It’s amazing how fast the rhetoric on the attempted bombings in the U.S. turned from we have to come together to blaming the media and all the other usual targets.
Less than 24 hours after news broke about the mail bombs sent to the Obamas, the Clintons, CNN and others, Trump is blaming the media and his extremist right-wing supporters are suggesting that it was all a left-wing plot, that Democratic plotters sent the bombs to make Republicans look bad.
Because, you know, nobody on the right side of the political spectrum would ever advocate violent action. Except for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has encouraged mob violence at his rallies, tweeted videos of himself physically attacking a man with a CNN logo imposed on his face and, oh yeah, just recently made jokes supporting a Republican congressman convicted of assaulting a reporter.
So it is just a coincidence then, that the suspicious packages were sent to political opponents that Trump has done his best to demonize?
This wouldn’t be of concern if Trump-style populist politics didn’t keep oozing over the border, but there are clear signs of it in Canada from the election of Doug Ford to the anti-immigrant, racist and other xenophobic sentiments we see expressed online in social media. Trump may have changed political discourse forever, and not for the better. Whether he’s gone in a year, in two years or, heaven forbid, six years, the flames of anger he’s been fanning will continue to burn.
It’s something Canadians are going to have to actively oppose lest we lose our core values of creating a just society based on respect and inclusion. Someone opposing your political views isn’t an enemy, someone who chooses a different lifestyle isn’t a threat to yours.
It’s time we started focusing on valuing the diversity that strengthens and enhances our country, not the U.S. route of forcing everyone into the same mould.
