Jeffrey Fishman: Violence toward police normalized

It will be recorded in the archives of history that on Jan. 21, 2025, the events of Jan. 6, 2021, were whitewashed from the legal record. Concurrently, violence against police officers and destruction to government property was condoned and pardoned.

This day will be looked back upon as the seedbed from which future violence toward police officers is sown and further destruction of government property grows. Our silence is required for this violence to proliferate.

Those who have endorsed the current president have an added responsibility of choosing to condemn this kind of violence or normalize it with their silence. This is how authoritarian leaders get us to accept violating our own norms, to follow the dictates of a leader who incites violence toward those who stand in his way.

Is this the new normal America we want to live in and and pass on to our children? Let us not be silent.

Jeffrey Fishman

Amherst