Political leaders of other countries have started wars. Some have murdered rivals. But most have enough grace and attention to decorum to recognize that such acts are unpleasant, necessary perhaps, in order to achieve their objective, but nothing to boast about. They deny involvement or refuse to comment or invent cover stories to justify their crimes, as Hitler did when he claimed that his 1939 invasion of Poland was an act of self-defense. Only Americans respond to an adversary's sticky end with an unseemly spiking of the football.
Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state under Obama, also contributed to America's uniquely cavalier attitude toward violence. While watching a video of Libyan jihadis murdering dictator Muammar Gaddafi by sodomizing him with a bayonet, she famously cackled: "We came, we saw, he died." She then laughed heartily.
Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces occupying Iraq in late 2003. Never one for keeping his thumb off the scale, Bush called for the dictator " a former U.S. ally " to be executed: "I think he ought to receive the ultimate penalty " for what he has done to his people. He is a torturer, a murderer, and they had rape rooms, and this is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice." Self-awareness note: Guantanamo and other U.S. "black sites" set up by Bush for kidnapped Muslims also featured torture, murder, and rape.
Americans don't just like violence. Extrajudicial, illegal violence is in our DNA. We glorify Washington's crossing of the Delaware on Christmas because he won and chuckle at his willingness to violate the customs of how war was fought at the time. American revolutionaries who ambushed the British using guerilla tactics weren't cheaters; they were clever.
Lincoln is considered great because he fought the Civil War over his refusal to accept the Confederacy's legal decision to secede. Few Americans gave much thought to George H.W. Bush's decision to invade Panama, a sovereign nation, and prosecute its president, in the U.S., like a common criminal even though he was probably innocent, but it was insane.
Is there a direct line between statements by presidents and Salvador Ramos, the 18-year-old Uvalde shooter? No. But direct orders are not how cultural norms permeate a society. When a behavior is normalized it becomes, by definition, so commonplace and acceptable that it hardly occurs to anyone that there's anything wrong with it.
Violence in America is like the old Palmolive commercial: We're soaking in it. So we don't notice it. Political leaders who normalize violence (especially extrajudicial violence) as acceptable, entertaining and amusing, shouldn't be surprised when impressionable young men follow their example and resort to violence themselves.
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