Thursday,
June 15, 2017
Yesterday,
this country suffered another mass shooting.
A gunman opened fire on Republican members of Congress who were
practicing for a charity baseball game.
Several attendees were injured, including Representative Steve Scalise.
We’ve
had a shooting per month so far this year.
Every perpetrator has been the focus of intense investigations. The assumption is that they are all mentally
unstable. No stable human being kills
another, right? In this case, the gunman
was a political activist. He was unhappy
with our President and members of the Republican Party. He acted like many of us who are passionate
about politics. He wrote letters to the
editor. He voiced his concerns to his
representatives. He supported his
favorite candidate by volunteering to work for the campaign. Yet somehow it wasn’t enough. One wonders what line of logic made him conclude
that the only possible solution was to shoot innocent people.
As
the investigators delve more into his history, they’ve found that the gunman
had anger issues, but nothing to make anyone think that he would take his
preoccupation this far. There have been
numerous statements by members of both parties blaming the other side for the
rhetoric that has become so volatile.
Can rhetoric alone be to blame?
The
man staked out the YMCA for two months before the incident. He lived out of his car and gym bag during
this time period. He watched and waited. He cancelled his membership the day before
the shooting. This doesn’t appear to be
an act of passion, but a cold, calculated planned assault. He was no longer the passionate political
activist. He had become a man obsessed.
So
while there has been plenty of blame to be passed around, we have to take a
hard look at the atmosphere that lead up to this shooting.
This
election cycle has been the most vicious, the most divisive that I have ever
seen. The malicious language, the name
calling, and the slurs came hot and heavy.
Both parties painted the other as evil and unfit to lead. Every word, every sound bite was analyzed,
escalated and regurgitated. People
reported feeling anxious. Can you blame
them?
The
twenty-four/seven news cycle has created an insatiable demand for sound
bites. The advent of social media has
increased this exponentially. So now the
networks are competing for clicks, as well.
Click bait headlines on Facebook and Twitter are often misleading or
provocative. The public often take them
at face value rather than clicking on the link and reading the attached
articles. Although I don’t believe networks
like CNN are “fake news,” there are fake news organizations. These sites spew out specious, purposely
misleading reports. It is difficult to
tell what is real anymore and this confusion adds to the unease.
Perhaps
the worst offender is the public, the people we see every day on social
media. Social media can be a great place
to discuss politics, but it has disintegrated into hate filled forums. People now have a strong emotional investment
in their political parties. They are
unwilling to listen and debate as adults.
The conversations degenerate into hate filled dialogues. As a result, everyone feels invalidated.
Individuals
like yesterday’s shooter are marginalized.
This vitriol fans the flames of their anxieties and insecurities. They believe their voices are being
intentionally ignored and rationalize that what they do is the only way they
will be heard.
So
is there a solution? I don’t have the
answers. I do know that this country
cannot survive another election like the last one. I know that there will always be people who
are on the edges of society, either by mental illness or isolation. And we all know that the networks won’t be changing
their financial model anytime soon.
Wolf
Blitzer interviewed Jane Sanders, the wife of Senator Bernie Sanders, about
this topic today. Blitzer showed a clip
of Senator Sanders calling President Trump, “the worst and most dangerous
president in the history of our country.”
Blitzer asked if Sanders had gone too far. . Mrs.
Sanders emphasized that placing comments in context is important. She blamed the media for fanning the
flames. Short sound bites don’t reflect
the overall intent of the speaker.
Should
the inflammatory rhetoric stop? Yes, but so does the finger pointing. The media’s responsibility is to report and
often what they report is incendiary. When
a political figure makes a strong statement, it is their job to relay it, but
it does need to be placed in in context.
In
turn, our nation’s governmental representatives need to dial it back. In the interview, Jane Sanders made an
excellent point. She recommended that
issues should be discussed without demonizing the opponent. This applies to all of us. Too many times we get caught up in the
moment. We spend way too much time on
social media (and yes, as a blogger I see the irony in that statement.) As a result, we make these topics an integral
part of our day. Passion and energy have
their place in the political process, but we shouldn’t lose perspective.
So
what can we do? We need to spend less
time on social media. We need to be scrupulous in what we read and not take
everything at face value. We can stop
reacting to anyone who holds a different view than our own and when we choose
to join a conversation we should do so in a responsible manner. If the other party does not act in the same fashion,
walk away. It isn’t worth it.
The
rhetoric has got to stop and it has to start with us.
