Let's call Springfield what it is: Republican-made terrorism
The Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, is in a helluva lot more danger right now thanks to the convicted felon, Donald J. Trump, than Trump ever was while working hard as always on the campaign trail at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.
Further, AMERICA is in a helluva lot more danger right now, thanks to the America-attacking Donald J. Trump, than it has been in recent memory, because this soulless bully has spent the past nine years sowing violence and spreading lies and distrust in a country he’d rather split in two than unify.
These facts have never needed saying more, because whatever happened in the proximity of that golf course Sunday, and what we know has been happening in Springfield, Ohio, and all over this country the past decade are the direct result of a cruel and callous Republican Party that has shown us time and again it has no respect for the rule of law, the truth, or keeping Americans physically and mentally safe.
The Grand Old Party is once again up to their grand old slimy tactics of trying to divide and conquer us. They are eagerly planting the seeds of discord and hate, poisoning the wells of reason and hope, and then having the unmitigated gall to tell us that they alone can heal the patient they have so clearly tried to sicken.
Too many people will recognize this as a textbook case of abuse. If Americans are hopeful and healthy, the abusive Republican Party will have lost their power and control over their victims.
ALSO READ: Trump won Tuesday’s debate like he won the 2020 election
As usual, the media is having a tough time framing this moment in American history, so I’m here to help drag them out of the mud, while I talk to brave readers who have spent their lives traveling the high ground to a better, safer and more just America for ALL its citizens — readers who have been truly shocked and saddened by what has happened to our country in the nine, terrible years since Trump started polluting it in earnest.
We are tired, but we are righteously marching to toward the light, and will not be once again dragged into the darkness.
Put simply: We are not going back.
After weeks of spreading incomprehensible, repulsive, racist lies that Haitians in Springfield were stealing and eating the dogs and cats of their neighbors — even draining the ponds in town of their geese — word got out late Sunday that the despicable Trump might have been the target of yet another alleged assassination attempt.
I believe the word “assassination” is being used fast and loose here, given the alleged shooter never had line of sight on Trump while he was golfing, but I do take deadly seriously the danger of any man walking around our streets with enough weaponry to take out a company of army soldiers.
I am not for one minute minimizing the terrifying dangers of the thousands of angry men who own these mass-murdering firearms in this country. No, I’ll just leave that to Trump and his despicable NRA-owned Republicans who most certainly are minimizing this danger, and have been for decades ...
They love all these guns. That one might be turned against them is the most predictable thing I’ve ever seen. That one would be time and again turned against innocent little boys and girls in our schools is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.
This gun violence is a Republican-made problem. PERIOD.
There’s not a Democrat I know who thinks these weapons belong anywhere in this country. Every one of them believe these weapons of mass destruction have no place in the hands of any citizen of the United States. Yet here was a 58-year-old madman in Florida, who needed only present an ID and a few hundred dollars to easily outfit himself with everything he needed to hunt human beings down on our streets.
Republicans, not Democrats, have set the stage for these gruesome events to happen over and over and over again. These loudmouths scream their heads off about securing our borders, when they don’t even have the slightest idea how to secure our damn golf courses or schools.
I mean …
And people better understand this: Nobody wants Trump (or anybody else) shot dead in this country. Sure, I’ll be glad when he’s gone, but first I want him soundly defeated at the polls, and finally put on trial with the fervent hope that a jury of his peers will lock him away forever where he belongs, so America can truly be a safer place to live.
It is Republicans like Trump who have countless times openly threatened the lives of our Democratic leaders, not the other way around.
In 2016, Trump bellowed to a rabid crowd on his scorched campaign trail that if “She (Hillary Clinton) gets to pick her judges, there’s nothing you can do, folks.”
When the crowd booed he added this: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know ...”
I could spend an hour citing more examples of repulsive threats like these, but the point is this: Putting people’s lives in danger through violent rhetoric is a Republican-made atrocity. They see “fine people” in murdering racists, and violent attackers who mean to end our country as “victims” and “tourists.”
While the story in West Palm Beach is still developing, we know for sure that there have been at least 33 confirmed bomb threats in Springfield, Ohio, that have led to the evacuations of schools and city buildings in yet another American city that didn’t deserve this.
State troopers have descended on Springfield, because people are on edge and living in fear thanks to the leaders of the Republican Party who want it this way. This is the America THEY have created, because these ghastly people see it as their only way to win in November.
They actually WANT us living in fear.
Can we stop for a minute and consider this madness?
You know, there is actually a perfectly good word to describe this, and one that our working press really needs to start using pronto.
It is called TERRORISM … And it is Republican-made.
ALSO READ: Trump won Tuesday’s debate like he won the 2020 election
D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.