A Trump supporter named Dan Bowman recently said in a newspaper interview the following about Hillary Clinton: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot … We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take.”
Folks like this believe what Trump has told them with increasing urgency and venom now that it’s pretty clear he will lose the election: that the election is rigged, that there’s a massive conspiracy to take him down, that Hillary Clinton is the very incarnation of evil.
To any of you reading this who are caught up in these violent sentiments and impulses, to any of you who find them repugnant but not necessarily dangerous, I would say: We are at a true tipping point now.
We should be shaking in our boots at the real possibility that our country could veer perilously off course and devolve into a nightmare of out-of-control partisan frenzy fueled by anger and disaffection — with possible devastating, horrific consequences.
We must let mature reason and common sense — not runaway hatred and suspicion — reign as we work together, in vigorous debate at times, to deal with the many issues that demand our attention and concern.
In other words, we need to let our democracy, warts and all, continue to work.
Ted Tsoneff,
Port Angeles