N.H. Gov. Sununu Calls on Americans to 'Take Down the Heat'
(Newsmax/"John Bachman Now")
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Sunday, 30 October 2022 04:31 PM EDT
The riots in the nation's streets in the summer of 2020 set a "new standard" for political violence that is continuing now with the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and "people have to just take down the heat," New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday.
"The line for folks that were disagreeing with what might have been happening and were not happy with what was happening in their communities, the line completely moved with very little accountability," the governor, a Republican, said on NBC News' "Meet the Press." "That set kind of a new standard in a very dangerous way, and then that carries over into the politics and what happened in 2020, the insanity of what we saw on Jan. 6."
Such violence is nothing new, he noted, and "it's on both sides of the aisle," but still, "this is America."
"This is one of the most amazing places on the planet Earth. We should all wake up and be grateful," he said. "We can disagree and have heated arguments of course, but when you cross that line into violence it does your cause no good, it does the system no good, and it just brings everything to a more fragile state."
When asked if he sees any connection between the Pelosi attack and former President Donald Trump and his rhetoric, Sununu responded that there is a "connection to everyone in this."
"People are getting upset about inflation," he said. "They're getting upset with, you know, issues that happened on what we would consider a very minor level. But to them it's passionate; it's just the end of days for them."
But the answer is a cultural solution, not one from the government, and "we all, all 300 million of us, have to take a very deep responsibility toward that," Sununu added.
He said he's also concerned that the nation is becoming "numb" to acts of violence, and said he finds that to be scarier than the acts themselves.
"If you have a disagreement, get involved in your local community, get involved, run for office, have the debates, whatever it might be," he said. "Keep it civil, of course. It can be heated. It can be passionate. But you've got to keep it civil because it's the only way that, as a society, we're going to move forward."