Once again Donald Trump has captured the national conversation by breaking yet another abiding American principle. Once again he has proven himself unfit for the office he seeks.
Incredibly, Trump impishly ad-libbed Tuesday at a rally that if Hillary Clinton were elected president and had her way in stacking the Supreme Court with — as Trump would have it — anti-gun judges, maybe there would be something “the Second Amendment people” could do to stop her.
While Trump’s aides rushed to present the statement as a call to political action, it strains credulity to believe that most viewers would view such encouragement — such incitement to violence — as acceptable.
In Colorado, a state famously and repeatedly victimized by gun violence, and copycat gun violence, Trump’s suggestion rings especially frightening.
But here we are. A presidential nominee for a major political party running at time of national unrest marked too often by violence, mass shootings and now lethal ambush attacks on police officers should understand — all the way down to his blood and bones — not to make jokes suggesting assassination of political foes.
Even for those who wish to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, we would argue that the comment was at least ill-advised and, at worst, reckless to the point of disqualification. Sure, one possible benefit the blustery New York billionaire has brought to the race has been his ability to channel dissatisfaction toward a culture too often stymied in its discourse and debate by out-of-control political correctness.
Trump has repeatedly broken the rules and disrupted traditional politics, his supporters will note. He has at times one-upped media critics grown too comfortable in their Beltway ivory towers, such reasoning goes.
Fair enough. One of the powerful strengths our nation possesses is the ability to laugh at ourselves when needed and our to challenge traditions that have ossified and thereby become unwieldy.
But this latest controversy goes way too far and may be the most damning thing he’s done on the trail. From the start, Trump’s desire to mix it up has too often broken standards that took too much work and suffering and — at times — bloodshed to produce and protect. The list is by now obvious and tiresome to most readers. Now Trump has proven that he does not understand that one of the truly great successes of a modern democracy is its ability to sublimate violence and replace it with the rule of law, representative government and debate.
We took a hard line against Trump on the eve of the Republican National Convention, stating that he was too dangerous for his own party, much less the country. Doing so carried some risk, for Trump could have pivoted, tamed his primary trail persona and come out of his convention with a calmer and more acceptable demeanor headed toward Election Day.
Sadly, a calmer and more acceptable approach isn’t in his bag of tricks.
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