Divisive Rhetoric and Violence, Even Assassination - 9/17/2024

Just three days ago, in a post I titled, "To the Woodshed", I criticized Trump and Harris both for their rhetoric. Another assassination attempt later, here I am again. The left, in unison, saying the problem is one thing: Trump rhetoric. Uh, you do know Trump doesn't have a patent on divisive rhetoric, don't you? After the last assassination attempt, Joe Biden supposedly was going to tone down his rhetoric. Within 2-3 days, he was back calling Trump "a threat to democracy." Call a guy Hitler over, and over, and over don't make him Hitler. But it does make killing him at least morally understandable to a very convinced listener.

On the campaign trail, many times President Trump has said "If we elect Kamala Harris, we won't have a country left."

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, says, "Trump wants to be a dictator on day one and will eliminate the Constitution."

These are opposing sides of the same coin. I could make a list a mile long. Spin and political posturing and positioning are allowing exaggeration and distortion to be the norm. Truth is often confused with opinion. I remember an Oprah Winfrey video clip I saw in which she referred to "my truth." I think what she would more accurately have said was, "my opinion." When we portray our personal opinions as truths, then we really don't leave each other any room for disagreement, do we?

Did Trump say he would be a dictator on day one? Well, yeah, he did. But when he said it, if I recall correctly, he said he would do only two things as a dictator, then he'd go back to being President. He said he'd close the border, and "drill, drill, drill." Those things are hardly a threat to our way of life, and hardly Stalin, Mao, or Hitler-like.

When Trump says "we won't have a country left," or "we won't have a country anymore," is he saying the USA will cease to exist? He's saying she, and progressive Democrats, want to change our country in ways that will render it a very different place.

I do have grave concern about our country, our future, and what it is we're leaving our kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I won't make this post a long one and list all my concerns, all my preferences in the way forward. I do believe, strictly on agenda, believe that re-electing Donald Trump is a better way forward than electing Kamala Harris. I will stop short of calling it "my truth". It's "my opinion." I am entitled to it.

I don't hate my Democrat friends. I have found myself hating some Democrat politicians and media persons over the years, never more so than recently. You ARE entitled to your opinion. But when you decide your opinion is truth, you're leaving no room in what should be a universe of ideas and opinions for mine. Why have I found myself literally hating? It started to come into existence beforehand, but I can point specifically to Hillary Clinton's "deplorable" line, calling us/me racist, homophobe, etc., etc. We're all familiar with the lines. Since then, many, many times I hear or read things from the left that leave me no doubt that the left hates us. Us? Trump. The right. Me.

Understand that Trump didn't cause our anger and dissatisfaction with the political establishment, Democrat and Republican. No, he did not. He is a manifestation of it. Trumpism came to exist because many of us, speaking primarily for myself, felt nobody represented us anymore. All were sold out to big money, foreign and domestic. Does Trump's bombastic rhetoric give fuel to the fires of dissatisfaction? Yes, I believe it does, but no more does it do so than does the left's rhetoric about me and people like me. We're NOT all stupid. We're not evil. Matter of fact, most of us just want the government to leave us alone.

I don't hear Kamala Harris saying anything on the campaign trail that makes me think, "She has mine and my family's best interests at heart. She will make my life better." I just don't hear that. Maybe if she'd start appealing to me and people like me, instead of running AGAINST us, instead of making ME out to be what's dangerous to our country's future, things could be different. She doesn't, instead nearly everything she says about us on the right stokes the flames of ire in me. To be fair, I am sure Trump does the same to you lefties. It pits us against one another and undermines the chances, even remote, of productive dialogue. If we can't talk to one another openly and honestly, from the brain AND the heart, we will never find a better and more civil discourse, and will be doomed to live instead in discord.

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with the media's work? Nah. Got to be Trump's fault.

How can this be fixed? I don't know, but I know where it should start:

We need a fair and unbiased press that reports facts accurately, saving their opinions for the opinion page. Instead, they treat their opinions as "their truth" and as a result their opinions, sometimes quite radical, are indelibly intertwined in what passes for reporting. Our print news, cable news, network news, and internet news all basically suck. Start by correcting inaccuracies, for example, say that Project 2025 isn't Trump's plan. Say that Trump isn't pushing for a national abortion ban. Maybe if they did a better job and called balls and strikes straight down the middle, all the wacky conspiracy theorists, left and right, would lose their voice and the dangerous rhetoric could be toned down. Maybe a little? I would hope. Until then we'll continue to hear how it's Trump's own fault that someone tried to assassinate him.