May 6
Divisive Rhetoric
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Divisive Rhetoric
Addressing the Dangerous Rise of Online Violent Rhetoric Against MAGA Republicans
Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 5Am EST
In response to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde's recent address at the National Prayer Event
Standing Together Against Divisive Rhetoric: Demanding Accountability and Unity
Monday, January 27, 2025 5Am EST
Fellow American Patriots,
Trump's Strategy of Racial and Ethnic Antagonism in Politics
Trump’s Reliance on Racial and Ethnic Antagonism Donald Trump’s political identity seems inextricably linked to his reliance on racial and ethnic antagonism. Without this divisive strategy, he would likely remain a marginal figure, confined to the political sidelines. His relentless demonization of Black individuals and immigrants has desensitized many to the reality that he is perhaps the first,…
The UK Home Office has come under sharp criticism over the release of a video attacking lawyers representing migrants. The short clip, posted on the Home Office Twitter account on Wednesday, has since...
In a bizarre moment outside, senior Trump aide Kellyanne Conway demanded to know the ethnicity of a reporter who asked her which country the four American lawmakers should return to.
CNN, July 17, 2019
Our descent into vitriol began long before Trump—and Democrats are culpable too
By Marc A. Thiessen, Washington Post, October 30, 2018
After a deranged Democrat living in his van nearly assassinated Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) firing more than 70 rounds at House Republicans practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared it “outrageous” that anyone would blame Democrats’ rhetoric for inspiring the shooter. “How dare they say such a thing!” Pelosi thundered. Never mind that the shooter echoed Democratic vitriol against the president, ranting on Facebook that “Trump is Guilty & Should Go to Prison for Treason” and that “Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”
Now Democrats are doing exactly what they condemned, blaming President Trump’s divisive rhetoric for the recent spate of mail bomb attacks and the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The truth is they ceded the moral high ground years ago. Our descent into vitriol began long before Trump--and Democrats and their allies are as culpable as the president.
Recall that in 2000, the NAACP spent millions on ugly ads accusing George W. Bush of moral equivalence with white supremacists who brutally lynched James Byrd in 1998. “My father was ... beaten, chained, and then dragged three miles to his death, all because he was black,” said Byrd’s daughter, as the screen flashed grainy images of a chain dragging a body behind a pickup truck. “So, when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.”
Barack Obama set the tone for his 2008 campaign against John McCain when he declared, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) answered that call when he compared McCain to segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace and declared that McCain was replicating the climate of “hatred and division” that led to attacks on civil rights workers. Four year later, a pro-Obama super PAC ran ads showing GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan pushing an old lady in a wheelchair over the side of a cliff, while another ran false ads blaming Mitt Romney for a woman’s death from cancer.
During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton compared Republicans to Nazis, saying in regard to illegal immigrants they wanted to “round them up” and put them in “boxcars.” She also compared the GOP to terrorists, declaring, “Now, extreme views on women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don’t want to live in the modern world, but it’s a little hard to take from Republicans.” And she listed Republicans alongside the Iranians among the “enemies” she was most proud of making.
When Trump took office, Democrats abandoned their role as the “opposition” and declared themselves “the resistance.” Look up “resistance” in the Oxford dictionary and you’ll see the definition “the use of force or violence to oppose someone or something.” William E. Scheuerman, professor of political science at Indiana University, notes the word resistance “first surfaces in debates about tyrannicide, the violent removal from power of misbehaving kings who usurp authority not properly belonging to them.” Scalise would have been forgiven for pointing out that his would-be assassin took Democrats’ calls to “resistance” literally.
More recently, some Democrats were peddling unfounded accusations that Brett M. Kavanaugh participated in gang rapes in an effort to destroy the Supreme Court nominee. Clinton defended smash-mouth tactics, declaring that “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.”
None of this excuses Trump’s rhetoric, but it does make his Democratic accusers hypocrites. When you traffic for decades in hateful, violent political rhetoric, you have lost the moral authority to effectively condemn others for doing so. Indeed, Democrats arguably bear much of the blame for creating Trump. One of the reasons voters rallied behind Trump is precisely because, after years of seeing their standard-bearers act like punching bags, Trump presented himself as a counterpuncher who isn’t afraid to fight back and gives as good as he gets. The results are ugly. Trump is wrong to call the media the “enemy of the people” and to celebrate a congressman body-slamming a reporter, and the host of other terrible things he has said. But Democrats were dragging us into the political gutter long before Trump came along. If they think Americans elected a Frankenstein’s monster, they are Dr. Frankenstein.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla | Racism quickly becomes an issue in Florida governor's race
New Post has been published on https://is.gd/8bKH1T
TALLAHASSEE, Fla | Racism quickly becomes an issue in Florida governor's race
TALLAHASSEE, Fla— Racism immediately became an issue in the Florida governor’s race Wednesday as both nominees made predictions: The Democrat said voters aren’t looking for a misogynist, racist or bigot, while the Republican said voters shouldn’t “monkey this up” by choosing his African-American opponent.
Only hours after their primary election victories, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis made clear the race is going to be a nasty contest between two candidates who couldn’t be more opposed politically.
Asked if he’s afraid of President Donald Trump’s support for DeSantis, Gillum told CNN that his race is about uniting the state.
“I actually believe that Florida and its rich diversity are going to be looking for a governor who’s going to bring us together, not divide us. Not misogynist, not racist, not bigots, they’re going to be looking for a governor who is going to appeal to our higher aspirations as a state, “Gillum said. “DeSantis can do the bidding of big business and big lobbyists and Donald Trump and his divisive rhetoric.”
Meanwhile, on Fox News, DeSantis called Gillum an “articulate” candidate, but said “the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting this state. That is not going to work. It’s not going to be good for Florida.”
Democrats immediately decried DeSantis’ comment as racist.
“That was more than a dog-whistle,” said U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, a West Palm Beach Democrat. “That was absolutely a racist, disgusting statement. I don’t think there’s any other way to interpret it.”
The DeSantis campaign clarified that his comments were directed at Gillum’s policies, not the candidate himself. “To characterize it as anything else is absurd,” his spokesman Stephen Lawson said.
DeSantis came from behind with the help of Trump to beat Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who campaigned longer, raised more money and built party establishment support.
Gillum upset a field of five that included former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, who was hoping to become the state’s first female governor and win the office once held by her father, Bob Graham.
Gillum spent the least of the major candidates, but won the hearts of those who consider themselves progressives, and got a late boost from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
They’re seeking to succeed Gov. Rick Scott, who can’t run for re-election because of term limits and is instead challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
In a state sure to be a battleground in the 2020 presidential vote, the governor’s race will essentially be a referendum on Trump.
“We’re going to make clear to the rest of the world that the dark days that we’ve been under coming out of Washington, that the derision and the division that have been coming out of our White House, that right here in the state of Florida that we are going to remind this nation of what is truly the American way,” Gillum told cheering supporters.
DeSantis also came out fighting, criticizing Gillum as “way, way, way too liberal for the state of Florida.”
“That is not what Floridians want,” DeSantis declared.
DeSantis based nearly his entire primary run Trump and acknowledged his endorsement was the key.
“With one tweet, that kind of put me on the map,” DeSantis said.
Trump weighed in Wednesday on Twitter saying that not only did DeSantis win but that “his opponent in November is his biggest dream.” He called Gillum a “failed socialist mayor” who has “allowed crime and many other problems to flourish in the city.”
Tallahassee has had one of the Florida’s highest crime rates in recent years though it has been going down.
DeSantis, who turns 40 next month, is a former Navy lawyer who won his seat in 2012 running as a Washington outsider. He ran for the Senate in 2016 but dropped out when Republican Sen. Marco Rubio shut down his presidential campaign and ran for re-election.
He entered the governor’s race a month after Trump’s December tweet that he would make “a GREAT governor.” Later Trump held a rally for him in Tampa.
Gillum, meanwhile, relied on a grassroots campaign in the big-money Democratic primary. Former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine poured $29 million of his personal wealth into the race. Billionaire Jeff Greene spent about $38 million of his own money. Orlando-area businessman Chris King also ran, and finished last.
Gillum was a 23-year-old Florida A&M student when he became the youngest person elected to the Tallahassee City Commission in 2003. He was elected mayor in 2014. He’s a gifted public speaker who did well in debates, often receiving the most applause, but the FBI is investigating Tallahassee city hall for alleged corruption.
Gillum has said he’s not a target.
Their policy differences are pronounced: DeSantis is pro-gun, and anti-tax; Gillum boasts about beating the National Rifle Association in a lawsuit and is calling for an increase in corporate taxes.
Gillum didn’t make race an issue in the primary. But he acknowledged in a recent interview that it would be “big” to be Florida’s first black governor.
“I have been really slow to try to think on it because it’s too big,” he said. “There will absolutely be a part of this that I can’t even put words to around what it might mean for my children and other people’s kids. Especially growing up for them in the age of Donald Trump.”
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON , Associated Press