I really do wish that inspirational social media posts saying "It's time for unity" and "Let's put politics aside in the face of the this tragedy." worked in the real world. Not to sound overly cynical, but they don't work-at least not for long. The political parties are so vastly different with contrasting views and thoughts that there is little room for unity in politics. You also have the troubling fact that when one party says "Unite" it means "unite under my values and ignore yours."
But I am glad that everyone is condemning the shooting at the baseball practice in the harshest terms. It turns out that the guy who shot the congressmen was a Bernie Sanders supporters and of course, most Bernie supporters are condemning the shooter-as they should and I'm very proud of them. Of course, the right are classifying all Bernie supporters as prone to violence and the left is washing their hands of the actions of this one lunatic. It must be said that if the shooter was a right winger all the roles would be reversed.
And that's the problem with politics today.
All of us-you, me, Carlos, Karen do the same thing. We don't look inward and admit that our side has just as many fools, maniacs and zealots than the other side. We're so obsessed with being right that we can't look inward and engage in self critique. Would that have stopped the shooter yesterday? Of course not. A maniac with a gun can only be stopped by a good guy with a gun. It's a reminder though that hatred and anger have real consequences in the real world and they can be very dangerous.
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