Yesterday;s attack was an assassination attempt, let us make no mistake. This photo by a NYT photographer (who probably just earned himself a Pulitzer) shows the bullet just missing Trump. This was not a false flag; Trump would have been killed if he had been standing an inch or two in the wrong direction. He would never have knowingly taken that chance, so let’s drop that speculation once and for all.
The assassin mostly missed, for which we can all be thankful. But he may have killed an unintended (so far as we know) target: our democracy. He just gave Trump and the GOP a platinum mine’s worth of opportunity, and Trump was canny enough to seize on it even as he was being hustled away to safety: he made the agents wait so he could raise his fist and (try to) shout “Fight!” If we thought Biden’s performance in the debate insulated Trump from his own weaknesses — the dementia, the stumbling for words, the outright nonsense — this attempt insulates him from his own calls for violence.
The president spoke to the nation trying to calm us all down. Joe Biden Reacts to Donald Trump Shooting.
"Look, there's no place in America for this kind of violence," Biden said in a nationally televised statement. "It's sick. It's sick. It's one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this."
And other Democrats? Dems mute Trump criticism
The shooting has effectively silenced Democrats’ political attacks. It could mark a U-turn from the last couple of weeks, when hammering Trump as an existential threat seemed to be the only thing uniting the party amid questions about President Joe Biden’s electability.
Republicans, on the other hand, instead of toning down their rhetoric, ratched it up. Trump allies immediately blame Biden, Democrats for their rhetoric:
Top allies of Donald Trump quickly accused President Biden and his supporters of using rhetoric that led to a shooting and potential assassination attempt Saturday at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pa., even as Biden condemned the attack and called on the nation to unite against political violence.
The rhetoric that Biden and the Democrats have been using is that Trump is a danger to us all, a threat to our democracy, a would-be dictator who will destroy the rule of law (and who has just been given carte blanche by his bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court to do so). This is all true. And it’s all valid political rhetoric. But Republicans have seized on the assassination attempt to keep the Democrats from saying so. Meantime, Trump and much of the GOP have been openly calling for political violence ever since Trump slithered down that escalator in 2015. January 6 was just the most blatant example, but here is one of far too many stories about Trump since then: Trump Supporters’ Violent Rhetoric in His Defense Disturbs Experts:
The former president’s allies have portrayed the indictment as an act of war and called for retribution, which political violence experts say increases the risk of action.
Contrary to what some have said and would like to believe, America has always been a violent country. It’s actually been a long time — over 40 years — since we had a political assassination attempt: Reagan in 1981. Usually they occur more frequently. Given the Second Amendment culture that unscrupulous cretins like Marjorie Taylor Greene (Marjorie Taylor Greene Suggests 'Second Amendment Rights' Should Be Used Against Democrats) — not to mention Trump himself (A comprehensive timeline of Trump encouraging hate groups and political violence — from FOUR YEARS ago) — have nurtured in recent decades, the only surprise about yesterday’s attempt is that it took so long to happen.
Disinformation and misinformation operate by taking a small grain of truth and using it to promote their lies. The grain of truth that Trump was the victim of political violence is being used to hide the fact that he, and his minions, have been the ones calling all along for an escalation of that very political violence. They hope to play on his (for once legitimate) victim status to stop us from talking about how he brought it on himself.
I am frequently reminded these days of a story in the Talmud: Rabbi Hillel was walking along the water and came upon a skull floating it. He said to the skull:
For drowning others you were drowned,
And in the end, they who drowned you
will also be drowned. (Ethics of the Fathers 2:6)
(It sounds better in the original Aramaic.) His point, which has been made many times before and since, is that violence only begets more violence, which then triggers violence in return. Trump and the GOP have sowed the wind and are reaping the whirlwind (to use a Biblical reference — Hosea 8:7). Rather than take that lesson from yesterday’s attack as a warning, they are using it to turn that whirlwind into a force 6 hurricane.
And it’s aimed right at our democracy.
Update 11:24 PT:
Responding to a number of comments below: I am not saying that this has yet succeeded in killing our democracy (and I softened the title a bit); I am pointing out the dangerous opportunity the shooter just handed Trump and the GOP that they are already trying to use to their benefit. We need to be careful how we respond, but we must respond — not with silence or just with expressions of concern. We need to hammer home that it was TRUMP and the GOP that have been calling for violence all along (see above), and that they brought this on themselves.
Let me rephrase that slightly : The danger now from Democrats is that we will let ourselves be cowed by the Republicans who are already using the shooting to try to stop us from pointing out Trump’s many flaws, danger to our democracy, and total unfitness to be president. Their charge is that we brought this on by saying all that. We cannot fall into that trap; if we do, then the shooter has done the GOP’s work for them.