VIEWPOINT | Crazy talk, crazy people and guns everywhere

Column by Froma Harrop

One evening, just over a week ago, I was walking in Midtown Manhattan when dozens of police cars, sirens blasting, lights flashing, descended on the area. Cops cut off entire avenues to traffic. Soon a phalanx of police vehicles, followed by a column of identical black SUVs, whooshed past red lights.

They were taking former president Donald Trump to his home at Trump Tower. The New York Police Department was clearly determined not to let anything happen to him on their watch, certainly not after a young man of no obvious political persuasion nearly killed him in Butler, Pennsylvania.

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But on Sunday, someone else evidently wanted to take a shot at Trump through an unguarded chain fence surrounding his golf course in West Palm Beach. The suspect is a former construction worker with grandiose notions, a sizable rap sheet and more than a few screws loose.

Here’s the bigger picture: Crazy political talk may be activating crazy people bent on violence. And about 99 percent of the blather is coming from the Trump side. Am I blaming the victim? This in no way justifies physical threats against him, but the answer, to a large part, is yes.

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