The Assassination Attempt

(JARED TAYLOR) Some loser tried to kill Donald Trump. Republicans are in a frenzy of recrimination and finger-pointing while some liberals now say they will vote for the former president. They are being just as irrational as anyone who thought we needed a “racial reckoning” because of George Floyd. The death of one small-time black criminal should not have provoked mass insanity or changed anyone’s thinking one iota about race relations, reparations, or American history.

Likewise, this attempted murder should not change how people vote, nor does it mean we should “hold people to account” for what they say. Aside from the shooter, this incident has only one clear culprit: the Secret Service. It has a diversity-obsessed lady boss who hires pint-sized incompetent lady agents to “protect” people.

First, the finger-pointing. A few days ago, Joe Biden told donors, “I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” He was obviously speaking figuratively.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) quoted the “bullseye” comment, adding “Joe Biden sent the orders [for an assassination].” He later wrote, “The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, Pa., should immediately file charges against Joe Biden for inciting an assassination.”

Donald Trump, Jr. wrote: “Don’t tell me they didn’t know exactly what they were doing with this crap. Calling my dad a “dictator” and a “threat to Democracy” wasn’t some one off comment. It has been the *MAIN MESSAGE* of the Biden-Kamala campaign and Democrats across the country!!!”

Rep. Lauren Boebert said on TV, “I do believe that Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting today.”

J.D. Vance, now the VP nominee, wrote: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”

Chris LaCivita, a top Trump campaign advisor, wrote in a now-deleted tweet: “Democrat donors and now even the president of the United States have made disgusting remarks. It’s high time they be held accountable for it.” Held accountable? How? Later, Mr. LaCivita had the good sense to say it should be by voters at the ballot box.

Rep. Steve Scalise wrote about “Democrat leaders . . . fueling ludicrous hysteria” about Donald Trump. “Clearly, we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”

Trump supporters are angrily brandishing images of a Trump-as-Hitler cover from the May 16, 2024 issue of The New Republic that ran a big article called “What American Fascism Would Look Like.”

It said: “[W]e can spend this election year in one of two ways. We can spend it debating whether Trump meets the nine or 17 points that define fascism. Or we can spend it saying, ‘He’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.’ We unreservedly choose the latter course.”

Do Republicans expect The New Republic to retract or apologize? If it thought Donald Trump was a fascist before July 14, why change its mind now?

If someone took a shot a Joe Biden, Democrats would be raging and roaring about all the times Mr. Trump has accused his opponent of “destroying” the country. They already are. Should Mr. Trump be “held accountable”?

Even Elon Musk lost his bearings. The day after Mr. Trump was shot, the Sunday New York Times posted a huge headline that took up the whole, full-front-page of the Opinion Section about Trump with this title: “He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must reject him in November.” Mr. Musk tweeted an image of the cover, with the comment, “They are truly callous and despicable human beings.”

That editorial is a massive, five-part treatise, and was obviously planned long ago. Scrapping it would have left a big hole in the Sunday paper. Was the Times unswayed by the assassination attempt or just couldn’t find anything to fill the hole? If it deliberately published that editorial anyway, it may have been bad taste to spit on Donald Trump the day after someone tried to kill him, but I like people who don’t back down.

Don’t misunderstand me: I think all this jabber about the second coming of Hitler is hysteria. I wonder if the people who write that stuff even believe it. If they don’t — if they are deliberately trying to make people believe things they don’t themselves believe — they are despicable. If they truly think Trump is a fascist who will destroy the government, I feel sorry for them, but they can yell about that all they like.

When it comes to freedom of the press (it would be nice if we actually had it), I’m with Jefferson: “[W]ere it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Aside from outright, illegal calls for immediate violence, let us hear no more about people being “held accountable” for their views. I have been “held accountable” for my views — banned, deplatformed, debanked, maligned — for 30 years. The antidote for the New York Times is not Musk-style name-calling. It’s real free speech which, ahem, includes letting me back on X.

There are libs who are furious because Mr. Trump took a bullet in the ear rather than the forehead, and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” skipped a day for fear one of its panelists might say the same thing. But what would you expect?

And now we have the spectacle of people suddenly deciding to support Trump. This is not limited to this former Women’s Studies major who had a Saturday epiphany:

watching Trump survive an assassination attempt and act like a total fucking savage just shifted me into some strange, patriotic gear that my fancy-feminism-white-men-bad infected brain never showed me

like, the dude took a bullet and stood up with blood dripping down his face, and rallied a fucking crowd while fist pumping, yelling “FIGHT!”

sorry, but i’m voting for that.

I don’t mean to say that Donald Trump was not brave. However, after he was hit in the ear, at least seven Secret Service agents swarmed him and covered him with their bodies in case there were any more shots. They held him there for nearly a minute, until they learned the shooter had been eliminated and it was safe to let him up. Mr. Trump had a little time to think about what to say when he got back on his feet.

His first words were, “Let me get my shoes.” Later, he lifted his arm in what will be an image for the ages and mouthed the words “Fight, fight, fight.” This is entirely creditable, and I hope I would have been as unruffled. However, it is not medal-of-honor bravery and wouldn’t sway my vote. Here’s another loony, lefty lady who now thinks Mr. Trump is a he-man and wants you to vote for him.

Not to pick on Elon Musk, whom I respect, but he too was — suddenly — an open Trump supporter: Thirty minutes after the shots were fired, he wrote, “I fully endorse President Trump . . . .” and later, “Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt.” The same day, billionaire Bill Ackman endorsed Mr. Trump. He said he had meant to write a long explanation for his support, but he was carried away by the moment.

Democrats are just as irrational. On Saturday, they pulled all their campaign advertising. They had big plans for blasting Mr. Trump during the Republican convention this week, but one top Democrat says, “The big issue is how to campaign against him or attack him. Can we even do that this week?” Kamala Harris canceled a campaign appearance. Why would Democrats hold back? Do they suddenly not hate Donald Trump quite so much? Is anyone going to like them better because they stopped campaigning?

After the rampage-massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, the National Rifle Association fretted about bad publicity, and drastically scaled back it’s national convention in Denver. That was foolish. Its principles didn’t change because of the massacre. It should have held an even bigger convention, with a theme of “Why no Return Fire at Columbine?” Scaling back won it no respect from gun-haters and only made it look cowardly.

I have never understood “sympathy votes.” Why support a candidate just because his wife was run over by a bus or because his baby died of cancer? That’s sad, but it doesn’t change the man’s politics. Supporting him for that reason is just as idiotic as wanting to pay reparations for slavery because George Floyd died.

Finally, the Secret Service. Whoever failed to block off the roof of a building only 143 yards from the podium should be fired. Whoever assigned short women to guard a six-foot-three man should be fired. Bodyguards should be as tall or taller than the person they are protecting so they can stop bullets with their bodies. And whoever hired these women should be fired – along with the women. One of them comically waved her pistol around uselessly and then had trouble reholstering it, while another couldn’t think of anything better to do than put on her dark glasses. Ironically, it was only because the agent right beside Mr. Trump when he got up was a woman who comes up to his shoulder that you could see his face and read his lips as he made the most iconic gesture of his entire life. Every agent should have been big enough completely to shield the candidate from view and possible follow-up shots.

The head of the Secret Service is a woman, appointed by Joe Biden. She used to be an agent, but her most recent job was running security for the PepsiCo, Inc. Kimberley Cheatle says she is “making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates, ensure that we are developing opportunities for everybody in our workforce, and particularly women.” She wants lady agents to be 30 percent of the force by 2030, and women now outnumber men in agent training classes.

Miss Cheatle keeps a photo of the first woman agent on her desk. She acknowledges that women don’t have to meet the same physical requirements as men. Immediately after the shooting, she said she was proud of the service and told agents to ignore criticism: “Do not get distracted by those who were not there and yet still pass judgement.” I’m one of “those,” for sure. Many are calling for her resignation. No. Fire her.

Usually, I’m happy when cops kill a shooter — it saves trouble and court time — but I wish this guy had lived. Who knows: Maybe he just wanted his name in the papers. Maybe he wanted to impress some girl by shooting the former president the way John Hinckley thought he could impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. Maybe he doesn’t like “drill, baby, drill.”

And so, I’m sorry, Mr. Musk, Mr. Vance, Mr. LaCivita, Miss Boebert, and Mr. Scalise, but let the Dems rave all they want about Hitler and “fascism.” Save your fury for the Secret Service and for the idea that “diversity” is anything but pure lunacy.

(Republished from American Renaissance by permission of author or representative)