4) Pretending This Rhetoric Is Abnormal

People accuse their political opponents of being responsible for bad things all the time. Clinton accused Trump of being ISIS’ top recruiter. Bush’s CIA and NSA chief said Trump was a “recruiting sergeant” for ISIS. Former NYC mayor Rudy Guiliani said Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS.

Carly Fiorina and Rick Santorum placed blame for ISIS on Obama and Clinton. Sen. John McCain said Obama was “directly responsible” for the Orlando ISIS attack due to his failure to deal with the terror group. President Obama said he couldn’t think of a more potent recruiting tool for ISIS than Republican rhetoric in support of prioritizing help for Christians who had been targeted by the group. Last year, Vanity Fair published a piece blaming George W. Bush for ISIS. Heck, so did President Obama.

There are many other examples. This type of rhetoric may not be exemplary, but we shouldn’t pretend it’s unique to Trump.