Political violence is wholly un-American. Our Constitution provides a framework with nearly unfettered freedom of speech, allowing us to address our grievances in the court of public opinion rather than shooting at each other.
When leftists like Wajahat Ali lament the violence in D.C. against members of the National Guard, it's important to remind people how they chose to use their words to frame the men and women of the National Guard in the weeks and months leading up to the attack.
More speech defeats bad speech. That's the American way.
If your knowledge of Wajahat began yesterday, you'd see a man who appears to respect the National Guard but blames Trump for deploying them (a ridiculous stance on its own).
We weren't born yesterday, however, so we know the message he's been sending for months.
Do members of the National Guard deserve better than to be characterized as loose cannons who are going to 'inevitably' kill an unarmed person?
That's the insane messaging coming from the Left currently: Two guardsmen were shot because they were deployed in the nation's capital.
Really let that one sink in. We shouldn't have an expectation that the men and women who serve in uniform can be deployed to an American city safely? That's really what they're going with?
He began painting the deployment of these service members as a mission to 'terrorize' American citizens many months ago.
They were 'unleashed' on DC, according to Ali - participants in Trump's coming dictatorship.
He went even further with ICE, calling the men and women who serve to enforce immigration law Trump's Gestapo, while including the National Guard as enabling an authoritarian takeover.
In Wajahat's telling, DC businesses were struggling because people were, presumably, afraid of the presence of the National Guard. Where would they get the idea that men and women sworn to protect the citizens of the United States were scary? Thanks, Democrats.
When Wajahat really wants to boost those clicks, he throws in a Hitler image and links the honorable service of National Guard members to the actions of Nazis.
It didn't take Wajahat long to get back on message, however. He quickly jumped back to playing the race card, given that reporting pointed to the attacker being an Islamic terrorist.
All we need now is Obama to come out and lecture us about Islamophobia.
Yep, the guy who spent months disparaging the National Guard is tired of bad-faith outrage.
What about your outrage, Wajahat? Do we believe your months-long insult campaign against the National Guard was sincere, or was it all just hyperbole in your incessant over-the-top rhetoric to attack Trump? We really hope it's the latter, but you need to do better either way.
That's the proper way to file away Wajahat's opinion on this matter.
He should start by asking himself why National Guard troops aren't safe in the nation's capital, instead of looking for ways to fuel his Trump outrage.
Ultimately, individuals are responsible for their own actions, including violence, despite the narratives that are pushed by the political class. We'll be here exposing bad ideas from folks like Wajahat the American way - with our words.
Editor's Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.