The Buck Stops… With The Press?
This week has seen multiple assassination and terrorist attempts against two former Presidents, a former Vice President, a former First Lady and Secretary of State, a former U.S. Attorney General, a former CIA Director, a major news outlet, two members of Congress, a billionaire democratic donor, and a well known actor.
The motives and even perpetrator(s) are unknown, but it is apparent that all of the victims are people or organizations that the current President of the United States has demonized, and even incited violence against them before.
He has repeatedly attacked President Obama, and paraded a racist campaign suggesting that he wasn’t born in the United States for years. He said in a rally that Hillary Clinton should lose her secret service protection and people should watch what happens to her. He also said that “maybe 2nd amendment people could stop her”, and has led chants of “lock her up”.
He said he could take Vice President Biden in a fight, bashed CIA Director John Brennan and revoked his security clearance, rails against George Soros, in a borderline anti-semitic way, calls Maxine Waters low IQ, and pronounces CNN as fake news at every rally.
It isn’t coincidence that all of the people targeted have been subject to extreme rhetoric from the President of the United States. That said, I am not blaming him directly for these attacks, as some major facts are still unknown. However, he is to blame for the increasingly hateful rhetoric in this country.
His entire campaign was full of hate filled speech, racism, bigotry, misogyny, and the list goes on and on. He incited violence at his rallies over and over, saying protesters should be knocked out, and he would pay the legal fees of those who attack protesters.
Disgusting, vile threats and actions against fellow Americans and our institutions are sadly unsurprising: hate acts follow hate speech. It is past time for us to turn down and tune out the rabid rhetoric.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 24, 2018
The blame is not solely at his feet, but he does bear a lot of the responsibility for where this country is in terms of rhetoric. We are more divided than we have been for decades, and we now have a President who is using his power and position as a way to divide us even more. He is not a unifying person.
I gave him every chance, but I've come to the conclusion that @realDonaldTrump is simply incapable of being a unifier or accepting any personal responsibility.
Americans deserve more — so much more — from a President. pic.twitter.com/JGdpCgskUX
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) October 25, 2018
As Governor Kasich said, Trump is also not able to take responsibility for anything that he has done. He hasn’t done that here either. He refuses to admit that his rhetoric is fueling the anger and hatred in this country. Instead, he creates scapegoats and throws blame on other people or groups. And this time, he put the blame on one of the groups that was attacked; the press.
President Trump tweeted;
A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News. It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2018
It is hard to get past just how insane this is.
The President of the United States is blaming a terrorist attack on the media, ON THE MEDIA. Not himself, the person that calls them fake or the enemy of the people. No, of course not, why would it be his fault in any way.
Once again, instead of showing the courage and rising to the power of his office he gets smaller and tries to rally his base of support that firmly believe the media is out to get the President (as they sit at home and watch Fox News).
But I digress, The President should step up and take the role that he signed up for, uniting this country and being a President for everyone. He has to take accountability for his own words and he needs to be the person to start lowering the tone in this country. It is not, and has never been, the medias job to set the tone in this country. It is their job to report on the tone that the President of the United States is setting, and to say that they are responsible for terrorist attacks because he doesn’t agree with them is reprehensible and unbecoming of the office in which he serves.
Americans deserve better than that, and they deserve better than him.
For his nearly two years in office he has done nothing but divide this nation by race, class, and party affiliation. He is the person that has exacerbated this problem in America. It is an issue on both sides, but there is no equivalency between a party that yells at people in a restaurant and one that attempts to assassinate former Presidents, government officials, or the press.
President Harry Truman understood the power of his office when he said “The buck stops here” in regard to himself. President Trump should take that advice and make a legitimate attempt to bring this country together or this will only continue to happen, and eventually someone is going to die.