Two recent stories of political violence, one on the Left and one on the Right, show that both Democrats and Republicans need to form unity when it comes to such violence, regardless if the incident involves their own party.

On May 24, Greg Gianforte, a Republican candidate running for a House seat in Montana was cited for misdemeanor assault shortly before polls were scheduled to open for the closely watched election.

Witnesses said that Ben Jacobs, a reporter for The Guardian was physically attacked by Gianforte on Wednesday afternoon. The incident was apparently sparked by a question posed by Jacobs to Gianforte regarding the American Health Care Act.

Jacobs, in a 911 call reported that the Republican candidate “body slammed” him to ground. He later asserted this claim in a tweet he sent out that read “Greg Gianforte just body slammed and broke my glasses.” Audio from the incident can be found here. The audio clearly indicates a scuffle, seemingly violent, took place after Jacobs posed his question to Gianforte.

This type of behavior from Gianforte should not be tolerated by neither Democrats nor Republicans. When one of our country’s representatives physically assaults a reporter who is merely attempting to ask a question, that representative should not be allowed to hold a seat in Congress.

Gianforte won the special election in Montana for the state’s at-large Congressional seat the following day, 50.2% of the vote. He defeated both his Democratic challenger Rob Quist (44.1%) and Libertarian candidate Mark Wicks (5.7%).

The correct thing to do in this situation would be for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to come together and come to the conclusion that Greg Gianforte should not be allowed to hold his seat as a Representative for the state of Montana.

The incorrect way to react to this incident is to take the same actions as conservative commentator Laura Ingraham and Daily Caller’s Derek Hunter.

Hunter tweeted out the night of the incident “What kind of wuss files charges over broken glasses? Someone who wants to influence an outcome, that’s who.”

Ingraham sent out two tweets that night. One read “Politicians always need to keep their cool. But what would most Montana men do if “body slammed” for no reason by another man?” The other read “Did anyone get his lunch money stolen today and then run to tell the recess monitor?”

These tweets are flat out asinine.

Providing any sort of justification for Gianforte’s actions is inherently ignorant and stupid. There is no way you can tell me that the blame for this incident should be placed on anyone other than Gianforte himself. Ben Jacobs had every right to call the police and file charges against the Montana Representative. To call him a “wuss” for that or to compare Gianforte’s actions as a grown man to those of children taking each others lunch money on the playground is just foolish in itself.

Let me ask Laura Ingraham and Derek Hunter this: Would you feel the same way if this had been a Democratic candidate who did the same thing to a reporter from Breitbart News? My guess is that those tweets would look much different than the ones sent out on the night of the incident.

For conservatives to attempt to justify what Gianforte did is dangerous for America, however, don’t think liberals get off easy regarding political violence.

On May 30, a picture was released of stand-up comedian Kathy Griffin holding a mock decapitated head of President Donald Trump.

Griffin, who has shown her resentment for President Trump through her words, telling MSNBC’s Chris Matthews in late February “I’m a big resister and I don’t believe in compromise with this president. I also think he’s crazy. I think he’s mentally ill. He’s also an idiot.”

Not only is this statement rich with irony, Kathy Griffin is also a complete hypocrite.

After having her decade-long contract with CNN terminated along with all seven planned stops as part of the “Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins Tour,” Griffin is now blaming Donald Trump and his family!

She said that President Trump and his family are “personally trying to ruin me forever.”

“I don’t think I will have a career after this. I am going to be honest, he broke me. He broke me.”

There are two problems with these two equally unintelligent statements. The first is that President Trump had nothing to do with Kathy Griffin’s actions. She was the one who decided to have a picture taken of her holding a decapitated head of our President. Donald Trump and his family have every right to be disgusted in the actions taken by Griffin. The second problem is the hypocrisy that I previously brought up. After the election of Donald Trump, it was Kathy Griffin saying that she does not believe in compromise when it came to Donald Trump. Now, after screwing up badly, Kathy Griffin blames her lost gigs and contracts on the Trump family. Sorry Kathy, but you cannot have it both ways. You cannot cling to the principle of not allowing compromise to occur for President Trump and then complain when people do not offer you any compromises for your appalling actions.

Like the issue involving Greg Gianforte, both Democrats and Republicans across the aisle need to come together and acknowledge the fact that what Kathy Griffin did is disgusting and should not be tolerated under any circumstances.

However, one person who is willing to offer sympathy for Kathy Griffin is actor Alec Baldwin, famous for playing the role of President Trump on the previous season of “Saturday Night Live.”

Baldwin took to twitter on Friday, tweeting “Kathy…f**k them. F**k them all. No 1 believes u meant 2 threaten Trump. Trump is such a senile idiot, all he has is Twitter fights.”

Actor Jim Carey also weighed in to ET on Wednesday, claiming that comedians are the “last line of defense” against Trump.

Like Derek Hunter and Laura Ingraham regarding the Greg Gianforte incident in Montana, Alec Baldwin and Jim Carey’s comments are absurd.

Violence of any kind, whether it goes along with your political party preference should be denounced by everyone. As I did with Ingraham and Hunter, I will ask Alec Baldwin and Jim Carey this question: Would you feel the same way if a conservative comedian had done the same thing as Kathy Griffin, but instead of holding a decapitated head of Donald Trump, they were holding one of Barack Obama?

I bet their comments on Twitter and other entertainment outlets would be much different than the ones we have previously witnessed if the scenario involved Barack Obama as opposed to Donald Trump.

How about instead of picking and choosing which acts of political violence we want to denounce, why don’t we denounce all acts of political violence? Once we lose intellectual honesty on issues such as violence in politics, that is when it has been determined that we as a nation are on the road to destruction. We cannot be divided along party lines when it comes to political violence. Violence is violence whether it occurs on the Left or the Right.