Winston Churchill once famously said that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
For Donald Trump, the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania could prove politically exhilarating. After rising with a fist pump and a call to fight on, Trump seems to have gone from being a movement to a mythological figure with his supporters. All he needs now is a big blue ox named Babe to return to the campaign trail.
This assassination attempt should also concentrate the minds of everyone on the escalating rhetoric in this campaign, particularly the media in maintaining inflammatory narratives. Yet, the hateful and unhinged language has continued unabated from academics declaring that the assassination attempt was staged to those who complain that the only problem was that Thomas Matthew Crooks missed.
For years, Democrats have repeated analogies of Trump to Hitler and his followers to brownshirted neo-Nazis. Indeed, defeating Trump has been compared to stopping Hitler in 1933.
The narrative began as soon as Trump was elected when the press and pundits uniformly and falsely claimed that Trump had praised neo-Nazis and Klansmen in 2017 as “fine people” in Charlottesville.
Watching Trump’s statement at the time, it was clear to most of us that Trump condemned the neo-Nazis and that the statement about “fine people on both sides” was in reference to the debate over the removal of historic statues.
It took six years for Snopes to finally have the courage to do a fact check and declare the common attack to be false.
It did not matter. The press and politicians have hammered away at the notion that Trump is seeking to end democracy and that everyone from gay people to reporters will be “disappeared.”
After the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity, Rachel Maddow went on the air with a hysterical claim that “death squads” had just been green lighted by conservatives. Democratic strategist Jame Carville insists that Trump’s reelection will bring “the end of the Constitution.”
It is all what I call “rage rhetoric” in my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” The book explores centuries of rage politics and political violence. This is not our first age of rage but it could well be the most dangerous.
Two years before the assassination attempt, I appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify on the expansion of domestic terrorism investigations. Democrats were seeking to pressure the FBI to focus on far-right groups as potential terrorist groups. The use of political views rather than conduct has been used historically to crackdown on groups from socialists to anarchists to feminists.
The narrative that the threat of violence is coming primarily from the Right is demonstrably false but consistently echoed in the media.
We have seen a growing level of leftist violence in the last decade. That includes riots in cities like Portland and Seattle where billions of dollars of damage occurred, hundreds of officers injured, and many citizens killed. In 2020 alone, 25 people were killed in the protests.
The Democrats often raise the Jan. 6th riot and it is important to acknowledge that the damage extended to an attack on our constitutional process. However, the preceding protest around the White House caused more injuries and more property damage. Then President Trump had to be removed to a safe location as Secret Service feared a breach of the White House.
There were a reported 150 officers injured (including at least 49 Park Police officers around the White House) in the Lafayette Park riot. Protesters caused extensive property damage including the torching of a historic structure and the attempted arson of St. John’s Church.
Mass shootings by leftist gunmen have repeatedly occurred but those are treated as one offs while any conservative shooter is part of a pattern of right-wing violence.
Keith Ellison, the Democratic attorney general of Minnesota, mocked the notion of liberal violence. In one tweet, he declared “I have never seen @BernieSanders supporters being unusually mean or rude. Can someone send me an example of a ‘Bernie Bro’ being bad. Also, are we holding all candidates responsible for the behavior of some of their supporters? Waiting to hear.”
Republican Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana replied dryly: “I can think of an example.” Scalise was severely wounded at the 2017 shooting at a congressional baseball game practice by a Sanders supporter.
Ellison was a particularly ironic Democratic politician to repeat this mantra. When he was the Democratic National Committee deputy chair, Ellison praised Antifa, a violent anti-free speech group that regularly attacks conservatives, pro-lifers, and others.
Ellison said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany.
Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. When confronted about Antifa’s violence, then House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler denied that the group existed. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just “an idea.”
In the meantime, Biden has called Trump and his supporters “enemies of the people.” He recently said that the threat to democracy was so great that debates are no solution: “we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Even after the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the media has failed to see a pattern while stoking the claim of a right-wing violent movement.
In the meantime, Democrats previously filed to strip Secret Service protection from Trump. The former Chair of the J6 Committee and the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee introduced the legislation, called Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED).
The press and pundits continue to tell Americans that Trump and his supporters are going to kill democracy and probably those they love. While most people dismiss the rage rhetoric, there are some who take it as a license to take the most extreme action.
We are still learning about Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed after trying to assassinate Trump. A registered Republican, Crooks gave money to ActBlue to support Democratic candidates.
Yet, we know him all too well. He is likely to be found to be a lonely, unhinged individual who found meaning in an attempted political murder.
Thomas Crooks like Nicholas Roske (who tried to kill Justice Kavanaugh) are the faces that watch from the political shadows. They hear leaders telling them to stop the Nazis before democracy dies . . . and they believe them.
As for Democrats, the anger evident every night on cable networks may reflect a degree of insecurity about becoming the very thing that they are campaigning against. It is time for the party to look around to take stock of its anti-democratic policies.
Democratic secretaries of state have sought to block not just Trump but third-party candidates from ballots to prevent voters from supporting them.
They have called for cleansing ballots of over 120 other Republicans. They have supported censorship, blacklisting, and other attacks on free speech.
As a lifelong Democrat, I have repeatedly asked what we have become in this age of rage. If we embrace groups like Antifa, oppose free speech, and cleanse ballots, we will have little beyond our rage to sustain us.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
That some unhinged, young “Incel” loner would pull a stunt like trying to assassinate President Trump isn’t necessarily a surprise; it’s practically a TROPE.
What’s really disconcerting is the OBVIOUS “Sandbagging” of Secret Service protection for the former President and the then-presumptive GOP nominee; let alone the chortling that he was “nicked” or not really “winged” by a round after all, as if shrapnel is any less a problem related to gunfire. Also what’s disconcerting is the OBVIOUS suppression of facts related to the near-assassination, beyond the need to keep secret adapted and/or proposed further measures to ensure something like this won’t happen again, to the point where all it does it feed rumors, justified or not, that the agency charged with Trump’s protection was, in fact, involved in trying to get him killed, in some Praetorian plot. Trump would be better off to hire the Pinkerton Agency and break a few strikes in his travels.
Jonathan, re your statement, “Yet, we know him all too well. He is likely to be found to be a lonely, unhinged individual who found meaning in an attempted political murder.” Let us not forget that one of these lonely, unhinged individuals, John Hinckley Jr, attempted to kill Reagan simply to impress a movie star who had no idea that he even existed!
If they were not so easily manipulated and, therefore, dangerous to common Society, they would be deserving of our pity. However, they are deserving of our care – the same care we show to our vulnerable groups, the handicapped, our children and our pets. But, thanks to Hillary Clinton and HIPAA, instead of real care, they are pumped full of drugs and, having thus being rendered societally invisible by their own fragility, left to fend for themselves. All in the name of privacy.
The REAL CRIMINALS are those who, knowingly, spout this violent imagery, hoping for just such a result, all while wringing their hands in consternation at the divisive, ‘unAmerican’ and uncivil behaviour of ‘the other side.’
As a lifelong Democrat… Well that’s the problem. No matter how much crime and destruction they wreak on America, which you document, you will still be a loyal ANTIFA supporter at the ballot box. Let your ears hear the words your mouth has spoken!
“The bandaged ear has been all the rage for the illiberals at MSNBC and the New York Times”
I was expecting Trump to show up with a “golden ear”
Or maybe one with the ‘red, white & blue’ of Old Glory proudly displayed?
Or, perhaps, a bright red MAGA, literally, in your face!
Like we all did with the masks.
JD Vance’s Mawmaw loved the Lord and also loved the F word. And had 27 handguns all throughout her house, including the silverware drawer. Sold! This guy is fantastic.
And that, if true, is relevant, WHY?
Mr Turley the answers you seek ,look at your political band
rage is fool of its members ,defund the LAW AND ORDER of a REPUBLIC
And your democracy has become MOB RULE.
Wake up and smell your fake potus
is fool of the mess he has stood by .
look in the mirror and be honest to the image in the mirror
Today lies upon lies about the shot heard around the world all from
from Potus Bidens hand picked game players of LIE TO ME
IT IS EVIL and you know it
Breaking News, Dennis McIntyre, Breaking News!
“The White House announces that the most vaccinated man in world history, Dr. Fauci’s boss President Biden, has tested positive for Wuhan Flu. White House spokesman announced that The Big Guy has regretfully had to cancel a major speech at the enormous annual conference UnidosUS Wednesday”
Back into basement campaign mode circa 2020, Bribery Biden… simply too ill to risk his health by appearing in public to speak – or do any further debates.
Does this leave The First Felon Crackhead Kid as his primary advisor with all the classified documents and the nuclear codes as well?
Scary but … schadenfreude? 😱🤣😂
It occurs to me that our own Soviet Democrat, Dennis McIntyre, and the Soviet Democrat politicians are both crying massive crocodile tears of relief as well as very real tears of relief.
Massive crocodile tears of relief that Trump was not murdered by their ActBlue donor and attempted presidential assassin. They would be dancing with glee if he had succeeded and Trump were dead – but hidden from view down in their basement like hajji Arab terrorists in Gaza after raping an Israeli woman and strangling her in the act while filming it.
Real tears of relief that their ActBlue Assassin DIDN’T succeed in murdering Trump.
With Trump murdered, who are the most likely presidents/vice presidents to be chosen to run against Bribery Biden?
There’s Ron DeSantis, a war veteran who has defeated them in every political campaign he’s run in for either a seat in the House (where he was one of the creators of the Freedom Caucus) or to be Florida Governor. In the 2022 midterm election, Ron DeSantis made elected Florida state Soviet Democrats extinct – from a nearly blue state, he made Florida a solidly Republican state. DeSantis could possibly do to Soviet Democrats federally what he did to them at the state level since leaving the House and the Freedom Caucus to become governor.
And now in the running as the VP nominee, JD Vance – less time in elected office than Bolshevik Barack had as a senator before running for president as a po’ black chil’. A war veteran who made himself from poverty, graduated from Yale, successful book author, and self-made millionaire.
Where DeSantis is demonstrably very smart, JD Vance is scary smart. Where Trump’s actions while in office show he is a moderate, DeSantis and Vance both are unapologetically, solidly conservative.
Where Trump tries to do the art of the deal with Soviet Democrats, both DeSantis and Vance are different as military war veterans. They don’t come to cut deals. They come with the military ethos of “Close with and destroy the enemy in all phases of battle”.
The biggest threat to the Soviet Democrat communist-lite movement ISN’T being under assault by four years of Trump. Instead, by 8 to 16 uncompromising years of DeSantis and/or Vance, one after the other.
That’s why Soviet Democrat apparatchiks like Dennis McIntyre are crying tears of relief that the attempted murder of Trump didn’t kill Trump – or even wound him bad enough that he lived but couldn’t recover to campaign for the next six months.
They got just as lucky as Trump did.
Are we holding candidates accountable for the acts of their supporters? Yes we are Mr. Ellison. Your side set the rules.