Donald Trump isn’t the only one who’s not apologetic about his role in inciting violence from mail bombs to an anti-Semitic mass shooting. While Trump is distinguishing himself with things like tweet-attacking Tom Steyer just days after he was targeted with a mail bomb sent by Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc, other top Republicans are joining Trump in doing less to disavow violence than to blame it on Democrats:
“You could say [Democrats are on the] defensive after encouraging the mob scene at the Kavanaugh hearings,” Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday, referring to the political showdown over Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation this month, in which liberal activists protested outside the Capitol.
Yes, that’s the number two Republican in the Senate equating nonviolent civil disobedience with more than a dozen bombs.
Sen. James Lankford brought up a favorite new Republican talking point, that the man who shot Rep. Steve Scalise at a Republican softball practice had been a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer. Which might be relevant if Bernie Sanders had ever said the kinds of things about Steve Scalise and House Republicans that Donald Trump routinely says about the people Cesar Sayoc targeted. And if Republicans want to take that as precedent of some kind, they might take a look at Sanders’s response: he immediately came out and personally said that “I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be: Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms. Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values.”
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