In the wake of a second assassination attempt in as many months against Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, one must start to wonder who is at fault for such sustained aggression.
The Biden and the DNC, in cahoots with a complicit media, have made no efforts to conceal their campaign of hatred against Donald Trump and all Republicans who support him. Just a week before the second attempt, President Biden himself raged, “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” This, after years of insisting the former President akin to Adolf Hitler, a man who slaughtered an estimated 17 million people. Party favorites Hillary Clinton and current nominee Kamala Harris have both suggested a second Trump administration would mark the end of the United States as we know it, particularly with Harris’ baseless insistence that SCOTUS had recently granted complete Presidential immunity during the debate. Even celebrities have joined the fray, with singer Billie Eilish instructing fans to “vote for Harris like your life depends on it- because it does.”
The encouragement dates back to the start of the first Trump administration. Who can forget Representative Maxine Waters urging her constituents to confront members of Trump’s cabinet were they to see them around Washington in 2018. That same year, New Jersey Senator Corey Booker closed his remarks at a DC fundraiser by encouraging attendees to “Go to the Hill today. Get up, and please get up in the face of some congresspeople.” His remarks are far more extreme than Trump’s January 6th suggestion that supporters march to the Capitol and “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard today.” Still, Booker’s comments faded to obscurity while Trump’s have him in both a court of law and of public opinion.
After the tragic 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords, Sarah Palin’s political action committee was blamed for having circulated an electoral map featuring stylized crosshairs. While the graphic was meant only to highlight particularly vulnerable political districts, Palin and her camp were relentlessly blamed for promoting violence. Following the shooting, which killed six people, including a nine-year-old girl, the New York Times immediately claimed that “the link to political incitement was clear.” Although the paper later corrected the story, indicating that no connection had ever been proven, the idea became a political talking point onto which the left viciously seized.
After two assassination attempts that left one firefighter dead and two others critically wounded, Democrats have some ‘splaining to do. In an era of unprecedented mental health crises, a repeated insistence that a collective nation of individual lives, alongside general world peace, hang in the balance of a Trump reelection is unconscionable. 23% of Americans- some 60 million adults- reported suffering mental illness over the past year. Having long been a problem, the issue was exacerbated by Covid-19-related lockdowns, and many have been unable to seek help due to the financial hardship that followed societal reopening. The media, politicians, and celebrities must be far more careful with their rhetoric and look to remediate some of the damage their words have already done.
Do you think the harsh coverage of Trump led to the two attempts on his life? What can the media and politicians do to make for a calmer election season?
Hilary Gunn is a Connecticut native with a degree in Criminal Justice from the George Washington University. She works for a nonprofit and has previously collaborated with the CT GOP as an activist, political campaign manager and field director, and social media organizer. She is currently serving in her fourth term of municipal office and has previously acted as a delegate on the Republican Town Committee.