Two mass shootings left 31 Americans dead last weekend. In Texas, the killer published a manifesto extolling the virtues of ecofascism, an ideology rooted in race and environmentalism that defies neat categorization on the Left or Right. In Ohio, the shooter declined to declare his motivations, though he expressed admiration for Elizabeth Warren, socialism, and Satan. President Trump called for unity and resilience. “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” he pleaded. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart, and devours the soul.”
So it does. Unfortunately, the hate-warped Left rejected his plea. Not just the radical fringe but mainstream American leftists — reporters, pundits, and politicians — rushed to exploit the not-yet-cold bodies of their countrymen to launch defamatory attacks against their political opponents.
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski accused President Trump of desiring more white supremacist mass murders. “This is a president who seems to want these things to happen,” she declared, despite Trump’s regular condemnation of racial bigotry, which he repeated on Monday.
Disgraced former news anchor Dan Rather reacted to Trump’s remarks by begging journalists to “refrain from quoting the presiden’ts [sic] words from prepared speeches into headlines and tweets without context. He sometimes says the right thing. The real questions are what he does and what he really believes.” One suspects that by “context” Rather does not mean reporters ought to mention the effect of Trump’s policies, which have led to record-low minority unemployment, increased funding for historically black colleges and universities, and prison reform to address alleged racial disparities in sentencing. Instead, Rather urges the media to ignore what Trump says and does in favor of what they feel he secretly thinks.
CNN contributor Wajahat Ali celebrated public calls to murder Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “#MassacreMoscowMitch is trending,” he tweeted. “I still have faith in America.” Ali eventually deleted the tweet, but only after a mob showed up at McConnell’s house at night threatening to stab the senator in the neck.
Former CNN contributor and current cannibal Reza Aslan called for the murder of Senior Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway. In response to Conway’s suggestion that Americans learn to “understand depraved evil & eradicate hate,” Aslan tweeted, “You are ‘the depraved evil’ we need to eradicate.” He didn’t call to eradicate Conway from office or even from politics. He said we need to eradicate her.
Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro published the names of private citizens who had donated to President Trump’s campaign in order to make them “think twice about contributing” to Republicans. Ironically, at least six of the people Castro vilified in his tweet have also contributed to his and his brother’s own campaigns.
It never occurred to Castro that some of his own virtuous supporters might also have voted for President Trump. Roughly 60% of Americans associate with the Democratic and Republican parties; the remaining 40% identify as politically independent. But the radicals of the mainstream Left can’t tolerate such political pragmatism. At once, Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Beto O’Rourke accused President Trump and, by association, his supporters of defending “white supremacy.”
Picking up on Hillary Clinton’s denunciation of half her countrymen as “deplorable” and “irredeemable” three years ago, Democrats this week condemned the rest of us as white supremacists-by-association deserving of death. Their feverish invective exceeds the bounds of normal political hyperbole. They hate us. Such is the behavior of warped minds, ravaged hearts, and devoured souls.