Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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It wasn’t immediately known who was responsible for the bomb delivered to the home of George Soros or the suspicious packages addressed to former President Barack Obama, the Clintons and CNN’s New York offices, but one thing was clear: The terror that has played out this week is an inevitable outcome of President Donald Trump’s vicious rhetoric.
Words have consequences, and we’re seeing them now. Trump, by demonizing his political opponents and the media, has emboldened extremists to take action and spread fear.
In the three-plus years since he announced his candidacy in June 2015, Trump has repeatedly encouraged violence. The most recent instance came just last week, when at a rally in Montana he referenced Rep. Greg Gianforte’s 2017 attack on a reporter by saying that “any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!” The next day, Trump said he did not regret making the remark.
No surprise there. Trump has expressed no remorse for a string of similar remarks he’s made, including when he said he’d like to punch a heckler at a rally in Las Vegas and encouraged a group of police officers to rough up suspects in their custody.
Meanwhile, his incendiary attacks on Hillary Clinton, Obama and others he perceives as threats have made prominent Democrats targets for extremists. That list now also includes New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former CIA director John Brennan and Obama-era attorney general Eric Holder, whose names were on suspicious packages delivered.
Trump and his loyalists will deny that he has any influence over any of these cowardly attacks, of course. But they also will go to any lengths to convince Americans that Trump’s continuous stoking of violence hasn’t happened.
“The president does not support violence against anyone or anything,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in August.
That’s a lie worthy of an Iron Curtain apparatchik.
What’s really happening is that Trump is turning Americans against each other and doing his best to obliterate our standards of civility and mutual respect, which in turn has given rise to the ugliness we’re seeing this week.
Keep in mind that while the White House issued a statement condemning the rash of terrorism this week, Trump has been vilifying Democrats on the campaign trail in recent weeks with his “Democrats produce mobs, Republicans produce jobs” message.
This comes despite Charlottesville. Despite Christine Blasey Ford being forced from her home by death threats from Trump’s followers. Despite Nancy Pelosi nearly being trapped in an alley entering an event in Miami when members of the alt-right group Proud Boys threatened her.
And now comes this week, when less than 48 hours after the device sent to Soros was detonated in the woods near his home, more Americans were targeted in what appeared to be a coordinated attack.
This must stop.
And voters have the power to do something about it.
Although no one can cure Trump’s moral bankruptcy or force him to become a leader for all Americans and not just his supporters, we can elect moderate leaders who will work to hold him accountable and provide a check on his authority.
Election Day is a week from this coming Tuesday. Meanwhile, early voting centers are open throughout the Las Vegas Valley. To see a list of those sites, click here.
Please vote. Send a message to Trump that Americans won’t allow him to make enemies of each other.
