In my previous column, I wrote about claims from liberals that a reelected Donald Trump will “destroy democracy.” I paused to condemn Donald Trump’s crude rhetoric over the years, but I also challenged those making such claims to 1) define “democracy” and 2) explain precisely how Trump would destroy it. I also explained why America is less a democracy than a constitutional/representative republic, which is not some pedantic point.

I expected some pushback, though I got more email in agreement than disagreement. One reader who likes neither Trump nor Kamala Harris is likewise fed up with incendiary hyperbole from both sides.

To that end, there’s a related example that I didn’t raise in that column but feel it worthwhile to bring up now. That’s especially so because Harris has pushed it, even as she and her supporters accuse Trump of wild, “dangerous” rhetoric.

Harris leveled the charge on national TV during the Sept. 10 presidential debate, where she asserted: “Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

It was an extraordinary claim. And it came from Harris on the eve of Sept. 11.

It wasn’t perfectly clear what Harris meant by “worst attack since the Civil War,” though media sources reported it as a reference to Jan. 6, 2021, which it certainly seemed to be. It was also wildly irresponsible.

Obviously, what happened that Jan. 6 was unacceptable and required punishing perpetrators accordingly. But how could anyone dare equate those perpetrators with the beasts who flew hijacked commercial airliners into World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001? Does anyone seriously think what happened Jan. 6 was worse than the assault by Osama bin Laden’s homicide bombers, which massacred nearly 3,000 innocents? Good grief, have we already forgotten those horrific images?

Of course, there were other tragic assaults on our democracy after the Civil War. Pearl Harbor brought us into World War II for a four-year bloodbath that killed more than 400,000 Americans.

But according to Harris, “Donald Trump left us the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” Of course, depending upon how vaguely one defines “democracy” (the point of my previous column), one could charge Trump with a host of evils. Apparently, that would include the worst threat since 1861-65, a conflict that snuffed out 600,000 lives. More died in the Civil War than all our wars combined: the American Revolution, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam.

The charge that Trump gave Americans their “worst attack” since the Civil War is breathtaking. When added to claims by liberals that Trump is a “fascist” and another “Hitler,” well, it’s no wonder unstable individuals are gunning for the man. If you’re a kid born after Sept. 11, 2001, and don’t know history, such charges from top political figures and pundits easily could convince you Trump presents the gravest threat.

For his part, Trump in that presidential debate rightly retorted: “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. … I’m a threat to democracy.”

He not only “probably” did, but surely did. Trump was being unusually tempered in his remarks when he said that.

It’s time to stop the dangerous rhetoric, folks. On both sides. Those on the anti-Trump front should consider their own incendiary rhetoric as well as Trump’s. If you want “decency” in your “democracy,” then clean your own house.

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