OPINION:
Sen. Rand Paul hit the nail on the head in an interview with Kentucky radio host Leland Conway when he predicted this hotly charged political atmosphere was going to move from mayhem to murder.
Remember Rep. Steve Scalise? It already very nearly did.
“I really worry that someone is going to be killed and that those who are ratcheting up the conversation — they have to realize that they bear some responsibility if this elevates to violence,” he said, Mediaite reported.
Are you listening, Rep. Maxine Waters?
Check out these headlines from just this June: “Maxine Waters Calls for Violence Against Conservative Republicans,” ran one YouTube title. “Maxine Waters Commits Sedition, Calls For Violence Against Trump,” ran another. And yet a third, from a Glenn Beck video: “Maxine Waters calls for more mob violence: ’You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’”
If she were the only one.
Capitol Hill was just filled with scores of like-minded lefties, heck bent on keeping Justice Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court — and after they lost that fight, equally heck bent on keeping President Donald Trump and the Republican Party from scoring any more judicial or legislative wins.
The world’s gone crazy, as they say. And it’s courtesy the left; simply put, Republicans don’t behave like Democrats-slash-progressives-slash-socialists do when they lose political battles.
Republicans don’t take to baseball fields, ask which political party is practicing and then go on shooting sprees. It’s amazingly lucky Scalise survived; it’s amazingly good fortune there was a firearms’ carrier on the field who put a stop to the gunman’s evil politically motivated designs.
As Paul put it — the same Paul who was recently physically attacked by his Kentucky neighbor — some people “are unstable,” unable to control their emotions and actions.
“We don’t want to encourage them,” he added.
No, we don’t. The left may — the Maxine Waters of the world may, the Cory Bookers who advise leftists to approach Republicans and “get up in their face” may, the Nancy “Summer of Resistance” Pelosis may.
But the sane and sensible of the country?
We don’t. Conservatives, by and large — Republicans, as a party, as a group, as a political ideology — definitely don’t encourage, incite or condone violence. Fact is, the phrase “liberalism is a mental disorder” didn’t go mainstream and stick for nothing. Paul’s right; it’s only a matter of time before the violence turns deadly and the bat-wielding political protesters of the Democratic Party become the bat-bashing murderers of the left.
Democrats need to turn inward and police their own before it’s too late.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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