US Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona was shot 9 years ago today. I wrote shortly afterward 1/x
edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/0…
edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/0…
But I warned in 2011, this anti-violence taboo was being corroded by leading right-wing voices - who were providing advance justification for political violence. 2/x edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/0…
President Trump relocated the permissions office for right-wing political violence from TV and radio to the West Wing. Pro-Trump talkers argue that most Trump supporters would never themselves engage in violence. Of course that's true. 3/x
https://twitter.com/DavidBrodyCBN/status/1347168885045424130
But Trump himself has again and again *urged* political violence as a tool of power, culminating in Trump's incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress. To support Trump was, at a minimum, permission to *him* to continue to foment political violence for his own ends. 4/x
Two days after the attack on the Capitol, US society is struggling to reassert on the taboo on political violence. This has to be an effort by all sides, and it's welcome that eg Senator Tom Cotton has been so outspoken.
https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1347246847371440129
And that's why it's also important that society express its united condemnation of those who in any way equivocate on political violence - by, for example, cancelling their book contracts. 6/x
Because the fact is that even now, those who justified and incited violence in the past continue to justify and incite violence now. 7/x
https://twitter.com/GoAngelo/status/1347267821710024705
That's the value of a Trump impeachment process. It's an opportunity for those who may have been aligned with Trump in the past to separate from him, redeem themselves, and reaffirm the democratic rule that there can be no appeal from the ballot to the bullet. END
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