Saturday, October 27, 2018

Hard to Watch

The end of a week of political violence in the US. The inevitable next step down on this seemingly endless downward spiral staircase. At a high cost to innocents, we collectively learn that words matter. I have no illusions that this will reduce the quantity of vile rhetoric the comes largely from Trump and GOP, but I have some hope that the people that matter, the people that vote, will no longer tolerate the vitriol because now they understand that such words cost innocent lives.

Yesterday, I watched President Obama's rally speech in WI--an intelligent, fact-based, thoughtful discourse on the current American body politic. If you juxtapose this speech with any of Trump's speeches, you are struck by just how far we have fallen. For example, see this completely fact-free highlight reel from a West Virginia rally with a helpfully sycophantic lead-in from some random FoxNews personality.

After each of these steps downward, we are left wondering how much lower it can go.