Despite his achievements, in terms of tolerance the president is doing enormous harm to our country and its discourse. Nowhere is this clearer than in his treatment of news outlets that criticize him. This is not to say that the news media does not often beclown itself in its treatment of Trump’s presidency. It does. But to claim that makes them the enemy of the American people deadens the values of a great republic.
When CNN or the New York Times is wrong, inaccurate, or biased, it is enough to say so. Calling them the enemy is an invitation to ignore what they say or, worse, to engage in violence, something we saw with a supporter of the president sending bombs to CNN. Increasingly, too many conservatives are saying that we are at war with progressives, that they want to kill us, or destroy our way of life. This kind of rhetoric is anathema to America and better suited to the European Middle Ages or the current deadly conflicts in the Middle East.
Conservatives, once happy warriors glad to engage because they believed in their ideas, are increasingly hiding behind bunkers. We used to say that conservatives disagree with liberals, while liberals hate conservatives, but this high ground, if it ever existed, has been undermined and leveled.
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