06.08.2019, Washington.
The cult of violence, which has become widespread in the United States today, is obvious, and it is resulting in terrible consequences, Republican congressman Steve Scalise wrote on Twitter on August 4.
“Violence is glorified and normalized on our screens every day. Instead of seeking professional help for mental health problems, men are being radicalized in online forums,” Scalise wrote.
The politician stressed that in a media culture that encourages viewing people solely through hyper-partisan lenses, and not as neighbors and fellow citizens, dangerous division and hatred of those you disagree with is the outcome. This can often lead to violent consequences.
Commenting on the last weekend’s tragic events, Scalise stressed that reducing them to talking points and name-calling in support of narrow political agendas only further divides our country.
Three mass shootings took place in the USA last weekend: 9 people were killed and 26 wounded in Ohio, 20 killed in El Paso, and seven wounded in Chicago. Commenting the reports of the first two incidents, US President Donald Trump said that the shooters cannot be considered normal people as they are mentally ill.
Editorial comment
One could think that Trump’s statement is obvious: a person who goes out armed into the street and shoots dozens of people, whom he does not know, including little children (the youngest killed in El Paso was two years old), is not normal. However, these words by the US president resulted in a burst of anger among his opponents in the Democratic Party, who insist that attributing murders to the murderer’s mental illness is a trick used by arms manufacturers. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is proposing a bill that would limit the use of weapons, and the Republican Party is blocking it.
In the meantime, people kill, and people die. The US political communityh continues to dispute whose bill the nation needs the most. While fighting for votes, it neglects a certain fact: weapons have always existed in the USA, but frequent mass shootings are a contemporary trend.
Congressman Scalise is definitely right, but what he describes is a consequence. The cause is, however, that any ability to reach a reasonable agreement has been excluded from the US domestic political reality, which was especially vividly demonstrated by the political perturbations of the recent years, when blatant lies and propagandist zombifying attacks on the public opinion have left no room for reason and deliberation. Because no one intends to return to reason, trying instead to propose more bills, the situation will only deteriorate. And this is something the USA is doing with its own hands.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
