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Republicans: Don’t blame bombs on Trump since we didn’t blame Scalise shooting on Bernie

Unlike Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Democratic lawmakers have not repeatedly advocated for violence against political opponents.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) on Fox News on Thursday
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) on Fox News on Thursday. CREDIT: Fox News screenshot

For the past several years, Donald Trump has openly advocated for violence against political opponents. Now, after at least eight of those critics were sent pipe bombs in the mail, Republican lawmakers are rushing to reject any suggestion that the president’s rhetoric might have inspired the violence.

On Thursday, three members of Congress made the somewhat stunning argument that Trump should not be blamed because none of them blamed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or Democrats writ large for the shooting at a Republican congressional softball practice in Alexandria, Virginia in June 2017 that injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA).

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tweeted on Thursday with the argument that he didn’t blame Sanders for that shooting and thus wouldn’t blame Trump for this one.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) made the argument on Fox News on Thursday morning. “I don’t think that you can blame President Trump,” he said, noting that it is “not healthy” to send pipe bombs. “But trying to be able to blame President Trump is absurd in this process. We didn’t try to run ‘blame all Democrats’ when a shooter came to shoot Republicans at a baseball field to say ‘all Democrats are to blame for this and their rhetoric.’ So that’s uncalled for.”

Not long after, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) also joined Fox News and made a similar argument. “I’m a member of Congress with Steve Scalise and when the shooting happened on the baseball field, it was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. And Republicans said, ‘You know what, lo and behold, it’s probably not Bernie Sanders who did it. It’s probably not the fault of Democrats.'” He observed that his party didn’t “try to throw hate for days with 24-hour panels talking about Democrats and how ridiculous they are.”

The very network on which the two appeared, a day earlier, had to interrupt its fear-mongering coverage of the Democratic “mobs” that had insulted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at a restaurant to cover the breaking pipe bombs story. And many on the right did attempt to blame Sanders and Democrats for the shooting by a former volunteer on his 2016 presidential campaign.

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But the biggest problem with these statements is that they are not at all analogous. Sanders and Democrats in Congress have urged their supporters to be vocal in their opposition to the Trump agenda, but have consistently opposed violent rhetoric and actions. Trump has done the exact opposite.

From praising Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) for illegally assaulting a reporter (“any guy who can do a body slam, he is my type!”), to urging gun violence against Hillary Clinton (“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”) to promising his supporters that he would “pay for the legal fees” if they “knock the crap out” protesters, Trump has made advocacy of violence against his critics a staple of his political rhetoric. Rather than hold their party’s de facto leader accountable for that, they are simply opting massive false equivalencies.