The Brennan Center has put out a report entitled “Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders” on the rising tide of politically motivated threats, violence and intimidation in our public life, especially focused on elected officers, government workers, and candidates for public office. The trends they document that have emerged since that moment when Trump glided down the gilded elevator in 2015 and announced his candidacy are deeply alarming.
This is not the America that I was taught to respect and revere as a bastion of democratic values. It’s not an America in which I want to live. I don’t want citizens to feel that they have to withdraw from public life, elected office, and speaking out on public policy issues – even highly controversial ones – in order to keep themselves and their families safe in America. The purposeful creation of fear of political engagement is characteristic of authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China, not of a free society.
But this is where Trump has led too many of our fellow citizens. And this fact alone is the best reason to despise and reject him than just about any public policy he’s ever espoused. The way that he’s coarsened and radicalized our politics to the point of violence and the routine threat of violence is perhaps the best reason in the world for even committed conservatives to reject him and his leadership, and to consider withholding their vote for him and candidates who support him in coming elections.
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with this summation.