Bernie Sanders Accuses President Trump of Inciting Violence Across the Country

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Monday accused President Trump of inciting violence across the country but failed to provide any specific examples to support the weighty accusation.

“Mr. President, your job is to discourage violence, not incite it,” Sanders said in a social media post Monday, following yet another violent weekend in Portland, where a right-wing protester wearing a Patriot Prayer hat was shot and killed.

Hours later, the former presidential hopeful mocked Trump for positioning himself as a “law and order” leader, once again accusing him of inciting violence, as well as violating the Constitution:

Mr. President, your job is to discourage violence, not incite it.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 31, 2020

Trump claims he's a "law and order" president. That's funny. This is a president who shamelessly violates the Constitution, incites violence, uses his office to enrich his family, and seven of his top campaign advisers have been criminally charged (so far). Trump must go.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 31, 2020

Sanders’ commentary comes as Democrat politicians continue to offer measured responses to the violence plaguing U.S. cities, such as Portland and Kenosha. Few have been quick to condemn the protester violence against not just members of law enforcement, but politicians, as was seen last Thursday following the conclusion of President Trump’s Republican National Convention address.

Black Lives Matter protesters swarmed Sanders’ colleague, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), in the nation’s capital. That same night, protesters harassed Georgia House Rep. Vernon Jones (D-GA). He referred to the protesters as a “violent mob of supporters of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

Despite the documented cases of violence, looting, and destruction, far-left progressives have been slow to condemn the lawlessness in U.S. cities, diverting their attention to the meaning of the greater “movement.”

“I think that all these people in the streets that are educating others, that are engaging in this elevated and amplified way, have really emboldened me, and it’s given me a lot of courage and encouragement to try to match the energy of everyone else right now who’s really fighting for progressive change,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told Vanity Fair. Similarly, allow “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) told the magazine that the movement has given “more credibility” to why she ran for office.

“When I see this movement on the street — that’s where transformative change really starts and it’s hitting us right here in the halls of Congress,” she said. “It’s been powerful to watch it happen.”

Neither of them condemned the violence plaguing U.S. cities for months on end in the brief interviews, but they and their progressive counterparts have been quick to cast blame on Trump for the violence, much like Sanders did on Monday.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) wasted no time in blaming the president for the bloodshed in the city over the weekend. After listing off several debunked progressive talking points on Sunday, the mayor asked, “Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?”

“It’s you who have created the hate and the division,” Wheeler assessed.

Like Wheeler, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) also chose to place blame on the president for the escalation of violence in Portland.

“Whether it’s his completely incompetent response to the pandemic, where nearly 200,000 have died, or his outright encouragement of violence in our streets: it should be clear to everyone by now that no one is truly safe with Donald Trump as President,” she said over the weekend.

Brown has also placed blame on “right-wing vigilantes” and “armed white supremacists” for the recent rise of violence in the city.