Fueling the politics of hate

(AP) If the point of those "March Against Sharia" protests last weekend in Harrisburg and across the country was to increase the volume of insults and the political vitriol that divide America, then event organizer ACT for America surely succeeded. Otherwise, these hate-bating demonstrations and pot-clanging counter-demonstrations only add to the din that disrupts critical thinking.
Last we checked, Washington was not in any imminent danger of collapse from a siege of marauding Islamofascists. And we seriously doubt America today or in the near future is threatened by any state-sanctioned religious extremists.
The apprehension that some surreptitious force, presumably Muslim, is attempting to supplant the U.S. legal system with Sharia law is absurd.
These kinds of protests make for dramatic video — but not very good messaging. If anything, the invectives hurled — from both sides — only widen the political divide since Donald Trump's election as president.
If Americans are so duly concerned about their country's future, they should double down not on the politics of hate but on constitutional principles that gave rise to the most liberty-minded republic on the planet. As a guest columnist opined recently for the Portland (Oregon) Tribune, “Hate is seductive because it demands so little of us." That much was evident from last weekend's protests.
Indeed, America, which soon celebrates its birthday, should be above such empty, anger-fueled demonstrations.
The (Pittsburgh) Tribune-Review