CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Former Chicago Mayor and White House staffer Rahm Emanuel said threats against lawmakers and this week's inauguration represent a dangerous undercurrent in our politics right now.
As his former White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel acknowledges Barack Obama's election as president was an early genesis of the kinds of rage that fueled the insurrection at the Capitol.
But, he said, it's unacceptable to turn such feelings into those actions.
"For a swath of America - and the question is, how big that swath is - it was a threat, not a ratification of our ideals. And it was a deep threat. You can study it to understand it, but at the end of the day, I don't care how angry you are, nothing allows you to try and overthrow the government or kill the people that were rightfully elected in this country because you don't like their race, their faith, or their sexual orientation," Emanuel said.
Emanuel said Donald Trump never tried to hide his Nationalism, his disdain for those who disagree with him, or his willingness to accept support from racists and anti-semites. And he said the nation cannot permit people to turn their political hostility into the violence seen on Capitol Hill without dire consequences.
"Nothing in your experience allows you to take that anger and turn it into violence, and nothing is more dangerous than having elected leaders using that anger for their own power. And those too, and this is my point, anybody that was part of this, anybody, needs to be held accountable," he said.
For too long, he said, people have not taken the President's words and the words of people considered on the fringes, seriously.
Emanuel added if people are not held accountable, many will feel they have permission to do it again.
