06-15-2017, 01:28 PM
(06-15-2017, 10:38 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: What does need to come of this terrible event is an acknowledgement, from both sides, that things have gone too far. I've said before that it's generally the party out of power that engages in the fiercest rhetoric. I think Trump took this to eleven. Trump certainly took things too far on the campaign trail, e.g. offering to pay the legal bills of anyone who beat up a protester. The response from the left was to go to fifteen. I've mentioned before that anyone not heavily criticizing Trump's every move is immediately branded a Trump supporter by many (most?) left leaning people. There's a refusal to even see the possibility of a middle ground and it's pushing people to the extremes. Extreme thinking is eventually, for some, going to lead to extreme action. We see it with Antifa, we saw it at Trump rallies in CA and we just saw the worst example of it yesterday.
It's got to stop and it needs to stop at the top. Maxine Waters, Gillibrand, etc. need to tone down the extreme rhetoric and hopefully that will trickle down to celebrities, which will trickle down and so forth. If things stay as is I predict a dark outcome.
Trump's supporters and the Republican establishment have to take responsibility for legitimizing Trump. Trump may have taken it to 11 but his supporters said that was okay by supporting him because they have been pushed to believing more extreme action is necessary to take back their country. They have been pushed by the Tea Party, Entertainment news and Republican establishment through baseless fear mongering and it picked up steam once Obama got elected it just got worse and worse. Obama did nothing to warrant the spewing of alternative facts and overall hate that was flung his way. He was just another president. There was no reason to deny his supreme court nominee and there was no reason why all of the obstruction the Republicans caused should have happened during his time.
Don't take my statement as a way to excuse violence on behalf of liberals but it's the root of the problem. If Republicans weren't pushed to believe their country was under siege by the men and women in power then they wouldn't find extremism necessary and Trump wouldn't have the support he did. If they spent less time fear mongering and more time doing what they said they would do we wouldn't be in this position. Electing Trump just fostered more extremism. Trump supporters double down and everyone else that can't stand him that gets unfairly labeled a liberal resort to more extreme tendency's. I'm a registered Independent and get called a liberal all of the time.
We all should agree that the political climate needs to change and violence needs to stop but to act like both parties are equally to blame isn't true imo. While both parties have caused damage in their own way there is only one party that endorsed Trump and let him speak under their banner and jumped at the first opportunity to shift what they believed in order to adopt Trump as their own.
The swamp, Alt facts news/blogs and now Trump have all made a killing off of the manipulation of a group of people and while it isn't unheard of for politicians to manipulate supporters across the board for their own gain the boundaries have been pushed since George W's 2nd term. Not blaming him that's just when I remember the fear mongering started ramping up.
The fear mongers are the problem.
