Make America hate again: When political rhetoric turns violent
Jared Yates Sexton is an associate professor at Georgia Southern University. He is the author of The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage.
It began with a bomb addressed to billionaire George Soros, long the bogeyman of the paranoid right. It continued with bombs addressed to former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Then, CNN was evacuated while law enforcement removed another device. And a number of suspicious packages have also been reported at locations in other parts of the United States. The mystery here is who is responsible for this orchestrated attack, but there’s no mystery as to what motivated this nightmare scenario.
For years now, the Republican Party has played with fire by stoking fear and mistrust among their base. They’ve perpetuated conspiracy theories involving murder and have portrayed their opponents as tyrants capable of coups and treason. It was a delicate dance, these appeals, but all delicacy disappeared when they anointed Donald Trump as their standard bearer.
Make no mistake, the events of Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2018, are the result of years worth of violent rhetoric, careless vilifying and fascist appeals meant to keep America’s Right in a constant state of terror and rage. This is what happens when you call for the imprisonment of political rivals, when you inspire crowds to chant “Lock them up.” This is the result of claiming the preceding president orchestrated an unlawful surveillance of your campaign without anything approaching evidence. This is what happens when you not only tolerate hateful voices such as conspiracy mogul Alex Jones, but when you appear on his show and keep him as counsel.
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