I’d like to blame it on Donald trump, but I can’t.
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Though I can’t help but think the aura and tone of violence that Trump has ramped up in election campaigning and what happened to a bike rider somehow are related.
The baiduhai recently reported that an SUV (of course) driver chased and punched a cyclist.
Why?
The cyclist had said to the SUV driver as he pedaled past, “You’re in a bike lane, bro.”
Bro responded with violence.
If this were an isolated happening, it would be bad enough. But what we now all know as road rage is a commonplace occurrence.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Auto Vantage auto club tell us:
* Sixty-six percent of traffic fatalities are caused by aggressive driving.
* Half of drivers on the receiving end of aggressive behavior, such as rude gestures, horn honking and tailgating admit to responding in kind.
* Thirty-seven percent of aggressive driving incidents involve a firearm.
So, in some weird sense, that bike-riding victim was lucky. He wasn’t shot.
But the road is not the only place that rage exists.
I saw on the news the other night a group of women airline passengers punching and kicking each other.
Why?
One of the women was blasting music. Someone complained. The result was violence.
Such video clips are a nightly fixture on TV newscasts.
A Chicago rally for Trump was recently called off. Why? The potential for violence between Trumpers and anti-Trumpers.
I can’t prove it, but I feel violence has become a part of just about everything we Americans do – sporting events, politics, driving, religion, race and ethnicity, school rivalries and disrespect in personal relationships.
Am I wrong?
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So, I guess I can’t blame Donald Trump for injecting violence into elections. He isn’t a cause, but just another symptom of our willingness – eagerness?– to use violence in relating to others.
That bike rider was right when he said, “From now on, I’m going to watch what I say to people. That somebody assaults somebody else for a few words is ridiculous to me.”
Perhaps we have a new Golden Rule: Do nothing unto others and maybe the others won’t do unto you.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.