A plea to our leaders: Tone down your rhetoric before it is too late

Mr. President, I would ask you, respectfully, to lower your voice.

Mr. Jeff Zucker, I would ask you, respectfully, to lower your voice as well.

This is not a fight between the media and the president of the United States. This is not a fight between our political parties. Nor is this a fight for the soul of the country. This is terrorism, pure and simple.

This is an effort to destabilize our country, whether or not the pipe bombs mailed to a growing list of individuals and institutions were meant to all detonate or not. This is a serious national crisis.

{mosads}We all need to lower our rhetoric, to come together as a nation, and to just stop the hate, the polarization, the division and the finger-pointing — it just doesn’t work. It plays into the hands of our enemies, it makes us weaker, and it puts all of us at risk of foreign nations who can take advantage of the polarization, the division and, frankly, the disorganization that exists to advance their interests in a multiplicity of ways.

For many years now, I have been talking about this. I have written a book, called “Hopelessly Divided,” and another called “Mad As Hell,” and I have sought, among many other observers, to explain that the weaker we are at home, the more divided we are — and the weaker we are overseas as well, playing into the hands of enemies like North Korea, Russia, China and Iran.

Indeed, this is serious. This is real. This is not meant to be a long, thoughtful piece. It is meant to be a simple plea.

Mr. President, Mr. Zucker — along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): Put the events of the last few months behind us, put the Brett Kavanaugh hearings behind us, and stop pointing fingers at the southern border or blaming the other side for a crisis.

Come together, solve our problems, do a deal on immigration, on health care, and on all of the other challenges facing our nation.

Time is running out, and there are no extensions.

Douglas E. Schoen (@DouglasESchoen) served as a pollster for President Clinton. A longtime political consultant, he is also a Fox News contributor and the author of 11 books, including “Putin’s Master Plan: To Destroy Europe, Divide NATO, and Restore Russian Power and Global Influence.”