When I was little, I had this one teacher that always told us, “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words will never harm you.” Seemed simple enough. As I got older though, I began to see some clear flaws with that turn of phrase. Major historical atrocities, from slavery to genocide were done by policies – words. Meanwhile, some words are just plain dehumanizing and spiritually hurtful, creating a precursor to anger and resentment.
Words provide a context for events to play out and establishes the norm of what is acceptable. Once that context and norm is created it is often difficult to undo.
For the past decade or more, Donald Trump has been one of the most aggressive, insulting, firebrand politicians in modern American history. Everything, according to Mr. Trump is to the most extreme. The greatest x ever, when speaking of himself. The worst x ever, when speaking of opponents. He has denigrated and insulted wide swaths of the American public without remorse, peaking with a speech that arguably triggered the events of January 6, 2021.
In the last two months, Mr. Trump has had two attempts on his life, which is truly unfortunate. My heart goes out to him and his family. Investigations do show both attempts have nothing to do with Democrats, but he has nonetheless extended blame to alleged extreme rhetoric of Democrats, literally disregarding his own rhetoric and responsibility for, establishing a context of anger and resentment.
Maybe Mr. Trump and his surrogates need to go back to grade school to learn a new proverb, “Stick and stones may break bones, but words can break a society.”
I'm Joseph Flynn, and that is my perspective.
