Pretending to be surprised by it is dumb.
We seem to love comforting ourselves with phrases like:
- This is not who we are
- Violence has no place in American politics
Just dumb as fuck.
Trump has called for the deaths of his political foes on more than a few occasions by suggesting that actions they've taken - or even opinions they've expressed - are tantamount to treason, and then casually reminding us that the penalty for treason is death.
When an attempt has been made on the lives of 1 out of every 3 presidents - or ex-presidents - or candidates for president - we don't get to relax and believe that violence in domestic politics is some kind of fucking unicorn.
When you add the attacks on other politicians and activists and influencers and spouses and doctors and talk show hosts, you get a pretty clear picture of just how not rare it is for Americans to kill each other over political disagreements.
Just off the top of my head, I figure we've seen a minimum of 1 splashy national-news-level attack every 7 or 8 years for 249 years. And it's been accelerating over my lifetime. If I threw a study into it, and included violence against less well known people, I'd bet dollars-to-dingleberries it's way more frequent.
Alexander Hamilton was shot and killed by the Vice President of the United States for fuck's sake.
(starting at 18:40)
No comments:
Post a Comment