseball practice, is also evil.
But Trump’s rhetoric is more frequent and violent and he has the biggest megaphone. He encouraged supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters and expressed his wish to punch a heckler. He hesitated to criticize Saudi Arabia in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and continues calling journalists enemies of the people.
This has an effect. A man arrested for threatening to shoot Boston Globe employees this summer called the paper the “enemy of the people.”
After the bombs were discovered Wednesday, Trump first said, “We have to unify. We have to come together.”
Amen. But at Monday’s rally, Trump ridiculed almost those exact words, mocking Clinton’s campaign for having “some stupid slogan like ‘stay together.’ ”
Actually, it was “Stronger Together.” If only our president believed that.