1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

I need you to publicly condemn the Trump administration's decade of eliminationist rhetoric that has created a climate of political violence in this country. The recent assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner did not emerge from nowhere. Cole Allen operated in a political environment saturated with dehumanization of immigrants and trans people, characterization of opponents as "vermin" and "enemies within," and direct encouragement of violence from the highest levels of government. This rhetoric has been deployed at industrial scale for ten years, and it produces predictable outputs. Political violence is an output of political climate. The coalition responsible for creating this climate has faced no accountability while commentators are required to perform ritualized condemnations of hypothetical leftist reactions instead of naming the actual source. This asymmetry allows the administration to continue its incitement while keeping moral attention pointed elsewhere. After the attack, Trump expressed no concern for the populations his administration has designated as enemies and no reflection on the relationship between his rhetoric and the violence. That silence is telling. I expect you to break it by publicly condemning the administration's eliminationist language and demanding an end to rhetoric that treats political opponents as targets for elimination.