Dangerous rhetoric has dangerous consequences. With each new report of a suspicious package thought to contain an explosive device sent to political leaders and public figures, there’s an obvious overlap between the targets and those who the president has verbally attacked over the past two years. On Monday, at a rally in Texas, he accused Democrats of launching “an assault on the sovereignty of our country, the security of our nation and the safety of every American.”
And two weeks ago at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, President Trump called the Democrats, “an angry left-wing mob,” who are “too dangerous to govern.” This was only days after flyers from the white supremacist website The Daily Stormer were found on college campuses in California and New York and across Des Moines, Iowa, including on the window of our local affiliate, Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.
The flyers weaponize the claim of the president and Republicans that legitimate opposition to the nomination of Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a “mob” made up of protestors paid by philanthropist George Soros, a not-so-thinly-veiled bit of anti-Semitism.
Trump’s love for spreading hate and fear is emboldening groups across the country to lash out at the most vulnerable groups in our society. This type of hate must not become entrenched or allowed to flourish in this country.