The neighborhood, Squirrel Hill, where eleven people were killed today while at Saturday morning services in Pittsburgh is the very same neighborhood where my brother and his family live. On Saturday mornings my brother and his family go to the next synagogue over. My relatives are ok — and yet, there but for fortune.
A lot of people have been pretending that the dark and violent rhetoric of a certain occupant of the White House is of no consequence. But it is of consequence. Crazy people like the Florida bomber and the Squirrel Hill shooter don’t need much of a push.
Not that long ago, we lived in a country where people at the top didn’t promote violent bullying, didn’t publicly praise people who body-slammed journalists, didn’t brag that they could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.
Don’t kid yourself, things could still get a lot worse. And we’re not talking about differences of policy here. We are talking about a fundamental question of human decency.
So ask yourself this — what sort of country do you want to live in? Then go out and vote.