Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by a_crc 1991 days ago
A "left-wing activist" actually shot the house majority whip in 2017, and he was actively trying to assassinate other republican politicians as well. [0]

I'll never vote for another republican for as long as Trumpism remains a part of the party, but we can't pretend that only one side has been radicalized to the point of violence.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...
1 comments
AnIdiotOnTheNet 1991 days ago
To be fair, a difference here is that it was one sole person committing that act, and they generally were not paraded around as heroes by people of similar political leaning. One-off stuff like that happens all the time and is not necessarily indicative of any kind of trend.

> I'll never vote for another republican for as long as Trumpism remains a part of the party

As someone who used to vote for the occasional republican, neither can I. In fact, as far as I am concerned the republican brand is now unsalvageable and any sane conservative would have to be running under a different label since I can't trust the reasoning of anyone who'd run under that one anymore.

link
a_crc 1991 days ago
I agree that the lone wolf nature of the attack makes a difference, but if we are going to paint other lone wolf shooters as products of their political beliefs then we have to apply the same standard in this case.

>they generally were not paraded around as heroes by people of similar political leaning

I would invite you to look at discussions of the incident on reddit, it might change your mind. That said, I agree that the celebration of politically motivated violence is despicable, and the unwillingness of some the members and supporters of the republican party to condemn the recent riot is a terrible mistake.

My main goal with my first comment was to remind everyone that painting the people we have political disagreements with as irredeemable monsters can drive people from both sides to violence.

I'd also like to thank you for taking the time to reply instead of downvoting and moving on, this is a tough subject and I don't think my hasty 1st comment was sufficient to the task.

link