Suspicious packages containing pipe bombs were found throughout the week starting on Monday the 22nd of October up until Friday the 26th. Partisanship definitely played a role and political violence is a suspected motive as only known Democrats around the nation, including CNN offices, received such suspicious packages originating out of Southern Florida. Thankfully, no one was injured as all of the packages were intercepted before they reached their targets. Democrats immediately began blaming Trump for creating a violent political climate and inciting such violence whereas Donald Trump immediately pointed his finger at the "fake news" media. He blames them for the current hostility and division of today's politics in America. Donald Trump's call for unity on Wednesday the 24th led nowhere and simply furthered attacks regarding his questionable rhetoric. As for the upcoming midterms, analysts suggest that stories like these undercut from President Trump's "Jobs not mobs" campaign message. Others say that this could motivate his base to vote. If one thing is for certain, the two parties continually refuse to unite, even under circumstances such as these. My guess is that, like many other news stories, this will seemingly disappear and we will soon forget any of this ever happened, but I could be wrong.
1. How do you think the attempted bombing will affect the midterm elections?
2. What will it take for our current political climate to "ease up" and become less polarized? Who is at fault and what needs to change?
1. I don't think it will affect anything. Trump supporters will cite fake news and democrats will say that Trump is creating a hazardous political climate. While I do believe that trump is creating a harmful political climate, it doesn't really matter because his base is so yooge.
ReplyDelete2. I think only a new president can make the climate ease up. I know it sounds drastic, but at this point, the mention of Trump's name is enough to get people angry. Saying Trump is at fault is pretty easy, but I think that to a certain degree, this was inevitable. The radical end of the base that Trump has brought together has finally boiled over, and while I don't think Trump truly wanted a climate of synagogue shooters and pipe bombs, it's what we got. In my opinion we just need a new president who can properly pick up the pieces and somehow bring both sides together. I can only dream.
1. I don't think that midterm elections will be affected by these recent incidents. I think democrats will still vote for democrats and republicans will still vote for republicans. If anything, the bomb threats have just made both parties more polarized which isn't a huge shift from what it was before.
ReplyDelete2. In order for the current political climate to ease up, I think all branches of the government and the people need to be more collaborative. I think a lot of the unhappiness stems from the current administration and the lack of enforcement in the areas people carry about. Maybe we could argue this is an elitist government currently? But, I am not sure.
1. I personally do not believe that the midterm elections will experiences any effects from the recent incidents because the nation was already leaning more partisan before the bombs were sent. Democrats will still vote within their party and same goes for the Republicans.
ReplyDelete2. This is a very complicated question. But in general, I think that people from both parties, but especially the republican party, needs to be willing to compromise and put the countries best interests ahead of their own personal agenda.
1. The midterm elections will not be effected by the attempted bombing because both parties will still vote for what they believe in and which party they affiliate with. The bomb threats have only created more diversity between the two parties.
ReplyDelete2. It is close to impossible for our political climate to become less polarized. It would take both parties to be able to compromise with each other, but that doesn't ever seem to happen. Both parties are at fault by struggling to keep the peace in a time of debate.
^Sophia McMaster
Delete1. I don't think that these pipe bombs will particularly affect the election. I think that most people already know who they want to vote for, and this won't change it.
ReplyDelete2. In order for our current political climate to ease up, I think we need to gain morale as a country. Nothing will really happen soon due to compromise or agreement, but I think over time we may become more rational and begin to agree upon ideas between the two parties.
I don't think the bombing attempts affected the midterm elections. Democrats had a successful midterm with taking the house and I believe this would have happened regardless of the attempted bombings. Seats were taken in communities where Trump was already unpopular, previous to the pipe bomb fiasco. In terms of polarity, its apparent that the GOP is unwilling to compromise. Trump didn't start the vast divide between the two parties but rather the divide is what caused him to win the presidency. It was an indicator of just how big the divide has grown to be, especially when him running was taken as a big joke at first.
ReplyDelete1. With how Trump supporters are, midterms weren't impacted by the pipe bombings with how politics are like right now.
ReplyDelete2. As for how to address political polarity, as long as Trump is president, politics will stay very partisan and polarized as Trump and his follower base aren't very open to reasoning and compromise.
1. The bombings probably will not affect the upcoming midterm elections. The public is quick to forget events in the media, and the media is so over saturated with violent events that a bombing is unlikely to generate a large impact. However, the fallout from the event may polarize partisan lines due to the accusations towards Trump about creating a violent political climate.
ReplyDelete2. To stop party polarization, Americans will need a common enemy to fight. In our current state, both parties enjoy demonizing the opposing side to generate support. I don’t think either side is at fault. Rather, it’s been the increasingly controversial issues in our time that have led people to shift further into the extreme ends of the political spectrum.
1. The bombings did not affect the midterm elections because Democrats and Republicans still voted for their respective parties. There wasn't inter-party turmoil, so if anything, I think the bombings increased partisan lines. The seats that were taken in the House were ones where Trump was already unpopular in, so the Democrats would have taken the House anyways.
ReplyDelete2. I think compromise will help put an end to party polarization, both between the parties, and the branches of government. There is a lack of communication between the people in the US and the government and understanding each others perspectives will help us reach a middle ground. We are all Americans and cannot keep up these increasing partisan lines.
The pipe bomb deliveries did not affect the midterm election, and both sides voted as expected. I think for our current political polarization to end the some kind of compromise or agreement needs to be made. The polarization will just continue to grow larger, and larger if one of the parties does not accomodate one another.
ReplyDelete1) I think that the pipe bombs will increase turnout for Democrats in an effort to show that they stand with their own
ReplyDelete2) I think that compromise will help bring the country together and allow us to move past the wackjobs on the far left and right that are truly wedging the country apart. If we can at least agree on policy, we can move forward culturally.
1. The pipe bombs will help the democrats, as the media will play it up in order to attack Trump. They will not treat it the same as when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a congressional baseball game.
ReplyDelete2. The ability to assess people's ideas instead of their morals will help heal the country. Right now, people assume the other side is immoral and that leads to dangerous levels of polarization.
1. It seems to me that the pipe bombs will not really be an effect on anything. Sure it could be shocking to some, but overall not much to really say that it will be a determining factor on the midterms.
ReplyDelete2. The political climate continues to be quite polarized, and that polarization will continue to grow. I believe a lot of false promises and strong mistakes have caused this continual growth, but it is really hard to combat this as evidenced by the past presidencies.
Jessica Masterson
ReplyDelete1. I think that the attempted bombing will affect the midterm election because it would increase criticism of Trump supporters and turn away some voters who are on the fence.
2. I believe that compromise between the two parties will help ease up tension, as well as an increase in communication because it will allow people to become aware of different perspectives and ideas that they can agree on, rather than just focus on areas in which they disagree. I think current controversial issues are the reason for polarization, not any individual party.
1. The bombs will most likely not affect anything. Although this is alarming, because of how polarized people are, they will most likely vote for whoever they were going to originally vote for.
ReplyDelete2. In a perfect world, sure. But this isn't a perfect world and things will continue to be polarized regardless of what happens.
1. The bomb threats probably won't affect the Midterm Elections at all. The media usually forgets most things like this anyways, however, these bomb threats may illustrate a violent society under Trump's presidency.
ReplyDelete2. The political climate is in a position where it's very polarized, and it's likely it will keep on growing. One can blame the current presidency and false promises of them to be a factor in the growth in polarization.
1. The bomb threats, while scary, are not going to shift any judgement of people in the Midterm because media tends to move on from events fairly quickly. Thus, there will be less attention on this event.
ReplyDelete2. The country will always be polarized because it is a free country, there is not perfect way to unify the country's ideas, as then it wouldn't be a free country
1. They won’t because the acts are clearly perpetrated by radical individuals, and don’t represent the sentiment of the country as a whole. Although this is a scary event, I don’t think it will change any minds about unrelated candidates.
ReplyDelete2. There isn’t really a point to asking for the political climate to “ease up”. In fact, I think a polarized political climate is better than a non-polarized political climate, because passion is the main missing ethos in American politics. It’s a bit hypocritical to ask for higher voter turnout but then become confused when higher turnout is correlated with increased polarization. We should embrace and accept polarization, while allowing lawmakers to be those who compromise on our behalf.