Please Stop: Both Sides of the Political Aisle Contribute to the Incivility in Our Public Discourse

Words have meaning.

Words, in fact, have the power to help or heal. They also have the power to destroy lives and burn down societies.

Such is the power of language, and for those who are in positions of authority, it behooves them to wield that power for the common good.

If you want to hear an example of someone in authority being absolutely derelict and reckless, consider the words of California Representative Maxine Waters.

On Saturday, Waters used the issue of detained immigrant children and family separation at the southern border to rally her supporters and the nation’s Democrat base to go after Trump administration officials, as they’ve done recently.

In the past week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was harassed and chased from a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service in a Lexington, Virginia restaurant and asked to leave.

She did so, with no incident.

Those are just several examples.

Speaking to her supporters on Saturday, Waters displayed what will be a Trump campaign ad for months:

“I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it is wrong what they’re doing on so many fronts but they tend to not want to confront this president,” Waters said at a Los Angeles rally on Saturday.

“For these members of his cabinet who remain and try to defend him they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store, the people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president ‘no I can’t hang with you, this is wrong this is unconscionable and we can’t keep doing this to children,’” she continued.

The emphasis there is mine, because it becomes an important distinction, later.

President Trump, whose entire portfolio of mismanagement of the presidency will be weighted down with both incompetence and incivility charged back at Representative Waters on social media Monday (of course), and did so, using the third leg of his legacy: Dishonesty.

“Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!” the president said in a tweet.

Again, the emphasis there is mine.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018

Do you see the difference between what Waters said and what President Trump signaled to his supporters that she said?

To be clear, Maxine Waters did a despicable thing, and anyone truly paying attention to the woman’s career should only expect the worst out of her. She’s horrible, irresponsible, and it is appalling to consider this person is given a platform in government to push her poison.

You’re a hateful, vile woman, Ms. Waters.

Outside of the office, nobody deserves to be harassed in the manner Waters is suggesting for those who work in Trump’s cabinet.

That being said, she was very specific. Her ire was for Trump Cabinet officials, not common citizens.

Trump mischaracterized what she said, with the intent to rile up his MAGA base, make them feel like war is being waged against them.

He even brought Nancy Pelosi into it, and to be fair, Pelosi spoke against what Waters had said. Several Democrat lawmakers have spoken up to defend their Republican colleagues, today.

They get that Waters is not stable, and she does not speak for the entire party.

Donald Trump’s supporters do not possess the kind of intellectual strength required to resist the call to go to war, based on one of his random tweets.

If nothing happens in the meantime, we have at least 19 more months of dealing with Trump’s attempts to whip up bedlam among the populace, hand over our position on the world stage to dictators and communist despots, and to weaken our foundation.

We are a nation set adrift, and both sides of the political aisle in Washington are contributing to the decline.