Special Report: Trump shot
Everybody’s got a hot take, but let me add some context.
By now, you’ve heard that former President, now presidential candidate, Donald Trump was shot in an apparent/obvious assassination attempt in Pennsylvania this past Saturday.
It wasn’t easy to avoid the news, heck, it was even splashed across my Amazon Prime homepage when I was trying to play Raffi music for my 1-year old.
So, I’m not going to recount the blow by blow, the basic facts, or even the GOP convention as it starts today.
What I wanted to comment on here is something I’ve been commenting on for awhile.
To recap some observations from 2023:
Where did this come from?
Just how did we get to this point:
Source: CNN
January 27, 2023
While the Biden administration spins its wheels on issues of governance and policy, the President’s continued vilifying of the mythic “MAGA Republicans' ' reached ever new extremes as the President repeated his claim that these apparently ubiquitous red-hatted menaces are “waging a war” on abortion.
Those comments came even as protests and violent rhetoric continue to be leveled at Supreme Court Justices and the FBI leaves local officials to their own resources to investigate the waves of attacks targeting crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life groups.
Readers of this newsletter know that I’ll call out political violence regardless of what side of the political spectrum it comes from, but I find this trend of officially sanctioned violent rhetoric coupled with official inaction in the face of real violence coming from the Biden administration to be a particularly dangerous mix. These things have a way of getting out of hand fast.
February 24, 2023
I’ve been noting the rise of political violence in the US for quite some time now. Well, after reading the excellent book Overdoing Democracy by Robert Talisse, I’ve got a name to go with that discussion: civic enmity.
Polarization isn’t the problem per se, but the tendency to see political opponents as dire threats that must be stopped at all costs. That’s civic enmity.
That “stop them at all costs” mentality not only justifies right wing violence, but left wing corruption (I’ve already reported on left wing violence and right wing corruption in other newsletters).
And, this civic enmity now appears to be putting religious leaders in the crosshairs. It shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point (though it should shock, sadden and anger you) that when a leaked FBI memo suggested Catholic Bishops were being “radicalized” into racist, white supremacist extremists, an LA bishop was gunned down just days later.
According to Talisse, the answer to this severe civic enmity is not going to come from more politics or more democracy. Rather, it’s going to come when we humanize our political opponents by acknowledging our own tendency to polarization, then step beyond that to engage in social activities that are fundamentally not political.
March 10, 2023
I’ve discussed the rising levels of political violence in the US for quite some time now, but this week presented an interesting contrast and validation of the old saw “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
For quite some time now both sides of the political divide have had their favorite targets to blame for political violence. Democrats found their scapegoat in the January 6 rioters and white supremacists while Republicans pointed to the violence of Antifa and attacks on crisis pregnancy centers.
This week, Antifa was back in the headlines with a mass attack on an Atlanta training facility for police officers, another crisis pregnancy center was hit, and Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson released a series of reports questioning the official narrative of events on January 6.
The effect of seeing all these colliding narratives? Public trust continues to decline in both institutions of government and the media.
March 31, 2023
[Reference the Covenant School shooting in Nashville] I cannot comprehend the level of despair an individual must be in to be able to so thoroughly dehumanize their fellow human beings to the point of being willing to kill innocent people, especially children. It’s more than a perverted sense of injustice, mental illness or anger (all of which seemed to be in play here for the shooter). There’s a rage in the soul that is terrifying.
Here’s the catch to this one: I’ve been watching and mapping the popular debate on guns and gun policy closely, especially since the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. Typically, the first 24 hours after an event like this is focused on the initial shock and trying to figure out the details of the event. Within 48 hours, though, public discourse abstracts the tragedy into preselected, ideologically defined talking points, and things go downhill from there.
That hasn’t happened this week. While President Biden repeated his call for “common sense” gun control, media coverage on the shooters background and possible motivations has all but ceased, there’s been next to no memorializing (outside the conservative press) of the victims, or praise of the officers who ended the rampage.
Indeed, mainstream news outlets appear to have shifted into a kind of victim blaming with outlets like Axios publishing stories on how Christian groups are backing so-called anti-trans legislation. At the same time, transgendered activists attempting to occupy state houses in Kentucky and Tennessee during what activists call a “Week of Visibility” or “Day of Vengeance” have drawn little to no coverage.
What am I suggesting here? I’m suggesting something I’ve talked about quite a bit in the last year in this newsletter: The culture war is getting increasingly dangerous, and while the Biden administration focuses on the danger of right wing domestic terrorism, it drags its feet on prosecuting left wing terrorism (if it prosecutes at all), the media largely downplays or explains away left wing terrorism, and public officials believe they can casually use violent rhetoric and harass independent journalists.
Explaining away unlawful behavior, denying/justifying violence of your followers, using incendiary rhetoric and violent imagery… what does all this sound like? If your answer is “Donald Trump and the January 6 rioters,” you’d be correct.
April 14, 2023
First it was a transgender man attempting to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh, then it was a trans man carrying out a mass shooting at a Nashville school, followed a couple weeks later by a trans man being stopped from attacking a school in Colorado and trans activists attacking a female athlete.
What was it that they say about three or more occurrences? That they’re a trend, right?
That journalistic rule of thumb (apparently lifted from a James Bond novel) is by no means a scientific standard, and certainly can obscure the full picture. However, that there is an undeniable uptick in violent trans radicalism that is making itself known should be undeniable. But what’s its cause? Is it those hateful Christians, or ultra-extreme-mega MAGA-ites, or toxically masculine Proud Boys driving the long feared surge in right wing terrorism?
The FBI sure seems to think something like that as it recently got caught trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and attach Internet slang to right wing extremism. At the same time, the Biden administration continues to use words like “brave” and “fight” to positively describe the work of trans activists while advancing the agenda of those activists at the policy level and not punishing activists who engage in criminal activity.
The rash of violence perpetrated by trans activists in recent weeks is by no means an isolated thing, taking place as it is within the broader trend of violent left wing rhetoric and activism that’s been discussed quite a bit in this newsletter (maybe I should do a Deep File on that).
June 30, 2023
More left wing violence in the US, where an Orlando Catholic Church was apparently set on fire on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
December 29, 2023 (Called it!)
Both Trump and Biden have spent the last several years demonizing one another (link is Trump example, I’ve already discussed Biden’s polarizing rhetoric in prior newsletters), and contributing to polarization in the US. In that time, we’ve seen a real uptick in left wing violence against the Supreme Court, civil society groups, and Christians. Meanwhile, President Biden’s administration has pulled on the levels of state power to put conservative groups and the Catholic Church in the crosshairs of federal law enforcement. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the losing side is going to feel a certain level of existential dread, which can easily turn violent.
March 1, 2024
That use of stirring memories of past violence to stoke public fear and vilify one’s opponents has found a new iteration in the Biden administration’s fixation on the dangers of “Christian nationalism” and its alleged links to the January 6 (2021) riot in DC. “Christian nationalism” is a term that’s been hotly debated over the last four-ish years ever since some GOP members of congress referred to it. However, it’s taken on a life of its own in the last couple of weeks as media outlets ran several stories seeking to link Christian nationalism to that other bogeyman of the Biden administration: “ultra MAGA” or “radical MAGA”.…
This is not me saying that “Christian nationalism” is not a thing, or that there is no linkage between “Christian nationalists” and “MAGA”. That would probably be worth a much longer piece. What I do want to draw attention to, though, is something I’ve written on at several different points over the last year and that is a continuing trend by the Biden administration and its media allies to deploy very specific language and linkages to describe and denigrate political opponents. It amounts to a “bloody shirt” narrative that poses a real danger to the health of the body politic in the upcoming election (it’s already having the desired effect). It supercharges polarization, and risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy by contributing to an election context where opponents see violence and/or corruption as the only means to “save democracy.”
What it adds up to isn’t pretty
That’s a lot of long quotes from past newsletters, but I put them all in one place to paint for you a picture of what led up to this point because most of the hot takes I’m reading and seeing are focused on the details of the moments leading up to and immediately after Trump’s getting shot.
Read the above and note carefully what has been developing:
Well documented vitriolic and violent political rhetoric. Used by both parties, yes, but explained away, justified, and even approvingly amplified in the media when coming from the left.
A rising trend in violence aimed at conservative America (MAGA voters, pro-life groups, the Catholic Church, etc.).
A refusal by the FBI and Justice Department to prosecute crimes or to call actual left wing domestic terrorism by its name while warning of potential domestic terrorism from the right, and expending resources in that direction.
And, perhaps most egregiously, a sitting President is not just being indecisive amidst such violence or ignoring it, but actively fanning the flames while denying Secret Service protection to another presidential candidate!
What happened on Saturday has been building and brewing for years, reaching critical mass in the last year as the quotes above indicate.
What comes next?
What comes next is a highly likely Trump victory in the 2024 presidential election. Between his debate performance of a few weeks ago and his tepid call for national unity following the shooting, Biden is on his back foot, his party is divided, and they’re both hemorrhaging credibility along with media allies. All for good reason as many Americans are concluding at this point.
But don’t expect there to be much soul searching. The spin machine is already at work.
What comes next for us, though, those of us sitting at home watching all this unfold?
You’ve got a real choice in November, not just between two personalities or candidates, but two moral visions of American life. One is trying to affirm a positive, expansive view of America, the other is not.
President Biden is right in one sense, the temperature of political discourse does need to come down, but what does that even mean/look like? Let me tell you what it shouldn’t look like: It should NEVER look like downplaying, excusing, or rationalizing evil. Speak gently, but speak clearly, speak truthfully.
Steady eyes and level heads, my friends.