The Blame Game

The blame game is in full swing, and Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, are the ones using inflammatory rhetoric to fan the flames. "He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it," Trump said of the gunman hiding on his golf course. "Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country -- both from the inside and out."

While blaming Democrats for using "highly inflammatory language," Trump went after Biden and Harris with highly inflammatory rhetoric of his own. In a social media post on Monday, Trump went on the attack:

"These are people that want to destroy our country," Trump said. "It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat." Trump accused Democrats of making "false statements" about him that "has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust."

Because of this "rhetoric," the "bullets are flying, and it will only get worse," Trump claimed.

Vance has echoed this approach. At the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition Dinner, he said: "And I know it's popular on a lot of corners of the left to say that ... we have a both-sides problem. And I'm not going to say we're always perfect. I'm not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right. But you know, the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we -- no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months."

"I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out," he continued. "Somebody's going to get hurt by it, and it's going to destroy this country. Somebody is going to get hurt."

Republican senators have echoed that refrain. "When you hear on TV and radio and on social media about, 'This guy's Hitler, this guy's fascist, he's a threat to democracy,' what do you expect?" said Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.

And what do you expect when you hear Donald Trump call his opponents "vermin" and "the real threat" that he has pledged to "root out"? What do you call it when he accuses Democrats of staging a "coup" against Joe Biden, what does he mean when he says "we have to save our country, we can't play games"? Who calls the opposing party "Marxist" and the "enemy from within" that poses a more pernicious threat to America's well-being than foreign enemies? Donald Trump has proposed that his opponents be subject to military tribunals for treason, urged his supporters to "go after" the New York attorney general and said that Democrats are destroying the country.

There is absolutely no evidence that the would-be shooter in Florida or the shooter in Pennsylvania were in any way triggered by Democratic rhetoric. And there is no evidence that foreign governments were involved, notwithstanding Trump's claim in Michigan that his proposed 200% tariff on foreign automobiles may have led foreign governments to target him. "And then you wonder why I get shot at. ... Only consequential presidents get shot at. When I say something like that, you have countries saying, 'this guy ... '"

There is, however, evidence that Trump's and Vance's wholly unsupported lies about the Haitian community have resulted in bomb threats and school closures.

"It's time to say to the Democrats, to the media, to everybody that's been attacking this man and censoring this man for going on 10 years: Cut it out before you get somebody killed," Vance said.

Nobody is censoring Trump's lies. He keeps repeating them every day. The Haitian community, which is not protected by Secret Service, is understandably frightened as a result of Trump's rhetoric. The fact that no one has yet shot at Kamala Harris does not mean there have been no serious threats against her or Joe Biden.

The Secret Service obviously needs whatever resources it takes to protect the candidates -- even in the face of unplanned golf games. And the rhetoric needs to calm down. Trump told Fox News that he doesn't engage in inflammatory speech, but that just isn't so. He does, and it produced violence and deaths on Jan. 6, and could do so again. Election workers are also targets of Trump's inflammatory rhetoric, and they are rightly afraid as well. You shouldn't have to be a hero, or a martyr, to count ballots. These are public servants. After the first assassination attempt, Trump called for unity and, for a brief period, discouraged the blame game. It's time he renounced it altogether.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.