Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.
What happened on the evening of July 13, 2024 has instantly become a generational marker – you’ll remember where you were and what you were doing as an assassin’s bullet came within a whisper of shattering the skull of Donald J. Trump.
The former president’s slight turn of his head, a millimeter’s difference between life and death, is proof of divine intervention, if you ever needed one. And Trump’s raised fist, at once reassuring, defiant, and resilient, reassured the country. The photo by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press – capturing a pure moment of leadership under fire, in the truest sense – is now iconic.
America collectively held its breath in that moment, and it feels like we have yet to exhale. Maybe this near disaster caught some people off guard, but for anyone paying attention, this visceral, horrible moment has been coming. The Left has been demonizing Donald Trump and otherizing conservatives for almost a decade. Comparisons to Hitler have become commonplace, as have the labels white supremacists, Russian spies, bigots, insurrectionists, fascists and terrorists. Calling Donald Trump and “MAGA extremists” a dire threat to our democracy and the country has been a cornerstone of President Biden’s public rhetoric.
The Left’s message has been, for years, amplified by a willing and eager corporate media. But on Saturday, they showed us in no uncertain terms how corrupt they have become in how they handled the news of a potential assassination.
Responding to reports of gunfire that bloodied the face of the former president, the Washington Post spoke merely of “loud noises,” NBC of “popping noises,” NPR spoke vaguely of “gunshots” while CNN led with “Trump fell,” devoid of any context. Some defended the approach. Billy Binion at Reason magazine declared that it was “good, actually” for the news media to proceed with caution.
There is a difference between caution, however, and completely reframing the narrative. Caution suggests the use of “apparent gunfire” or “possible assassination attempt” as facts unfold. That is not what happened here, where the corporate press sought at once to downplay and distort what some outlets referred to only as “the incident,” while assigning their own narrative.
And if you were relying on the corporate press to help calm the rhetoric, think again. On Sunday, a day after our politics and our nation were nearly irrevocably changed, the New York Times editorial board ran a full page image accusing Trump of treason, and blared a headline reading “Republicans place shooting in Trump’s narrative of persecution.” On ABC News, Martha Raddatz and George Stephanopoulous appeared to blame Trump’s rhetoric for the assassination attempt. CNN scolded Trump for raising his fist after he was nearly killed, accusing him of inciting more violence.
For his part, President Biden in an Oval Office address called for unity. In his speech he cited several examples of political violence as unacceptable, all against Democrats. Notably absent was the 2017 baseball field shooting which almost killed House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise, or the more recent attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Biden also had the chance to unify the country by announcing an end to his administration’s political prosecutions of Trump and former Trump officials. He did not.
In the meantime, we are left only with questions – about the motive of the shooter, how this happened, why the Secret Service seemed so unprepared, and if this could happen again. Congressional committees have already announced hearings and investigations when the chambers return to session next week.
However restless our politics, driven by a deranged media and an obnoxiously partisan elite, that critical moment in Butler, Pennsylvania may have done more to unite us than we realize.
Every day Americans, regardless of political affiliation, were united in a collective gasp of horror, and then a deep breath of relief that the worst was averted. We were united in courage. We remain united in the belief that countenancing political violence as a tool will mean the end of our great, democratic experiment.
And for one moment we were united in the shouts that broke out as Trump raised himself up from the ground, and pumped his fist in the air. It wasn’t a partisan chant that followed, no one’s name was shouted, there wasn’t political sloganeering or sign waving. There was only one nation, under God, shouting “USA.”
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One More Thing…
The fourth National Conservatism Conference wrapped last week in Washington, D.C. Catch up on speeches from Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator J.D. Vance, and others here.
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