Democrats: Vote for Us and the Shooting Stops
Read my latest nationally syndicated column with Creators.
Just two months after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania, the former president seems to have escaped another apparent attempt on his life, this time between holes five and six of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
"I am safe and well, and no one was hurt. Thank God!" Trump announced on his campaign page, after Secret Service agents fired on a would-be assassin after spotting him with a rifle in the bushes alongside the golf course.
I'm not going to utter the name of the lunatic who was almost certainly there to murder the Republican nominee for president of the United States, since media-guaranteed notoriety in the aftermath of shootings is a major driving force behind the disease of gun violence. His face and name should be relegated to meaningless obscurity, instead of being promoted as the media's latest anti-hero, which often rewards these maniacs with the fame they crave.
I'm also not going to bother digging into their political affiliation or motivations. Frankly, it doesn't matter. They are obviously deeply mentally ill, and the cynical weaponization of their supposed political beliefs is solely that: cynical.
No, what I'm going to focus on (and what we should all be focusing on) is how we got here, and the response of those who may not be the demented hopeful-assassins hiding in the bushes, but worked overtime to drive these people to such evil action.
"Trump and his running mate have spent the past week successfully inciting violence in Springfield, Ohio. Today they want to present themselves as near-victims of violence - in this case, of violence completely unrelated to themselves and at a very safe distance from themselves," David Frum wrote.
"No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon," Rachel Vindman replied, referencing the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
And MSNBC, always the reliable source of the entirely wrong conclusions, argued that the Trump campaign must turn down the rhetoric, doubting that Trump would use this as a "unity-type" inflection point.
Let me make one thing absolutely clear: You are never obligated to seek unity with those who call you Adolf Hitler, especially after surviving more assassination attempts than Kamala Harris has held press conferences.
Don't forget: Joe Biden and other Democrats condemned the first attack on Donald Trump and his supporters for a grand total of five minutes before immediately reverting to the exact rhetoric that laid the groundwork for violence.
They might pretend that they want unity, but what they want is unity behind them. Of course, there are many criticisms that can be made of Donald Trump's rhetoric, but to pretend as if objectively or subjectively violent language in politics began with Trump and is limited to Trump alone is perhaps the biggest political lie in human history.
Just two days ago, the president and CEO of the NAACP said, "Make no mistake, our lives depend on our votes"!
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