All of these hate crimes seem clearly linked to the climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress and the media.
It cannot be put more directly. This is not a partisan statement. It is a connecting of hate crimes to their immediate source, killers already sick and warped enough to hate and kill others, currently stimulated by the hateful lies espoused daily by President Trump.
The alleged killer of 11 Pittsburgh Jewish worshipers believed he was attacking those who belonged to the religious and ethnic community who organized the marchers headed for our southern border.
That is a lie put forth by Trump and his allies. The man who lied about the size of his inauguration audience, now tells dangerous lies for votes and cares not for the evil those lies evoke.
Krugman expands:
The man arrested at the Tree of Life synagogue has been critical of Trump, who he apparently believes isn't anti-Semitic enough. But his rage seems to have been fueled by a conspiracy theory being systematically spread by Trump supporters -- the claim that Jewish financiers are bringing brown people into America to displace whites.
This conspiracy theory is, it turns out, a staple of neo-Nazis in Europe. It's what our own neo-Nazis -- whom Trump calls "very fine people" -- were talking about in Charlottesville last year, when they chanted, 'Jews will not replace us.'"
False equivalence, portraying the parties as symmetric even when they clearly aren't, has long been the norm among self-proclaimed centrists and some influential media figures. It's a stance that has hugely benefited the GOP, as it has increasingly become the party of right-wing extremists.
You might have thought that the horrifying events of recent days would finally break through that norm. But you would have been wrong. Bothsidesism is, it turns out, a fanatical cult impervious to evidence. ...
This needs to stop, and those who keep practicing bothsidesism need to be shamed. At this point, pretending that both sides are equally to blame, or attributing political violence to spreading hatred without identifying who's responsible for that spread, is a form of deep cowardice.
This is no time to waste on whataboutists and bothsiders.
The evil of this moment, before the November 6 election, and the compounded evil that awaits if President Trump and his Congressional allies remain in power, demands a change in national leadership.
There is evil rampart in the world, which is what the "whataboutists" say to deflect your disagreement with our homeland evil. And those "fair-minded" among us will whine "there are two sides to every issue."
Not this time, is the right answer to the "bothsiders." The man we elected President in 2016, is unfit for the office,
If you were born and bred to be a Republican, and you know your grandfather expects you to remember your promise to never leave the party, tell him, "this Trump-compliant party, is not your Republican party, Grampop."
Paul Krugman ends his column:
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