[Washington Examiner] Democrats are gearing up to use attempted bomb attacks on frequent objects of President Trump’s criticism, including the Clintons and former President Barack Obama, as part of their closing argument less than two weeks out from the midterm elections.Although Trump denounced these "despicable acts," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said his "words ring hollow until he reverses his statements that condone acts of violence," listing his reaction to Charlottesville, praise for a congressman who body-slammed a reporter, description of media outlets as the "enemy of the people," and encouragement of fights at his raucous campaign rallies as examples of his coarsening of the public discourse and incitement of a violent political culture.
It’s a tactic that has worked before. Then-President Bill Clinton struck back at anti-government rhetoric in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and eventually used a heroic survivor of that attack to rebuke congressional Republicans for government shutdowns. "I challenge all of you in this chamber: Never, ever shut the federal government down again," he said in his 1996 State of the Union address.
Some have credited Clinton’s response to Oklahoma City with saving his presidency after the 1994 elections dramatically handed Congress to Republicans for the first time in decades. "The haters and extremists didn’t go away, but they were on the defensive, and, for the rest of my term, would never quite regain the position they had enjoyed after Timothy McVeigh took the demonization of government beyond the limits of humanity," he wrote in his memoirs.