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Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand
New book about the 2020 election.

Saturday, October 27, 2018

Divider

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character. During the campaign, he openly encouraged violence by supporters.




During crises, past presidents tried to unify the country. Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker at WP:
This week offered a fresh example of Trump’s alternative approach: As pipe bombs were discovered addressed to prominent Democrats and a news network that have been subjects of Trump’s caustic campaign-trail attacks, the president sounded a call for national unity.

But the words rang hollow throughout the week as Trump assailed the “Fake News” media, shirked any personal responsibility for his incendiary rhetoric and, on Friday morning, used his bully pulpit to advance a baseless conspiracy theory that the bombs were both fake and orchestrated by the left. Roughly an hour later, authorities arrested 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, a man in Florida with a lengthy criminal record whose white van was covered in pro-Trump and anti-Democratic images.

Later Friday afternoon, as he departed Washington for a rally in Charlotte, Trump told reporters he has no plans to tone down his rhetoric — “I could really tone it up,” he said — and noted that the suspect “was a person that preferred me over others.” He also rejected the notion of responsibility: “There’s no blame. There’s no anything.”