Both Sides
Kerby Anderson
The news these few months is full of violence with both shootings and stabbings. It’s worth taking a moment to evaluate and challenge some of the phrases being used by pundits and politicians. One of the most prevalent is to decry political violence “on both sides.”
Let’s start with an obvious perspective. Political violence is wrong whether committed by black or white, or whether committed by liberal or conservative.
In the past, I have quoted the commonsense wisdom of Batya Ungar-Sargon. She originally served as the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek and currently hosts a program on NewsNation. She has been on Bill Maher’s program as well as on Charlie Kirk’s program and appreciated that he had her on his program.
She observes that the “culture on the left [is] opposed to honest, spirited debate, has demonized the views of the other side as hateful, as fascism, as Nazism.” She therefore concludes that “When you call your political opponents Hitler enough times, you’ve signed their death warrant.”
She spends a few paragraphs quoting Democratic politicians who one minute criticize violence and then next minute call for a war against Trump and his supporters. Then she has a revelation for them: “The violence is coming from inside your house.” It is the result, she says, “of decades of demonizing right-wing voices with legitimate views—views in fact shared by most Americans.”
Yes, there have been some examples of attacks on Democrats, but this is a situation in which the exceptions prove the rule. Most of the attacks are against politicians, speakers, and federal agents who have been vilified as fascists and Nazis by pundits and politicians on the left.
If we are going to heal this nation, we need to speak the truth. And we also need to call out false arguments about political violence “on both sides.”
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