I have read many of the authored posts for this site, but particularly the scores if not into the hundreds of comments that occasional posts prompt readers to write. Despite the site’s guardrails for inappropriate language, much gets through and is distasteful and disgusting for this community to be verbally attacking fellow citizens and residents. Now, we see one presidential candidate who has been the target of two attempts (one still not confirmed) on his life, blaming the other candidate and opposing political party for why these attacks have occurred. Yes, I speak of Trump accusing Biden and Harris and the Ds, but all the latter did not stoke these fires! In fact, both shooters (again, the second the other day did not actually fire any bullets) are white men and voted Republican in the past, one even acknowledged as having voted for Trump.
We have all heard the phrases, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, or, what one says or does “comes home to roost”. Isn’t that the case with Trump? What do respectful Americans, indeed Villagers, do when we hear utter lies or disparaging views coming from Trump that have included praising Nazi sympathizers (as in Charlottesville); having a Hitler look alike and sympathizer invited twice to Trump’s properties; associating with Laura Loomer who called 9/11 an “inside job” and saying if Harris wins, the White House will smell like curry (disparaging Harris’ and her mother’s heritage); utterly falsifying acts claimed to have come from an immigrant population in Springfield, Ohio eating household pets; of calling our fallen suckers and losers; of mocking the disabled; offering up racist and misogynistic remarks onto others; if he does not win, a “bloody” battle may ensue; and his biggest, backer, Elon Musk, posting a query of why Biden or Harris have not been in the crosshairs of a gun? There are scores of more examples, including Trump’s own legal convictions, but how does Trump respond? “Their [Democrats] rhetoric is causing me to be shot at”, Trump said on Fox News Monday of this week, saying also of Harris and Biden, “It is called the enemy from within”. But Trump is the one fanning these flames, since no D, and certainly not Biden or Harris, has mouthed such violent rhetoric against him!
While I realize it is anathema to this community that has voted for him in the past to scribe what I have here, there must be made known truth to Trump’s own verbiage. So long as he keeps up his vocabulary of lies, misstatements and disparaging remarks of others, it will be, unfortunately for us in The Villages and for all America, human nature, if not our First Amendment right, to respond in kind, even keeping for the few deranged individuals like the two gunmen, permission to store away for one day deadly violence. Concomitantly, the more Trump lies and disparages our fellow citizens, the more we have the right to respond by pointing out what he says and does. Again, it is not the democrats/Biden/Harris that are at fault for Trump becoming the target twice of acts of deadly violence; they are not the enemy from within. Rather, what Trump has spawned has merely come home to roost.
Miles Zaremski is a resident of the Village of Dunedin.
