I was interviewed by WND regarding Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) recent speech where Waters told people, “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, at a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, you tell them, they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
MAXINE WATERS’ ANTI-TRUMP SPEECH ‘INCITEMENT’ (WND)
Republicans and even top Democrats are condemning Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for urging Trump administration critics to confront cabinet officials in public places, a call that a prominent political and media commentator regards as on the brink of “incitement.”
American Women’s Alliance President Gayle Trotter, who is also a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel’s “Media Buzz” program, says comments like those raise political tensions to a dangerous level.
“It’s terrifying and shocking that a sitting Congress member would rile the crowd up like that. One of our most esteemed constitutional rights is the First Amendment protection of political speech. But this speech by Maxine Waters almost goes to incitement.” —Gayle Trotter
On Monday, the top two Democrats in Congress denounced the call to confrontation.
“No one should call for the harassment of political opponents, that’s not right, that’s not American,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who also noted that he “understands” the inclination of Democrats to respond in kind to President Trump’s “bullying harassment and nastiness.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., struck a similar tone in a tweet.
“In the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable. As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea,” tweeted Pelosi.
Trotter is not impressed.
“Pelosi’s comment is equivalent to saying, ‘Her skirt was too short.’ It’s trying to pin the blame on the victim, instead of really calling out a member of her caucus and saying this is completely unacceptable.” —Gayle Trotter
Trotter wonders why Pelosi won’t call on Waters to resign.
But are these confrontations a result of high passions over immigration policy or the inevitable progression of a toxic political culture?
“This seems to be a progression that is getting more dangerous all the time,” said Trotter.
And while Waters’ comments are getting quite a bit of media attention, Trotter says if the political tables were turned, liberals and the media would be howling in protest.
She points to the New York Times and others blaming Sarah Palin, without basis, for the 2011 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords while seeing no larger issues in the Waters comments even as another Homeland Security official found a decapitated and burned animal on his front porch.
“In past circumstances, the press has made up these types of examples. Yet here, if you go to the editorial page of the New York Times, there were no [columns] there talking about the danger of this effort to target anybody in the Trump administration,” said Trotter. . . . (read the whole article)
