I think most of us have heard the news about the guy who was sending pipe bombs to Democratic leaders and critics of President Trump. When the news first broke, one of the things I immediately thought was “I wonder how each side will see this?”
Naturally, people on the left pointed out that Trump is to blame for this because of his attacks on the media and things he has said about political opponents. Pretty much a fair criticism. You cannot constantly say that Democrats and the media are enemies of the people without expecting some of your followers to take that literally.
But what did people on the right have to say? Conspiracy! Usually some kind of false flag operation. Barack Obama and the rest of the bomb recipients were sending them to themselves. And before you say “oh Josh, that is just a small group of fringe conservatives!”, these are things I heard from actual people at work or saw fairly normal folks posting on social media. Even after the guy was caught, plenty of these people are saying “this all seems a bit fishy!”
There was also the other group of people who say things like “it is a shame those bombs didn’t go off! We need a few less crazy Dems out there.” I hope they are trying to be funny.
Anyways, I see all of this stuff and I wonder if this were reversed, would people on the left react the same way? Like, if Mitch McConnell received a bomb in the mail, would liberals be like “I bet he sent it to himself to earn sympathy votes!” I do not think so. I am sure most of the Democrats would say something like “oh my god, there are some seriously crazy people out there and I hope they catch this weirdo soon. Glad that Senator McConnell is safe!”
This is our country now. It is sad.
