Thumbs down: Stop the assassination rhetoric

Call if the Kathy Griffin rule or, for actions during the Obama administration, the Ted Nugent rule. It’s quite simple: Don’t joke about assassinations.|
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD

And here’s a big thumbs down for Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a state legislator in Missouri who responded to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia with her own call for inexcusable violence.

Justifiably angered by President Don Trump’s statements blaming “many sides” for the violent clash in Charlottesville, Chappelle-Nadal posted on Facebook that she hopes the president is assassinated. “I put up a statement saying, ‘I really hate Trump. He’s causing trauma and nightmares.’ That was my original post,” she told the Kansas City Star. In a reply to one of the responses, she said, “I hope Trump is assassinated!”

Chappelle-Nadal later said she didn’t mean it and deleted her comment. But nothing disappears in cyberspace, and she has drawn the attention of the Secret Service. Call if the Kathy Griffin rule or, for actions during the Obama administration, the Ted Nugent rule. It’s quite simple: Don’t joke about assassinations.

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