The short answer to the question posed in the headline is 'no.' I have consistently rejected the grotesque and demagogic impulse to blame political opponents for threats and acts of violence from demented, sick people on the fringes of society. Absent direct incitement, it's deeply unfair and dishonest lay responsibility for an individual's terrible actions at the feet of a politician or political party. I've made this point after a leftist tried to murder a group of Republican Congressmen on a baseball field a number of years ago, and I've made the same point when the ideological and partisan dynamics are reversed. Infuriatingly, Democrats and their 'news' media allies apply flagrantly different rules and standards on this front, depending on which party might benefit or suffer from a 'blame game' narrative. If someone even remotely associated with the Right (even in their imaginations, based on no actual evidence) threatens or commits political violence against someone on the Left, we get DefCon One-level coverage from the self-appointed Civility Police. We have 'national conversations' about the dangers of the 'climate of hate' conservatives have fostered.
When the shoe is in the other foot, the same sort of hand-wringing is strikingly absent or muted. The media's preferred party is not hectored or harangued about their political attacks, no matter now virulent or inflammatory. Indeed, our society is hurried right along, as coverage dries up as quickly as possible, as it did after the aforementioned Congressional baseball shooting, at which a top Congressional leader came within a whisper of being murdered. Even more shamelessly, a new trend seems to be varying degrees of victim-blaming, or at least brazen 'both-sidesism,' a phenomenon that is roundly decried by those who abruptly embrace it when it comes to running cover for the 'correct' tribe. It is disgraceful and super-charges the distrust and contempt so many Americans harbor for the mainstream press. We are seeing it again, on full display, right now.
I do not blame Kamala Harris or Democrats for the assassination attempt against Trump, but Trump does. And in doing so, he is merely directly applying their own standards to them. Many in the press are pressing forward with their typical garbage narratives, despite what what happened to Trump -- again. Others are openly blaming Trump for the murderous hatred against him, as if it's his fault. He had it coming. Victim-blaming is appalling, but it's becoming the style guide in newsrooms against Republicans. As Charles Cooke writes, there must either be a consistent standard, or none at all. Spoiler -- It's just partisan Calvinball:
Donald Trump was targeted by a shooter for the second time in two months, and, somehow, the former president is the one being blamed for it. Consider this a forlorn cry for exposition and specificity. Will someone, somewhere, in the name of all that is good and true, tell me what the bloody rules are for determining whether rhetorical bombast counts as mere everyday hyperbole or as the ineluctable prerequisite to political violence? I have looked and looked for a pattern, but, despite having pried up the floorboards and scoured the attic and investigated every last corner of the basement, I can find no standard that I find satisfactory. Surely, there must be more undergirding all this than just Calvinball?
I answer his question at the bottom of this post. In short, the rules are that Republicans are bad, and everything else flows from there. For instance, it's mad-making to watch journalists directly blame Donald Trump and JD Vance for supposedly fueling threats in Springfield, Ohio, while withholding similar blame from those engaged in intense anti-Trump rhetoric, given multiple assassination attempts against the former president. Republican words about migrants in Ohio are supposedly responsible for threats, but Democratic words about Trump are irrelevant and blameless when murderous people act upon those messages. That's how they frame these matters, and it's sheer corruption and bias. If someone who'd spouted Trump slogans, and donated to more than a dozen Republicans, with a Trump/Vance bumper sticker on his vehicle, had laid in wait for 12 hours to kill Kamala Harris (God forbid), there is a 0.0 percent chance that the media would be finding angles to say she brought it upon herself. They wouldn't be whatabouting or bothsidesing. Major national and battleground state newspapers wouldn't bury the story like it was some minor curiosity, especially if it were the second attempt on Harris' life in the span of three months:
For the 2nd time in 3 months, someone tried to murder a former POTUS, who is also the current GOP nominee for president. Here is USA Today’s cover the morning after the assassination attempt was thwarted: https://t.co/E7kUQHHYJz pic.twitter.com/pKzSPR9jPd
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 16, 2024
Another shameful display by @azcentral
— Brian Anderson (@AZBrianAnderson) September 16, 2024
They stuffed a blurb about the 2nd assassination attempt on President Trump at the bottom of today's newspaper ... and then told readers to visit page 15 for more infohttps://t.co/571vNGed8g pic.twitter.com/4Gwc2ErhR1
Under this alternate scenario, we would be embroiled in a weeks-long panic over political speech, and virtually any ongoing critiques of Harris would be assailed as 'fanning the flames of violence,' etc. But with Trump in the crosshairs, we're told it's at least partially his fault, that's it not that big of a deal -- and hey, look over here at the threats we say he's causing in Ohio. All three major broadcast networks are guilty of this:
'CBS Evening News' anchor Norah O'Donnell: "Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for inflaming political rhetoric, but the former President's own words seem to be increasing the threat of political violence in Springfield, Ohio. That's where a false and ugly accusation against… pic.twitter.com/fF7e3lPndO
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 17, 2024
NBC's Lester Holt: "Today's apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail. Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants" in Springfield, Ohio, resulting in bomb threats. pic.twitter.com/apw9WQ1liR
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 15, 2024
Here's ABC's Linsey Davis anchoring her first Sunday edition of 'World News Tonight' since the debate.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 15, 2024
She pivots RIGHT from a second Trump assassination attempt to implicitly ATTACKING Trump for "baseless rumors" triggering "threat[s]" of "violence" in Springfield, Ohio pic.twitter.com/d9GNynYZdL
How do these obscene deflections look in light of the revelation from Gov. Mike DeWine that those 'bomb threats' were all hoaxes from overseas?
JUST IN: Ohio governor says all 33 bomb threats against Springfield, Ohio have been hoaxes that are coming from overseas.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 16, 2024
Just another media-fueled hoax.
Governor Mike DeWine said the threats are coming from "one particular country."
"33 separate bomb threats, each one of… pic.twitter.com/JHXQqBOAEe
I think we have a right to know which 'one particular country' is playing this despicable game, but will media members issue corrections and apologies for echoing foreign interference in their zeal for attacking Donald Trump and JD Vance? Will Dana Bash have Vance back on to revisit this intense conversation from Sunday? He really let her have it, and deservedly so:
JD Vance tells Dana Bash: "I want to start with something you said which I think is frankly disgusting, and is more appropriate for a Democratic propagandist than it is for an American journalist. There is nothing that I have said that has led to threats against these hospitals." pic.twitter.com/FYNWzyFOcn
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 15, 2024
That exchange occurred before the foreign interference detail emerged. A follow-up is in order, as he mentioned in Michigan yesterday:
The American media has been caught laundering verified foreign disinformation to smear me and President Trump and it's disgusting. pic.twitter.com/PXqCrdqt7P
— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 17, 2024
Finally, here is Hillary Clinton -- who rushed onto MSNBC to call Trump a threat to the country within hours of the second assassination attempt against him -- suggesting purveyors of "misinformation" should face civil and criminal penalties:
Hillary Clinton calls for criminal charges and civil penalties against Americans "engaged" in spreading "propaganda."
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) September 17, 2024
To make her argument against free speechj, she invokes the Russiagate scam that itself was the product of her campaign's own propaganda. Speaking of which, the… pic.twitter.com/oRpwvwN4Ni
I'm not sure she wants to go down that path, given her history. But might she barge into another MSNBC studio to make a citizens' arrest on Politico's White House Bureau Chief, who repeated the debunked 'bloodbath' misinformation on-air?
And yet, this morning @JonLemire is still spreading the "bloodbath" hoax https://t.co/NngiEDaZWD pic.twitter.com/acGkaPrT6E
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 17, 2024
Come to think of it, Kamala Harris told the same discredited lie on the debate stage, and was not corrected by her supporters doubling as ABC's selectively fact-check-happy 'moderators' for doing so. Falsely telling 70 million people that Donald Trump threatened a "bloodbath" if he loses -- when he was really talking about the auto industry, rather than political violence -- is inflammatory misinformation. Will Hillary shout 'lock her up'? Also, think of this: The politics-obsessed would-be Trump shooter likely watched that debate. Did Harris' lies and attacks incite him to try to murder her opponent, to eliminate the 'bloodbath' guy? I don't believe it's fair to make that case, but that is precisely the standard to which Republicans are held by the Left and their media allies, even when Republicans are the targets of violence and threats. This sums it up, and also explains why the 'news' media is rightly reviled as rank, deceitful propagandists by so many:
If it’s lefty speech, it’s harmless hyperbole (if not affirmatively good and necessary truth); if it’s righty speech, it’s dangerous incitement. And whether Republicans or Democrats are targeted, it’s Republicans’ fault. That’s the style guide. You’re welcome. https://t.co/5tIXFRZq1Q
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 16, 2024
I'd also note that Harris, purveyor of the 'bloodbath' and 'fine people on both sides' lies on the debate stage last week, is in no position to credibly sermonize about 'the public trust:'
I will not accept sermons about our sacred "public trust" & rhetorical responsibility from someone who knowingly repeated multiple inflammatory, debunked lies ('bloodbath,' etc), in front of 70 million people, just days before one of her supporters tried to murder the subject of… https://t.co/z7ZyGdGukg
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 17, 2024
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