1. As we talk about the #MAGABomber and the meaning of his actions, I think it would help if we kept in mind a concept that historians have been discussing since the late 1980s, POLITICAL CULTURE.
2. The bomber is responsible for his actions, but to at least some extent, so is the MAGA political culture of which he drank so deeply. 
3. Political culture is a concept that allows us to think about political actors not just as individuals advancing interests, but also as subjects whose worldviews have been shaped by cultural forces that operate often behind their backs. open.lib.umn.edu/americangovern…
4. Political culture establishes the boundaries of what is acceptable speech and behavior. As in, until 2016, using openly racist and misogynist language was something that most Republicans shied away from. And then Trump started calling Mexicans rapists, women ugly, etc.
5. MAGA political culture (anti-PC political culture) has basically normalized and legitimized forms of speech and behavior that had previously been somewhat constrained by the rules of American political culture. Trump broke those rules and changed the culture, for some.
6. There is definitely a distinction to be made between words and actions, between circulating a hateful meme and actually trying to cause someone physical harm.
7. But we are kidding ourselves if we don't recognize that this is not a hard and fast distinction...I mean, even conservatives would admit that the culture established within a family unit shapes the sorts of behaviors their family members might engage in.
8. Why should a nation be any different? What sorts of permission structures do we establish through our actions and our statements? How do people respond to those permission structures? Culture is, in many ways, a road map...what does MAGA political culture value and encourage?
9. The challenge we face is that as a nation we rightly value free speech. We want our culture to be as open and unregulated as possible. Yet it's also clear that toxic political cultures produce toxic political subjects, inclined to engage in toxic behavior.
10. We've counted upon our leadership class to be somewhat responsible in how they use words, in how they speak of their fellow citizens with whom they disagree. Our President has zero interest in such self-constraint, in fact he prides himself on his lack of it.
11. I don't have any easy answers as to how we deal with this dilemma...how we navigate out of the poisonous political culture we've found ourselves saddled with since 2016. But we should resist reducing this story to being solely about one "Florida man" who did some bad things.
