Language can fuel political violence

I agree and disagree with your editorial, “ Assassination attempt spurs call for civility ” (July 16). My disagreement is with the claim that the rhetoric did not cause the shooter to take action. While it was contributing circumstances, it could also be a mitigating factor. We don’t have to know the shooter’s motive to understand that the target was the subject of vile rhetoric and innuendo, and some outright lies. So, the choice of the shooter’s target cannot be minimized as somehow disconnected with the recent political language. Using different language may have mitigated the shooter’s decision point.

The fact that a political party and its leadership embarked on a campaign of fear that one specific person would destroy America is indisputable. The words, phrases and insinuation about one person has created the environment where those with an unhinged personality could see themselves justified in taking extreme and violent action. To demonize that person with comparisons to history’s most evil — and say in the next breath that violence is never the answer — is confusing and would cause someone already conflicted, and thinking irrationally, to miss the second point.

I disagree with those who call to “tone down” the rhetoric, but I agree with you that we need to change the rhetoric. We need to remove the person and personality and focus on plans and policy. That said, I don’t advocate for restrictions in what people say, but I do advocate for news media to confront political figures when they utter falsehoods or half-truths. President Biden consistently uses a proven false narrative about Charlottesville, yet national news hosts refuse to question him in real time. By that inaction, they promote the false story.

Politicians need to get the message that if all they have are negatives about their opponent, then they obviously have nothing positive about themselves. Tell us what you plan to do and what policies you will implement and let us decide if that works for us. By the way, if you have to “sell” your record of achievements, then maybe they are not as good as you think. We can “censor” politicians with our vote.

Mick Rankin

Stantonsburg

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