Former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump, largely through repetition, has tried mightily and effectively to normalize threatening, faux-tough-guy rhetoric.
Kari Lake brings US Senate campaign to Scottsdale town hall on housing
“We don’t have enough housing for the people who are here,” says Kari Lake, a candidate for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat, in a discussion on housing in Scottsdale on April 16, 2024.
One high-profile Republican, a sitting U.S. senator, suggested peaceful protesters should be thrown off bridges.
Another high-profile Republican, often mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate, told supporters to “strap on a Glock” to prepare for this year’s presidential election.
It would be nice to report that each of these public figures, Sen. Tom Cotton and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, respectively, faced bipartisan condemnation for their violent rhetoric. It would be reasonable, in a normal society, to assume such comments would bring a swift end to their political careers.
That’s where we should be as a nation – unwilling to put up with bellicose garbage babbled by opportunistic loons.
But it’s not where we are. Not even close.
Tom Cotton and Kari Lake spout violent rhetoric and the country shrugs
Cotton telling Americans to “take matters into your own hands” if they come across protesters blocking a road and Lake encouraging the MAGA faithful to arm up was largely met with a “Meh,” a testament to how common it has become for Republicans to foment violence.
Former president and current criminal defendant Donald Trump, largely through repetition, has tried mightily and effectively to normalize threatening, faux-tough-guy rhetoric, what I like to call the language of cowards.
‘Take matters into your own hands’ encourages violence against protesters
His success to that end could be seen in the ease with which Cotton, a Republican U.S. senator from Arkansas, griped about pro-Palestinian protesters who recently blocked roadways in cities across the country.
He posted on social media Monday night: “I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.”
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On Fox News, he referred to protesters who blocked San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge as “criminals” and said: “If something like this happened in Arkansas, on a bridge there, let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard – not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking.”
We should expect better from our political leaders
It’s neither liberal nor outrageous of me to expect a bit more from a senator. Inciting vigilantism and casually brushing off the idea of Americans getting tossed off bridges is unbecoming of the drunk at the end of the bar. For an elected official to be doing it? That’s despicable.
Cotton’s “I Talk Tough Cause I’m A Big Tough Boy!” blah-blah came the day after Arizona GOP Senate candidate Lake, a possible Trump running mate, told supporters at a rally what they need to do to prepare for the “intense” upcoming election: “We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.”
That’s just super.
If there’s one thing America needs, having survived the MAGA-led attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, it’s more riled-up Trump supporters packing heat and thinking they need “the armor of God” to protect them from some undetermined liberal menace.
Republicans have no business encouraging supporters to tote guns
The words “strap on a Glock” should never be uttered by any American politician at any level, ever. We have a gun violence epidemic in this country, and people like Lake seem almost eager to leverage that into…
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