‘Nice try, lefty.’ Readers react to Bee column on Trump and hate speech | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Reader emails reacted strongly to column linking Trump to hate speech rhetoric
- Cato Institute study showed right-wing attackers caused 11% of political killings
- Column noted both left and right engage in hate speech and political violence
My recent column about hate speech, in which I showed how President Donald Trump and other conservatives engage in the very speech they blame on liberals, inspired some readers to react in emails to me.
Here is what they said (the emails and signatures are presented as they were sent):
The left’s “hate speech” incites violence ... that’s the difference. Nice try to dissemble and deflect, lefty.
— gibbon-roster
I don’t recall ever being called a “lefty” before, and I don’t pitch a baseball with my left hand.
That said, studies done in recent years indicate two things. One, political violence is actually a small part of the overall violent crime in America. Second, what political violence does occur is more often commited by someone on the conservative side of the spectrum than the liberal side.
That stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric of President Donald Trump and Republican leaders who blame leftist ideology and groups for creating the climate that to the Sept. 10 shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
A study for the Cato Institute that published the day after Kirk was assassinated found that 83% of people killed in political violence in the last 50 years were victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Thus, Islamic terrorists were the top cause of such violence. At second place were right-wing attackers, “accounting for 391 murders and 11 percent of the total. The definition here of right-wing terrorists includes those motivated by white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy (incels), and other right-wing ideologies,” the Cato study said.
“Left-wing terrorists murdered 65 people, or about 2 percent of the total. Left-wing terrorists include those motivated by black nationalism, anti-police sentiment, communism, socialism, animal rights, environmentalism, anti-white ideologies, and other left-wing ideologies.”
It goes without saying that no one should be killed for the words they say.
Several hundred words about political violence and not a single one about transtifa. You can’t talk and weasel your way out of responsibility for this one. Things have changed. Sorry. You’re gonna need a new playbood. (sic)
— Kurt Kehlenbeck
There is no doubt that left-leaning people have committed political violence in the last 50 years. But so have conservative-oriented attackers, as explained above.
As for “transtifa,” I take that as a reference to how the Kirk shooter might have been in a relationship with a transgender person, which investigators have still to explain. Antifa, or anti-fascist, is a movement on the left that sometimes espouses violent means to its end.
Your op-ed is timely and correct. Thanks again for the brave and helpful comments to clarify the obvious contradictions. To this president and his ideologue supporters, it matters little about cognitive coherence of thought and practice or even truth.
— Malik Simba, Fresno
I do hope the contradictions are being recognized. My column pointed out how hate speech is committed by those on both sides of the aisle, including Trump, who has called liberals such terms as “vermin” and “scum.”
Same old legacy media talking points. Dems call people Nazis, fascists, deplorables etc. and you wonder why murders happen. Cities burn and people died after a criminal is killed in 2020 but have not seen one not after Kirk’s murder. Why don’t the fascists riot? Wouldn’t Hitler want a riot? Then even better Legacy Media now screams cancel culture when celebrities and others mock the murder or make up fictional stories. Dems will never figure it out. As well as The Bee which might as well just move on.
— Mark Babiarz
Mr. Babiarez’s reference to “legacy media” is to The Bee having been a newspaper for most of its century-plus history. We are now a digital news site as well, getting millions of page views per month.
It is true some Democrats have called Trump a Nazi. That is regrettable. But he certainly has pushed executive action to the point of authoritarianism. Consider how his administration has ignored judicial orders to return people who were deported without due process; revoked federal spending authorized by Congress; used masked agents to grab people off the streets and into unmarked vans for holding at secretive locations.
Trump is our greatest President ever. brain dead joe the worst
— Gerajd Dixon
There is no need to further disdain the former president. He lost the election and is now off the political stage.
As for Trump being the “greatest” ever, presidential historians will offer George Washington or Abraham Lincoln into that conversation, too.
Your hate speech editorial hit it out of the park. Statcast shows 465 feet to deep center field.
— Mike Reddin
It is nice to get complimentary fan mail, but all perspectives are welcome. Keep them coming!
