Some Perspective on Our Political Division
page four
THIS ALL IS UNACCEPTABLE FULL STOP.
Every American must now come together to vigorously protect and defend the First Amendment as if our democracy depends on it – because it does.
The Trump/Vance administration and their authoritarian army have brought this nation dangerously close to the place we were when President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. Department of Justice instigated the Palmer Raids, a series of violent and abusive law-enforcement raids conducted during the Red Scare of 1919-20 to capture and arrest alleged socialists, anarchists, and communists – with usually NO EVIDENCE – and deport them from the country. Back then, most of the focus was on Italian and Eastern European Jewish immigrants who supposedly had “leftist” ties (again, there was usually no evidence of this). In the end, over 6,000 people were arrested across 36 cities, sparking race riots and two separate bombings.
This was followed by McCarthyism in the late 1940s through the 1950s, a disgraceful time in U.S. history when Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy alleged that hundreds of Communists had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies. This nightmare finally ended during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, when Boston lawyer Joseph Welch – who had been hired by the Army to defend it against these offensive Communist allegations – infamously said to McCarthy: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness… You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”
Our First Amendment rights are everything and our defense of them must transcend the political quagmire we have gotten ourselves into. We cannot be like that frog in the pot who, because the temperature is raised ever so slowly, doesn’t realize he is getting boiled to death until it’s too late. If we allow anyone to weaken our rights in any way, that’s the ball game. Game over.
As our hero, the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said in his Plea for Free Speech in Boston: Free speech “of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down… Thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, founded in injustice and wrong are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence.”
The Holocaust Encyclopedia paints an even clearer picture: “When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted.”
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr acknowledged this himself when he said in 2019 that “outsourcing censorship to the government isn’t just a bad idea, it’s a violation of the First Amendment. So, I’m a no on that,” and in 2023 when he said, “Free speech is the counterweight – it is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.”
Learn more about 1787’s Plan of Action to Protect Free Speech
Listen, up. Even though conspiracy theories abound – naturally – as far as we know Tyler Robinson reportedly confessed to killing Charlie Kirk. That’s it. Not them or they, he. One man… not everyone who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, one man.
Sadly, in a country of over 340 million people, there will be people who do bad things. There will be people who say bad things. There will be people who insult other people. There will be people who kill other people. But to equate the actions of one person to 75,017,613 people is beyond absurd.
… and suggesting loathsome words and deeds come only from “the left” is flat out ridiculous. For President Trump to call out the “tragic consequences” of “demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible” as if he doesn’t engage in this very behavior multiple times A DAY is laughable.
Even at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service – where Kirk’s grieving widow said that she forgave his killer “because it was what Christ did, and it is what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love.” – Trump said, “Charlie did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”
There is quite obviously plenty of blame to go around on all sides. For example, to spread conspiracy theories about – and make a joke of – the murder of a 31-year-old husband and father of two is as screwed up as doing it when an 82-year-old man is beaten with a hammer by a psycho with political grievances. Paul Pelosi – who is former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy’s husband – had not even gotten out of surgery to repair his fractured skull before Republicans started in. Donald Trump mocked the attack at a California GOP convention in 2023, asking the crowd, “How’s her husband doing, anybody know?” His son Don Jr. shared an image on social media of a hammer and a pair of underwear with the words “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” Republican governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin jokingly said at a campaign event that he was going to “send Nancy Pelosi back to be with (her husband) in California.” Conservative radio host Larry Elder tweeted that Nancy Pelosi was weighing legislation to restrict “assault hammers.” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) – the same genius from earlier – claimed Pelosi’s attacker was a “nudist hippie male prostitute” and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) tweeted “LOL” alongside a meme poking fun of the attack.
After Charlie Kirk’s murder, those on the right were quick to point out all the threatening or violent acts carried out by the people on the left, including the time in 2016 when far-left protesters showed up at a neo-Nazi rally in Sacramento and at least eight people were injured; the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) at a practice session for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in 2017; the time a self-identified Antifa supporter shot and killed Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer; the armed man who planned to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022; the shooting of two Israeli Embassy aides in May 2025; and the two school shooters who were transgender in Nashville and Minneapolis (even though, in these cases, the motives were determined to be fame, not political ideology).
But what about the man – who, in pictures taken from social media accounts, once wore a Pro-Trump shirt with the message ‘Make Liberals Cry Again’ – who rammed his car into a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan before setting it on fire and shooting at congregants less than three weeks after Charlie Kirk’s murder? What about the right-wing antisemitic extremist who shot 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 during Shabbat morning services? Or the one who killed a woman and injured three others, including the rabbi, at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California in 2019?
What about the far-right white supremacist who shot and killed ten black people at the Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Buffalo, New York in 2022? Then, just weeks later, the thirty-one white men from the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front who were arrested heading to the Pride in the Park Festival in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho with metal shields, smoke bombs and riot gear?
What about the three “Boogaloo Bois” who destroyed government and private property during protests in Las Vegas on May 30, 2020, and the time a man with neo-Nazi and white supremacist views killed eight people and injured seven more in a mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas in 2023?
What about the far-right extremist who fatally shot state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in Minnesota, and the 13 hard-right militants that plotted to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan? What about January 6th – which one might even call a failed coup d’état (defined as a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government) – when some from the right violently tried to stop the constitutionally mandated congressional electoral vote count.
The fact is, by all accounts, violent far-right perpetrators like white supremacists and anti-government extremists have committed the most U.S. terrorist attacks in recent years – by far. While incidents are increasing from the left, the numbers are not yet close to comparable. (read more here)
… and we seriously doubt the 77,302,580 people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 would think it was fair if they were grouped together with those who committed any of the heinous acts mentioned above.
All that said, the right/left scorecard – and who did what, when – doesn’t matter one bit at this point. We only bring these examples up because so many on the right have the audacity to say violence is coming from just one side – which is just 100% false.
The bottom line is this ALL must stop. Immediately.
Let’s start here: We’re just not that different. Regardless of our personal views on political and social issues – and despite our race, religion or social class – we all want pretty much the same things for ourselves and our families. All of us simply want to live a happy, productive life. We want to earn a respectable living and be able to enjoy the social security we have contributed to. We want to properly educate our children and know they will always breathe clean air and have satisfactory health care. We want to spend quality time with our friends and family who unconditionally love us and want the very best for us. We want to feel safe from those abroad as well as with those who live among us.
At the end of the day, when you tune out all the manufactured noise, the tapestry that binds all Americans is tightly woven with the common threads of family, freedom, optimism and hope.
Regardless of what some toxic people want us to believe, the truth is that what creates a bond between us is far more powerful than anything that may separate us. The solid constitution of this country – established with a firm foundation by the Constitution – is unyielding. The hallmarks of the American experience are a commonality of virtue and decency that permeates throughout this country and an unrelenting faith that we will find our way.