If the Left wants to shut down speech they will need to fess up to the reality that it exists on both sides. Pictured: Former U.S. President Donald Trump. Photo Credit: Donald Trump Jr./X.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump recently survived a second assassination attempt. To listen to Democratic leaders and their entrenched media acolytes, Trump brought this on himself and has no one to blame except his careless rhetoric and reckless accusations. I would not be mistaken for a Trump supporter, but I must take exception to this. Democrats, as Jim Geraghty noted on National Review’s podcast The Editors (Sept 17), are reluctant to recognize that the spectre of violence forever looming on the right, seems to manifest mostly on the left.
Trump has endured two attacks on his life and the return to college campuses came with the delightful reappearance of pro-Hamas mobs wielding glass bottles and attacking pro-Israel crowds. As Geraghty further explained, a pro-Israel protestor was tackled and later shot his assailant. In Hancock, Michigan, a deranged ATV driver decided to run over Trump yard signs and consequently ran over an 80-year-old man and put him in the hospital. But does the press ever connect the dots from these acts of violence to the incitement of the left and its loud-mouthed agitators? They seem to have no problem identifying the hot talk of their opponents who could excite the fringes on the right, but the facts tell a different story. Political violence occurs lopsidedly on the left and Republicans should take note of it and object to it. So should Democrats, as Geraghty implores.
What Geraghty and the crew at National Review decry are the efforts on behalf of the press to blame Republicans for violence even years after words are spoken. Charles Cooke in the same podcast pointed out that the press decided that midterm election criticisms of Nancy Pelosi in 2010 culminated (the word used in the Washington Post) inevitably (also their word) with a hammer attack on Pelosi’s husband 12 years later in San Francisco. If this accurately reflects what happens on the right, then a double standard should not be applied by dismissing language on the left that incites.
Cooke has no objection to people on MSNBC saying that Trump is Hitler. He thinks they are stupid and hyperbolic, but they are free to say what they want as Americans. But as he explains, “You cannot poo-poo the idea that this crazy guy (Mr. Pelosi’s attacker) was influenced by it (political rhetoric) while selling the opposite case whenever it’s a Republican.” Cooke then refers to stochastic terrorism, an idea that arose about three or four years ago. VOX, a politically left website defines it as, “the idea that even if people in power don’t specifically call their followers to violence, by entertaining it as a legitimate tactic or by demonizing a political enemy on a platform capable of reaching millions of people, one of those millions will be inspired to violent action.” You can also read about it in Slate, Mother Jones, or the New York Times, all publications catering to progressives, Democrats, and liberals.
In the estimation of many publications on the Left, no one better characterizes a stochastic terrorist in American politics than Donald Trump. Using J6 as their prime example, they repeatedly accuse Trump of encouraging his supporters to take up arms. They point to incidents of violence in America as Trump’s fault, and they try to pin on Trump anything, including assassination attempts, as a result of his stochastic terrorism.
I will subscribe to the idea that most Democrats do not want Trump assassinated, but the drumbeat of words used to describe him can only be described as catalytic. He’s a dictator, an autocrat, the root of all evil. As Geraghty repeats, “They (Democrats) regularly go out and insist he is a threat to democracy, that he is, if he wins the election, never going to allow a free and fair election again.” They have also referred to him as the Devil and other sundry epithets. Does it surprise that some people hear this heightened rhetoric and think it their duty to ensure he never becomes president again? “How many nutjobs out there walk around with this idea in their head that if Donald Trump gets elected he will destroy the world, destroy the country?” Accordingly, as Geraghty determines, many will think it makes perfect sense they are saving the world by taking out Trump.
The Left may not want to accept this conclusion or reckon with the inevitable consequences of overheated incendiary rhetoric but with about six weeks until election day that’s where things stand. Who wants to bet that a third attempt on Trump’s life will happen between now and election day?
The tiresome drivel of the Democratic nominee and her stalwarts refers to J6 as the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. I guess World War Two, Naziism, Adolph Hitler, and the 9-11 attacks pale in comparison to a few hundred poorly behaved bearded droogs carrying on senselessly for a few hours at the Capitol before order was restored and Congress concluded its business. Regardless, I don’t think anyone would disagree that society would benefit from a better class of leaders. Blaming Donald Trump and his supporters rings hollow when culpability lies on both sides. Toning down the rhetoric may be a good idea but not if it serves as a conduit for regulating speech. Besides, Democrats are only bothered when the rhetoric comes from Trump. Cooke says that with 330 million people living in America, obviously the more feverish the environment the more likely something akin to an assassination attempt will happen.
A recent New Republic (a progressive magazine) cover portrayed Trump as a Nazi. The Atlantic’s October cover shows Trump as a Roman emperor after the fall into tyranny. Cooke’s words spoke for me. I would not object to this. I like and believe in the First Amendment. I think we should have a strapping standard of political rhetoric. He also made a point that should remind the media about how to cover this hot talk, “People should say what they want. They can call their opponent Hitler or Stalin or communist or whatever. I don’t like it, but that’s fine. And we should blame acts that, I use the word advisedly, result from that on the people who commit them.”
The false narrative of the Kennedy assassination blames hateful Dallas, home to all the racists on the right who wanted to stop the president from collaborating with Martin Luther King, Jr. to enshrine Civil Rights legislation. In reality, Oswald was a nut job, a communist, and he worked on the route of the parade. He hated JFK the Cold War warrior, was a trained sniper, and sought acclaim tragically as obscure men often do. The chap who waited for Trump in the bushes probably swallowed a lot of heated rhetoric about Ukraine, but he had a rap sheet a mile long. He wanted to make himself the avatar of something bigger than himself as Geraghty suggests.
We don’t know about motives, but we do know that Trump has now been the target of two assassination attempts. If the Left wants to shut down speech they will need to fess up to the reality that it exists on both sides. Otherwise, let it alone and trust Americans to elect their leaders even if they make the supposedly egregious mistake of choosing Trump over the glorious and luminous Vice President Kamala Harris. If you doubt me, wait for the demonstrations to follow if Trump wins. They will be menacing, violent, and destructive and the Left will own it.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
