Suspicious Packages Mailed to Prominent Democrats, Journalists — Is This Terrorism?

Oakland University Political Science Chair Peter Trumbore joins Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson.

Bill Clinton in Flint 2014 1

Jake Neher/WDET

Homemade bombs and suspicious packages were mailed this week to journalists, actors, and prominent Democratic leaders, including former President Barack Obama, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Are you surprised?

Maybe you shouldn’t be, given the rhetoric of division, and the embrace of violence, that comes from the current president, Donald Trump each day.

For his part, the president said on Wednesday that we need to “unify.” But how soon before he is back in the campaign trail, painting the people who were the targets of the mail bombs as the enemy?

Peter Trumbore, professor and chair of the political science department at Oakland University, joins Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to talk about the news and these questions.

Trumbore says he’s usually cautious to characterize these kinds of acts as “terrorism” before knowing the motive of the perpetrator. He has previously talked on Detroit Today about the reasons for that after last year’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. However, in this case, he says he’s not so reticent. 

Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.

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