Deadly Rhetoric

There is not only “one side” it to blame for dangerous rhetoric – believe me, even when I see it from my friends on Facebook I want to scream, especially when I generally agree with the idea of what they are saying – I LOATHE the way they say it.  I cringe when they post extreme thoughts as though they are based on fact. Memes are NOT conversations people!  It is ALL bad and it all must stop.  It does so much harm and no good.  But for one side to be finger-pointing as though ANY of this is Donald Trump’s fault is simply false and is so bad it is hard to believe. AND it is only perpetuating the very trend that they are criticizing!

I want 100% of EVERYONE to understand this.  Read it twice, three times even. 

Donald Trump is the President of the United States as a REACTION.  HE WAS NOT ELECTED AS THE CHAMPION OF A CAUSE; HE IS A REACTION.  That is how disenfranchised and marginalized half the country was feeling!

 He was elected because millions upon millions of Americans were tired, so tired being beaten to bloody pulps for having values that differed from those of the ruling class.   They were tired of that ruling class leaving no room for their ideas, their values, their beliefs.  They were tired of being revered as “trash” and as “deplorable.” They were tired of being called racists, misogynists, sexist and Nazis!  Come on people – Nazis?  There are nut jobs in every party – but to call a whole group of people these names is ridiculous.  The thing is that the nut jobs out there are incited and get all sorts of crazy ideas and the seeds of their ideas are tied to the fighting, name-calling and attacks they see in the press every single day.  With Twitter, Facebook and blogs – anyone can spew anything with impunity.  You have NO IDEA who you might incite with your words. 

I personally have been scared for my safety because of attacks when I was in a particular job that made me a target.  I had nothing to do with the rules I was hired to enforce and sometimes my enforcement made people unhappy.  They took to local papers and wrote blasphemous things.  Because of my job and my duties I became a target and everywhere I went I had no idea who had read what, what they believed and if there might be a nut case out there in the grocery store parking lot who might take it to an extreme.  IT HAPPENS FOR REAL PEOPLE.  I have had to file retraining orders against people I don’t even KNOW.  Rhetoric risks people’s LIVES.

The spokespeople and pundits for the Left left NO ROOM for ideas that did not fit exactly into the Left narrative that was being promoted by these elite few “spokespeople.” They dogmatically conditioned their followers to adopt their script, even when those individuals were on the inside, reasonable, open-minded people.  They told their own followers, “If you don’t agree, lockstep, you are one of THEM!”  Ew! There was no room for “different” from the very party that claimed it was all about diversity; if you were different in this particular way, you were WRONG. If you did not believe 100% in everything the Left pundits stood for you were an enemy; and again this was the message from those few elites that got the air time.  It wasn’t coming from neighbors and friends who happened to be Democrats. But if you did not fully buy into the party’s primary platform narratives then you were fully and summarily dismissed as not having any value at all in ANY conversation.

Think about that regardless of your flavor; something had to change...  For a long time 50% of the nation had been browbeaten and told they were WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and they had been called horrible, mean, vile names because of it.  No flexibility or compromise was offered to them. The people who were feeling so desperately marginalized by the “Elected Elites” and their spokespeople never heard any leader of the Left defending any of them or any part of them.  It was “us versus them.”  This led to the marginalized then lumping “all Democrats” into a pile, just as those on the left had done to them.  They were driven there by the messaging that they were being bombarded by. DIFFERENT was NOT TOLERATED.

The more the Left ramped that up, the greater the reaction. As is obvious the “reaction” was done at the polls NOT WITH VIOLENCE.  It was so quiet and unassuming that even the polls, ALL POLLS were wrong. None of the polls reflected a Trump win. But the reaction to the browbeating for years was a Donald Trump election.

Do not tie INSANE people and the heinous acts of insane people to general parties in ANY direction for any reason no matter how many bumper stickers they have or how many letters they have written and to whom.  Trump is not at fault for the synagogue shooting any more than Obama is at fault for Sandy Hook. Insane people are insane.  Period. But they are vulnerable to being inflamed by rhetoric and NO ONE is blameless here.  Do you realize that the shooter at the synagogue hates Trump because he supports Israel?  Trump has supported Israel like no president in modern history but the Left has attacked him for that too!  It is attack for attacking’s sake – it has nothing to do with facts or reality.  This sort of thing just has to stop!

It helps NO ONE that right now the media is promoting Trump’s rhetoric being “at fault” and they aren’t even taking responsibility for their own profound rhetoric!  It is ludicrous and it is dangerous and for whatever reason they are blameless in this.  There are plenty of these insane people who are one headline away from doing something horrible. The headline when John F. Kennedy was assassinated read: “Kennedy Assassinated. Vice President Lyndon Johnson Sworn In. Left-Wing Suspect Seized.” The PRESS tied that insane person to a party platform – when it wasn’t “the Left” who assassinated Kennedy – it was a crazy person.

The one group I DO blame in all of this is the press.  IF IT BLEEDS IT LEADS.  If it can start a fire, a demonstration or a riot – even better.  The press has done America NO FAVORS; the blatant twisting of news is frightening. We should all point a finger that direction and frankly we need to find a way to hold them accountable.  At some point claiming protection behind the 1^st Amendment ends... It is against the law for me to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater.  When does their addiction to having that “lead story” become criminal?