Not rocket science: Extreme political rhetoric eventually has consequences |
Not rocket science: Extreme political rhetoric eventually has consequences
If Cole Allen, the man charged with trying to assassinate President Trump last Saturday night, is found guilty of his crimes, he may very well spend the rest of his life in prison.
This was not some social outcast living on the margins of society. He was an intelligent man who graduated from one of America’s most prestigious research universities — the California Institute of Technology — serving as a leader of the school’s Christian Fellowship.
So how could such a man do what he’s accused of doing?
From his social media posts and his manifesto, we get a glimpse into his mindset. He didn’t just oppose President Trump — he despised him and held him in utter contempt. “I experience rage thinking about everything this administration has done,” he wrote.
“Rage.” That word matters. Rage isn’t simply about the force we conjure up to sound tough when we want to win an argument or to come off as morally superior in an election. Rage is about something else entirely. It is about seeing your opponent not simply as wrong, but as intolerable.
When you get to that point, anything is possible. The normal rules of a civil society go out the window.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week, psychoanalyst Jonathan Alpert offered an observation that should give all of us pause.
“When people are described as fundamentally dangerous or illegitimate,” he writes, “it changes how actions against them are seen. For most people, that language remains mere language. But for someone unstable, hearing it........