Trump was right, it’s time to fight

I love Michelle Obama. l loved her in the White House, and I love her outside of it, too. But I did not love her “When they go low, we go high” motto, and how many interpreted it to mean we should stay classy even in the face of total buffoonery.

Since President Donald Trump was injured during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., we’ve been mostly united in saying political violence cannot be tolerated. And some people who have suggested otherwise are now looking for work.

But an injured Donald Trump is still Donald Trump, and he is still pushing a dark and dystopian political vision that, if implemented, will land hardest on populations whose members are already struggling.

So we can — and should — hold two thoughts in our heads, and then act accordingly. We can — and should — condemn political violence, and mean it. And we can — and should — condemn the man who built his candidacy and presidency around inciting violence, and who was, is, and forever shall be unfit to be president.

Let us not forget the countless documented examples where Trump has used violent rhetoric, including saying shoplifters should be shot, suggesting the United States’ top general be executed, and mocking a political opponent’s husband who was beaten with a hammer.

Oh, and he also incited an insurrection.

Neither the Democrats nor the media did that. It was all Trump, though some in the GOP were quick to blame both for the actions of the 20-year-old registered Republican who opened fire on Saturday, striking the former president, killing 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, and seriously wounding two others.

When it comes to inciting violence, calling someone a threat to democracy — as multiple politicians and members of the press, myself included, have done — is a far cry from Trump praising Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte for assaulting a reporter. (“Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my type!”) Or lauding law enforcement officers for killing a self-described antifa member suspected of killing a right-wing activist. (“That’s the way it has to be. There has to be retribution.”)

Or repeating the lie that the election had been stolen at a rally preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and capping it with marching orders. (“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”)

After Trump was injured, both Republicans and Democrats were quick to call for unity, but it didn’t take long to see that it isn’t unity Republicans want. It is submission.

And too many Democrats were quick to oblige. President Joe Biden halted campaigning. Others pulled negative ads and refrained from criticism of Trump. They went high even as many Republicans continued to find new lows.

I can appreciate why at the NAACP convention on Tuesday, Biden said, “We all have the responsibility to lower the temperature and condemn violence in any form.”

The rules of polite society dictate that we mind our words and tone, especially in the aftermath of a crisis. But when that approach only serves to mask the truth, it’s gaslighting.

From where I sit, blind dedication to playing nice looks a lot like bringing a pool noodle to a knife fight.

Politicians who have gone limp need to find a mirror, stat, and ask themselves: Do I want to be polite, or do I want to tell the truth?

On the opening day of the Republican National Convention on Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene attacked transgender people and “illegal aliens.”

That same day, Sen. Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, called Democrats “a clear and present danger to the country.” He, at least, blamed his comment on a teleprompter loaded with the speech he planned to give before Saturday’s shooting.

It turns out that unreliable teleprompters, which many Republicans have said makes Biden unfit for office because he uses them in numerous news conferences, are a bipartisan problem. House Speaker Mike Johnson abruptly walked off the convention stage Monday after a teleprompter malfunction.

Is that too snarky? Am I going low? I don’t think so. I’m pointing out the glaring double standard and hypocrisy of the moment. Is any Republican calling for Greene’s resignation? Because I’m here for it.

I’m also looking to Trump for how we need to proceed.

In the chaotic moments when Secret Service agents surrounded a bleeding Trump and hustled him offstage to safety, Trump — whose ear was grazed by the would-be assassin’s bullet — raised his fist in the air.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” he appeared to say, once he’d asked the agents escorting him off the stage to let him find his shoes.

I’ve agreed with almost nothing Trump has said. But I agree with this: We should fight.

Despite how people (mis)interpret Obama’s motto, shared during her speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention while endorsing Hillary Clinton, she never meant we should turn the other cheek.

“Going high means finding the purpose in your rage,” she later explained. “Rage without reason, without a plan, without direction is just more rage. And we’ve been living in a lot of rage.”

We have a reason for our rage: to hold onto the country many of us love enough to demand better from and to rage against those who threaten to drag us backward.

And we have a plan: to fight — by educating ourselves and each other, by voting, by not giving up, and by never, ever allowing ourselves to be convinced that patriotism means acquiescence.