For the second time in just over two months, a gunman planned to assassinate Donald J. Trump. In both cases, some political party supporters raced to blame the other candidate and party. In the first instance, on July 13, 2024, the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA, was killed on the scene. His almost non-existent social media was scoured in an attempt to link him to a cause. Failing that, some Republicans declared a conspiracy within the Secret Service and the deep state, trying to gain a political advantage. They took umbrage that a political candidate didn’t receive the same level of protection as the current President, which has never been the case. Some Democrats blamed Republican gun policies and looked for reasons to blame Trump himself.
On September 15, 2024, Donald Trump went to his Trump International Golf Course to play an unscheduled round of golf. Ryan Wesley Routh got there well ahead of him, waiting several hours in a wooded area before moving up to the fence line with his loaded semiautomatic SKS-style rifle, similar to an AK-47, waiting for Trump to reach the hole. Routh was interrupted by a secret service agent who spotted his gun sticking through a chain-link fence. The agent fired at Routh, who ran to his car and temporarily escaped, leaving his weapon behind. A witness saw Routh, took a picture of his car, and copied the license plate number.
Routh was active on social media, and within minutes of his identity becoming known, both sides were spinning their narrative. Democrats let us know Routh had voted for Trump in 2016 but had become disillusioned with him over his Iraq policies and especially his perceived abandonment of Ukraine. On X, Routh was alleged to have contributed to Democrats in the past, with the implication of Democrats being behind the plot. Elon Musk tweeted what he later deleted and called a joke:
“And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”
Musk’s tweet seems like a poor imitation of King Henry II asking, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
You don’t have to be a politician to be on the receiving end of vicious tweets. After Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris, she received death threats from Trump supporters. Instead of helping to turn down the rhetoric, Trump had this to say:
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
The all-caps were Trump’s, not mine. Trump is at least partially responsible for death threats against Georgia poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. All they did was perform their civic duty and volunteer to work at the polls. For that, their lives were at risk. Neither Taylor Swift, Ruby Freeman, or her daughter Shaye Moss were bad actors, but because Donald Trump needed them to be scapegoats, he felt no compulsion about endangering their lives. You’d have thought they were Haitians.
William Spivey
I took a peek at X to see who is currently under fire?
Rich Lowery of the National Review mispronounced the word migrants in a manner that sounded very much like “Haitian ni**er.” Ron DeSantis is taking strays for too many subjects to list. Sean Hannity is being called out for citing false crime stats. James Comer is on the carpet for his multiple investigations against Democrats. Lindsey Graham is in the crossfire for acknowledging that Trump is responsible for the failure of bipartisan border legislation. By tomorrow, the names will change; some sure to return.
Pay no attention to the names pointing toward this candidate or that policy. Elon Musk is surprised nobody is firing on Biden and Harris. Taylor Swift is getting death threats, as are Supreme Court Justices and members of both Houses of Congress. Nobody wants to cease the trash talk lest they somehow appear weak. Politics has devolved to name-calling and lies. Republican Vice Presidential nominee J. D. Vance said:
“The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump,”
Vance sounds very much like he’s calling for someone to take a shot at Harris.
Trump took to the airwaves blaming Biden and Harris for the attempts on his life for calling him “a threat to Democracy.” In the same speech he called them the same thing. Has he forgotten so quickly how his words led to the January 6th insurrection which ultimately resulted in several deaths?
Bonsu Thompson
On cue, constitutional lawyer and Fox News commentator Jonathan Turley, wrote an article condemning all the things Democrats say while remaining mute about Republicans. Turley cited a poll that sampled 2,061 people which determined that 26 million people favored using violence to keep Trump from returning to office. The same poll suggested 18 million would use force to restore Trump to the presidency, something Turley conveniently didn’t mention.
We’re not in a place where people might get harmed because of the comments of politicians and thought leaders. People have been getting hurt and killed for some time now, we saw what can happen on January 6th. Immigrants from an entire nation have been thrown under the bus to advance the cause of one man. When is it going to stop?
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of William Spivey's work on Medium. And if you dig his words, buy the man a coffee.