After the Mail Bombs Cesar Sayoc, like James Hodgkinson, is from the extreme lunatic fringe.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-mail-bombs-1540595085?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=1&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s
We suppose it was only a matter of time before the hyperpartisan forces now driving American politics overwhelmed the reality of events. With this week’s pipe bombs, that moment may have arrived.
The reality, previously known as the facts, is that for days this week public critics of President Trump received what appeared to be bombs in the mail. On Friday federal authorities arrested a Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, and charged him with crimes related to the mailed bombs. He appears to be a supporter of Mr. Trump.
By any measure, these packages represented a grave public threat. So it was astonishing, even by current standards, to see this threat degenerate immediately into the familiar and crude narrative of the Democrats versus Donald Trump. Congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi asserted in a joint statement, even after a calming presidential statement, that “the President has condoned physical violence and divided Americans.” A New York magazine headline online Friday read: “Trump’s party is the petri dish for diseased minds that grew Cesar Sayoc.”
On June 14 last year, James Hodgkinson—the left-wing mirror image of the apparently right-wing Cesar Sayoc—opened fire with a rifle into the Republicans’ Congressional softball practice. Two Capitol police shot him dead. Earlier, Hodgkinson had posted on Facebook: “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” Hodgkinson was an ardent supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders. We cite the Hodgkinson shooting not for the purpose of establishing moral equivalence between these two events, but to make clear that both came from the country’s extreme lunatic fringe.
After the Congressional shooting, no serious person suggested that Bernie Sanders had created James Hodgkinson. But now, apparently, any event such as these mail bombs—no matter that nothing was known about their origin—is instantly fair game for political recrimination in the U.S. It would be understandable if the public’s reaction to the political smackdown they’ve seen over this bomber was simply disgust with the political class and its combatants. It’s called “the swamp,” all right, and a swamp often reeks of toxicity.
Both sides should step back from this toxicity, and that offers a particular opportunity to Donald Trump. Someone in authority has to display leadership, and Presidents in these circumstances have a special platform. He is upset, with reason, that he’s getting blamed for Cesar Sayoc. But Mr. Trump should understand that the Democratic and media resistance wants him to respond in kind and escalate, so they can blame him some more.
He will get more credit than he imagines if he surprises them by rising above for once and urging partisans on all sides to return to a saner, less virulent politics.
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