When you preach the politics of divisiveness, you end up with stories like this:
LONGWOOD, Fla. — The home of a Central Florida Republican headquarters manager was shot up and damaged over his support of Sen. John McCain, the man told police.
Rog Coverely said several pellets pierced his Longwood home. Coverely showed several spiderwebbed-holes in the front windows of his home.
The Republican manager said he is convinced he was targeted because of new McCain signs he added around his home.
The first thing that jumps out at me is that the victim is claiming it was done because of his support for McCain. There is no evidence of this, just his claims, and yet Drudge is pushing the story like this:
The key word missing there is “allegedly”. There is no proof of this yet, just the victims claims. But lets assume this is the case, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it was.
John McCain has had his campaign and surrogates out there pushing a message of hate. They have been called out on it countless times and even suffered the loss of some Republican supporters over it. These kind of actions are sure to follow McCain’s message of divisiveness. Sure people might get pissed at Obama and turn that rage into action, but the people who support Barack Obama, a majority of this country, can also feel the pain and end up taking action against John McCain.
This is the exact reason McCain campaign rallies are such a dangerous breeding ground. The are inciting rage and that is the catalyst to violence. You would think a 72 year old veteran like McCain would know this, but apparently he doesn’t.
Now let’s leave the assumption of the victim being correct for a minute and switch to something else. There are a lot of Republicans who are livid over the current state of the GOP. Who’s to say one of these people didn’t target this man? That’s another scenario that is quiet possible.
The best way to handle a story like this is to let the police do their jobs and figure out the motive. Hopefully they will catch these criminals and make them pay for their crimes. There’s no place in our democracy for actions like this, but there is also no place for promoting such actions through hate speech. Maybe John McCain will take notice, but I highly doubt it.