A recent letter to the editor in The Citizen argued that political violence in the U.S. should be blamed on Republicans. I would like to point out a few things that the writer appears to be unaware of that might influence your opinion about this issue.

First, politically motivated violence in the U.S. in recent years has overwhelmingly come from the left. I’ll list examples at the end of this letter since there are so many.

Second, where the author of that letter gives examples to back up his arguments he uses misleading or false statements. I’m not suggesting he is being intentionally deceptive; he may have heard these from sources he trusts, but they are still misleading.

This is, unfortunately, a common ploy of the left today, make a slight change of wording, omit an important fact or ignore the context and, voila, you can dramatically change the meaning of someone’s words or actions.

One brief example: at a press conference President Trump was asked about MS-13 and he talked about deporting them and called them animals. Democrats and the usual suspects in the media immediately claimed he wasn’t just talking about MS-13 but about all immigrants.

The author cites events in Charlottesville to bolster his claim, but the violence in Charlottesville was instigated by the left. The Charlottesville incident is practically a case study in selective reporting – Ann Coulter has documented this extensively.

My third issue with the letter is that the author is apparently unaware of all the examples of leaders of the Democrat Party using language that is incendiary. Barack Obama told his followers to “get in people’s faces” and said “if they bring a knife, you bring a gun”. Hillary Clinton recently said that there will be no civility until the Democrats are back in power. Eric Holder recently said “when they go low, we kick them.” Maxine Waters has repeatedly encouraged Democrats to harass and threaten Republicans in public. A Democrat Congresswoman from Hawaii was asked whether this tactic was going too far – she dodged the question repeatedly, effectively giving it her approval.

The author gives himself away a bit in his own letter: “Can you blame Democrats for seeking alternative forms of protest?” He also closes his letter by stating that until the public yields to the political left’s demands, “political violence will be a consistent feature, not a bug, of our fragile democracy.” It’s Republicans’ fault when Democrats are violent!

Political violence is wrong and inexcusable and should be denounced by all sides. And unlike the previous author I will not wrap up my letter with any equivocation to excuse or wave away any of it.

Finally, examples of political violence from the Left:

• Riots in Washington, D.C., Berkeley, Seattle and Portland.

• A Bernie Sanders volunteer attempting to murder dozens of Congressional Republicans and nearly killing Representative Steve Scalise.

• In 2015 a gunman tried to murder everyone at the Family Research Council because they supported the traditional definition of marriage.

• Senator Rand Paul was attacked in his front yard and had to be hospitalized.

• Police officers have been murdered in New York City, Baton Rouge and Dallas, just to cite a few cities.

• Tucker Carlson’s home was recently surrounded, his door pounded to the point of damage and his family threatened by a mob – “we know where you sleep at night.”

• Numerous cases where Conservative speakers were prevented from speaking on a college campus by violence or the threat of it.

• As of July 2018, Breitbart.com listed over 600 examples of “media-approved violence and harassment against Trump supporters.”

Steve Metz
Peachtree City, Ga.