Chris Truax

Opinion contributor

Between the attempted bombings of prominent Democrats and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, America has had an awful run-up to the midterm elections. And President Donald Trump and his surrogates are making it worse.

There is no question that America’s political and social fabric is being badly frayed by the anger on both the left and the right. But rather than viewing this as a problem to be solved, the official line coming from the White House is that no one — certainly not Trump — bears any responsibility for the actions of a few “crazies.”

No one, they say, blamed the Democrats for the attack by a Bernie Sanders supporter that severely injured House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Perhaps not, but Sanders did not tell his supporters that Republicans were treasonous or that members of the news media were “enemies of the people.” Sanders never congratulated anyone for physically assaulting someone.

Nonetheless, the argument being put forward by even traditionally responsible conservatives such as Hugh Hewitt is that no matter how “enthusiastic” their rhetoric, it is deeply unfair to blame political figures for the acts of their most fanatical and obsessive followers.

History of Trump fans threatening violence

This is profoundly hypocritical. The people now defending Trump’s rhetoric are the first people to condemn Muslims who preach contempt for their perceived “enemies” in the West, and they are right to do so. While the vast majority of Muslims will not respond with violence, there is a fanatical fringe that will. But Trump’s defenders cannot, then, disavow responsibility when their own fanatics take up arms against the “traitors” and “enemies of the people” whom they themselves have preached against.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the reflexive “whataboutism” that seeks to absolve Trump of responsibility for these attacks by pointing to excesses on the left. What about Rep. Maxine Waters? What about "antifa" far-left militant groups? What about liberal mobs chasing Trump’s supporters out of restaurants?

What about them?There is no “crazies” arms race where each side must maintain a balance of unhinged fanatics as part of some political “mutually assured destruction” policy. Unilateral crazy disarmament is perfectly workable. That there are badly behaving people on the other side is no excuse for tolerating them on your own.

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Mob rule? Forget it. The First Amendment is not a license to protest anywhere, anytime.

But the biggest problem is that Trump and his supporters have a pattern here. Cesar Sayoc, the man charged with the attempted bombing of at least 15 of Trump’s “enemies,” including CNN and Hillary Clinton, is just the latest in a long line of very disturbing Trump supporters threatening political violence. Even during the election, some of his fans were publicly threatening to stage a coup and shoot Clinton. One ex-member of the House, Joe Walsh, tweeted in 2016: “On November 9th, if Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket. You in?”

While Sayoc is, no doubt, a very disturbed individual, there are many such people in the world. The rhetoric Trump often uses is intended to excite and motivate. And if you have ever seen one of his rallies, you know just how effective it is. Though most of his supporters would not go as far as any sort of violence, some will. Not only has Trump been warned about this time and time again, he has also seen people at his rallies physically assaulted by the crowd.

Something like the Sayoc episode was completely foreseeable. Despite this, Trump has made no effort to dial back his rhetoric. If anything, he has engaged in even more inflammatory attacks in the run-up to Election Day. I doubt seriously whether Trump actually wanted any sort of political violence. Instead, he was simply indifferent as to whether it occurred.

Trump's moral negligence led to Sayoc's bombs

There is a doctrine in criminal law known as “wilful, wanton, reckless murder.” With regular murder, you must have the intention to kill. But with wilful, wanton, reckless murder, while you do not have the intention to kill, you do something very dangerous without really caring or considering whether someone might get killed. The classic example is someone intentionally firing a gun into a house without knowing whether someone is inside. If you kill someone, you are a murderer, whether you intended to shoot them or not.

This is not to suggest that Trump is somehow legally responsible for what Sayoc has done. The president, like all of us, is protected by the First Amendment, and nothing he has said is or should be illegal. Even so, not everything that is legal is wise, and our moral responsibilities are broader than our legal responsibilities. Both Trump and those who have refused to condemn his excesses are morally responsible when his supporters, even his craziest supporters, act on those excesses.

It is true that there are people behaving horribly on both the left and the right. But neither is an excuse for the other. Even if you’re not religious, the Bible has a lot of good, practical advice. For example, it teaches that you should first cast the beam out of your own eye before you try to cast the mote out of your brother’s. And that’s exactly what we should be doing.

I will leave the task of confronting Waters and antifa to the Democrats. As Republicans, we have quite enough work to do.

Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego, is on the legal advisory board of Republicans for the Rule of Law.