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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 2018)
O P IN IO N 2 Are you ‘complicit with evil?’ YOU DON’T HAVE TO PICK A SIDE IN RHETORICAL POLITICS BY IAN VA’N ORDEN ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR . ‘ PRINT Editorial g j|| I Fake N e w s. N a z is. F a s cists. A re you com plicit w ith evil? Though extrem e political rhetoric has existe d since th e ea rlie st days o f our country, it’ s hard to deny that we live in an extremely polarized climate today. The last decade has seen a shift towards extreme tribalism , w ith citizens and voters being pulled to one side o f the aisle or the other by the party they belong to. Today, you’re either a Republican or a D em ocrat. You either support President Donald Trum p or you’ re part of the resistance. There’ s very little room for nuance. A p art o f th is s h ift h a s b e e n th e ram ping up o f speech used on both sides, M a n ÿ w ould p lace th e b lâm e fo r th is on the President, w ho undeniably uses speech that would have previously been considered unbefitting o f the office of the presideiit. President Trum p con stan tly derides specific medià organizations, such as C N N , for being “ fake new s.” Supporters o f the president elected him for this same rhetoric, exhausted by the shift of those on thé left towards ideas like political correctness. W h o’ s really to blam e? Is it President Trump? The “ Fake News” media? Liberal or conservative p o litician s? A ll o f the above. CLACKAMAS Editor-in-chief I t ’ s im p o ssib le to p in p o in t ex actly w hen this process began, w hen political rhetoric began to ram p up the way it has, but it has certainly accelerated during the President’ s term. Recent events have made that quite clear. Ju s t th is w e ek, tw o in c id e n ts have b een W idely reported b y various new s o rg a n iza tio n s . The m o st re c e n t, th e shooting at the Tree o f Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday, took the lives o f 11 victim s. Six others were injured, including four responding officers. The suspect in the shooting, who was taken into custody after a gunfight with police, is believed to have shouted anti-Sem itic com m ents w hile initiating the attack. The secon d, ta k in g p lace la st w eek, involved a m an sen ding pipe bom bs to various liberal figures, including Hillary C lin to n and fo rm er P resid en t B arack O b am a. N one o f th e devices exploded, but the intention was clear. It d idn’t take long for the President’ s rhetoric to be blam ed for both attacks. “ You can draw a direct line from all of the vitriol and hate rhetoric about the caravan th at’ s som e 2,000 m iles away from our border and th e gu n m an in P ittsb u rgh , who referenced that, and somehow turned it into an attack on Jew s,” said CN N host Alisyn Cam erotaon Monday, referring, in part, to the President’ s own words about the m igrant caravan currently m aking its way through Mexico. Likewise, in the afterm ath of the pipe bomb incident, CNN political analyst John Avion took the tim e to list how many times the President had criticized the targets of the pipe bombs, implying that his rhetoric was the reason for the failed bom bings. It isn’ t, however, reasonable to blam e the President for every attack th at has taken place over the last few years. Only a few weeks earlier, after all, a Utah resident m a ile d su sp icio u s en v e lo p e s to th e President as w ellas other military leaders, some o f which contained ingredients used in the creation o f the poison ricin. 2017 saw the shooting of House Majority W hip Steve Scalise, a Republican House Representative from Louisiana w hile he played baseball w ith a num ber o f other members of Congress. Scalise was critically injured in the shooting, as was M att Mika, a Tyson Foods lob b yist, w ho was shot m ultiple tim es. Visit theclackamasprint.com for the continued opinion indepth Whiteh6use.gov . Victoria Durling ctiiefed@clackamas.edu Managing Editor Jared Preble maned@dackamas.edu Arts & Culture Editor Ian Van Orden aced@clackamas.edu Sports Editor Jacob Thompson sportsed@clackamas.edu Piloto Editor Jonathan Villagomez photoed@clackamas.edu Multimedia Editor Summer Barraza webeditor@ctackamas.edu Design Editor William Farris Designed@clackamas.edu Staff Shawn Tapley Rachelle Peiffer Adviser Melissa Jones MelissaJ@clackamas.edu’ The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased and pro fessional manner. Content published in The, Print is lo t screened or subject to censorship. Brett Kavanaugh, left, is sworn in as the United State’s 114th Supreme Court Justice on Oct. 6. Before the Kavanaugh scandal, U.S. Senator Cory Booker said supporters of Kavanaugh were “complicit with evil.” Read more about Booker on our web published article. ON THE COVER: Cover art by Eric Carlson. Design by William Farris. The Clackamas Print is free, but please take only one copy. Any person re-j moving our papers in bulk will be prosecuted to the full extent of the October 31, 2018
