The country needs “a better path for our politics”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer called on the country on Sunday night to “take a better path for our politics,” a day after a gunman attempted to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally.
Whitmer, a Democrat, frequent Trump critic and co-chair of President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, called for unity in an eight-paragraph statement from her office and called the shooting a “heinous act of violence.”
“Let’s take a better path for our politics,” Whitmer said. “When you see unproductive words aimed at dividing us, call them out, no matter who they come from. Hold each other accountable, including in our own party.”
“Let’s show our children that the nation they will inherit is worthy of their love. Call a relative you haven’t spoken to in a long time and tell them you love them. Put down the phone and talk to your neighbors. Because this all begins and ends with all of us.”
On Saturday evening, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks is said to have opened fire from a rooftop outside a Trump rally in Pennsylvania before being killed by the Secret Service. Images of Trump bleeding from one ear after the shooting went around the world over the weekend, just before the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday.
In her statement, Whitmer said the shooting was “the culmination of a troubling, years-long trend in our politics.”
The governor referred to the plot uncovered by law enforcement to kidnap and use violence against her in 2020, as well as the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as federal lawmakers met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“There is rhetoric behind all of these incidents,” Whitmer said. “We have seen calls to hate, harm or imprison political opponents. Violent conspiracies from the seediest corners of the internet have been integrated into campaign speeches.”
“We have lost the thread when it comes to how we talk to and about each other.”
Whitmer, 52, is widely seen as a rising star in Democratic politics and has previously spoken out against what she sees as inflammatory political rhetoric from Trump himself.
In October 2020, after the kidnapping plot against her was uncovered, Trump criticized Whitmer, saying she called him a white supremacist instead of thanking him for federal authorities foiling the plot against her.
Whitmer responded at the time, “If you’re as tired of this divisive rhetoric as I am, we can do something about it,” and shared a link to a website that helps people register to vote.
In her statement on Sunday, Whitmer said people need to remember that although they are on different sides of the aisle, they all want the same thing.
“Our children go to the same schools,” Whitmer said. “We shop at the same stores. We live in the same cities. If you love your country, you love your countrymen. That’s the way it is.”
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/shawmedia/FZ7BLWB5C5ETVOMYG7644FO4A4.jpg "The Raue Center musical ensemble has a unique partnership with an amateur radio club and will participate in Field Day on Saturday – Shaw Local")
The Raue Center musical ensemble has a unique partnership with an amateur radio club and will participate in Field Day on Saturday – Shaw Local
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