While many of you may not be familiar with the Unabomber his concept of mailing packages of death and destruction to select individuals has been revived this week in a string of attempted mail bombings. A number of individuals this week starting with well-known democratic donor George Soros and spanning to former director of the CIA John Brennan, top democrats, and even form president Obama and former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. All bombs so far where intercepted by either routine inspection or other actors and no one has been injured. With the packages comes a variety of questions. Of course the one everyone is asking is who sent them but officials closer to the investigation have asked others. What is the motive behind the bomb, why construct them in such a subpar manner, and are there external factors or actors that may be instigating these courses of action?

The first mail bomb was discovered Monday at the New York home of George Soros, a well-known billionaire investor and one of the democrats’ top personal contributors. Since Monday bombs have been found addressed to former president Barack Obama, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, former attorney general Eric Holder, democratic representative Maxine Waters, former CIA director John Brennan, actor Robert De Niro, former vice president Joe Biden, democratic senator Cory Booker, and former director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The packaged bombs, as far as this newspaper is informed, all had their return address listed as one of the district offices of Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz who is a former chairperson of the democratic national Committee. Whether it is a factor or not in this attempted bombing campaign, all of the targeted individuals are either harsh critics of President Trump or may be perceived by a vocal group of his supporters as inhibitors to his goals and administration. The bombs themselves seems to be constructed in a poor manner and did not appear as though they were built with the idea of subtlety in mind. This has led many to the question if the actual intention of this campaign was to sow terror and discord rather than actually take out targeted individuals.

As of today October 26th one south Floridian man has been arrested in connection with the mail bombs. According to Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores federal authorities will be holding a press conference in relation to the arrest of the man. While no one has received any statement of intent or manifesto many wonder what could have provoked this string of events. One of the more widely believed explanations is that it is in response to president Trump’s frequent attacks against his critics and those he believes slow down his administration’s processes. During his campaign, in his tweets, and during rallies has made it abundantly clear that he does not like his critics nor does he believe their statements to be true. Whether in a joking manner or not he has in the past made threats of violence and proclaimed that he would be immune from the ramifications of directing violence towards another person.

While we cannot blame the president entirely for these recent fear inducing and panic provoking events it does make you think about how a president should conduct himself. Does the President not serve as a role model to the rest of the country and even more so for his constituents? Is it not imperative that they act in a manner traditionally perceived as befitting of the office, or is it time for traditional mannerisms to be deconstructed in order to let ideas roam free? It is not the place of this article to say but, every time an instance like this occurs we should take the time to examine its root causes and determine whether or not if there is something we can or should change.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/26/politics/pipe-bombs-suspicious-packages-what-we-know/index.html

https://nypost.com/2018/10/26/florida-man-arrested-in-connection-to-mail-bombs/