By: Ken Willette 0 Nov. 2018
As we venture once again into a hotly contested election season, it is also fair to call into question some on the Left who have waged increasingly brazen and bizarre attacks on the motives and speeches of President Trump and many of his supporters.
In fact, I am witnessing some liberals casting dangerous accusations, in news articles and in online forums, of direct associations between Trump’s speeches and so-called lone wolf criminals and despised hate groups. Some of these liberal thinkers have freely associated Trump and the people who attend his rallies with the absolute evil of Neo-Nazis and members of the KKK. They repeatedly claim his speeches somehow rouse hatred against citizens of our multicultural nation, suggest antidemocratic and fascist leanings and encourage acts of mass violence. All of which couldn’t be further from the truth.
So let’s explore the importance of celebrating free speech in an age of social media and the rapid response news cycle. First of all, if we really discern Trump’s speeches, at no time has he advocated direct gun violence against his opponents or urged his supporters to conduct mob violence. Trump can be guilty of perhaps being crass at times.
But his rallies are hugely popular events, filling entire professional sports arenas, with an overflow crowd of thousands watching on jumbo screens outside. They often chant “CNN Sucks” and “Lock Her Up”. Some liberals would have you think that these chants alone will inevitably cause the destruction of the free media, the downfall of democracy and the rise of far-right Stormtroopers. I kid you not, they actually engage in that level of historical exaggeration! Even though many African-Americans, Latinos and Asians attend his rallies, the GOP has a strong slate of multicultural candidates and Trump has the strongest pro-Israel record of any president since maybe Truman.
I don’t understand what the inherent problem is. For example, if we chant “Yankees Suck” at a Red Sox game, does that mean we are inciting violence against the Yankees organization or its fans? Of course not! The same thing applies to a WWE event where the crowd chants– “You Suck”.
Trump thrives in a celebrity driven media environment. But the media chime in about shadow thugs, mob rule, and hate speech. They are really missing the point of our constitutional system—people are peacefully assembling, listening to a freely elected leader, and exercising their first amendment rights! And unlike Antifa’s actual thugs operating in the streets across the country, there are no masks, no violence directed against innocent civilians, no destruction of property and no widespread fights. Just freedom! Hundreds of thousands of people have attended these rallies since 2016, but the biased media will still showcase isolated footage of fights from two years ago (with no irrefutable evidence of which party started the fight in the first place). But remember, according to the constant liberal media narrative, Trump’s voters are basically deplorable, racist, xenophobic and uneducated.
They couldn’t possibly have a reasonable and rational difference of opinion. They couldn’t possibly be proud of being an immigrant nation, but also be against illegal immigration and seek to stop caravans from entering our nation.
At the same time, it is especially hypocritical when liberal media outlets gave a free pass to Madonna who spoke at a protest rally that she dreamed of blowing up the White House. They defended Kathy Griffin who held up a mock severed head of the President. They applauded Maxine Waters for promoting harassment in public places. They largely ignored Eric Holder’s call to kick opponents in the streets, and Joe Biden’s school bully rants against Trump.
I won’t apply their same twisted logic of guilt by association. I won’t cast broad aspersions against all Bernie Sanders supporters because one nearly killed a GOP congressman. I won’t attack all Democrats because one person or persons threw a rock through a GOP House leader’s office window or firebombed a Trump campaign office. I won’t say that Clinton was somehow responsible for Ricin attacks against the White House and the President’s family, because she said we can no longer be civil until they return to power.
The truly sad commentary about some liberals is that they are missing the much bigger picture. Whether you support or reject the President’s policies and actions, and whether you love or hate his speeches, every indicator across the nation points to massive voter turnout, unheard of for a midterm election, and record enthusiasm between the parties. And tens of millions of voters are engaging in peaceful, articulate, well-reasoned discussions, voting in incredible numbers and contributing to the social media town hall that our founding fathers could never envision.
They merely established the constitutional safeguards to protect people from being judged guilty by association or guilty until proven innocent. It would be wise for some on the Left to do the same! ◊