I’m going to have to complain to the Politics Gods about their timing: letting the “Oh no! Biden just let everybody know that we’ve been hiding his dementia all this time!,” story, the “Trump only cares about himself but Biden won’t do the obvious responsible thing and step down and a candidate because that will hurt his ego!” and the Trump assassination attempt all overlap each other is just malpractice. It’s especially tough on me as I try in an election year to avoid my ethics blog turning into a politics blog. Hear my plea, ye Gods!
Meanwhile…
1. That graphic above is a screen shot from last night’s live broadcast of the GOP convention. Trump was a prominent audience member, which itself was historically unique: traditionally the putative nominee stays incommunicado until he makes his dramatic entrance to accept the nomination. Well, why shouldn’t he bask in the spotlight? Atheme of my honors thesis in American Government [“The Great Man Theory and the American Presidency”] was that a disproportionate number of our Presidents were “survivors” who lived through dramatic life-threatening ordeals that left them with convictions of their own invulnerability as well as the belief that they were destined to do great things. Trump didn’t fit that template, but he does now. Those death-defying incidents may have made Washington, Jackson, Polk, Lincoln, Teddy, FDR and others very different men, and better leaders, than they would have been without them. It will be fascinating to see if surviving an assassins bullet by a nanosecond has the same effect on Trump.
2. The criticism of Trump for his raised fist and “Fight! Fight! Fight!” reaction right after being shot is amazing to me, but it shows the entrenched hatred the news media and those it has infected have for this man. It’s scary, frankly. But of all people, anti-Trump, far left fanatic Cenk Uyger gets it, posting on “X”…
Exactly! With the exception of outliers like Cent, is this a progressive thing, with the Left’s love of weenies? Is it a gender thing? Most of the criticism I’ve heard and read about Trump’s defiant reaction has come from women. If so, I’d suggest that the xx side of the population needs to educate itself a bit about American icons, heroes, core values and history. “I answered them with a cannon shot…”
3. I was beginning to think I was being extreme by concluding that the 2015-to-the-present constant drumbeat that Trump is an evil monster Hitler white supremacist super villain who will enslave us all was a significant catalyst for Trump’s shooting. Then I checked Professor Turley’s blog. True, he’s got a book out about the dangers of extreme political rhetoric, but the fact that the professor reaches the same conclusion I have is comforting. He writes in part,
For months, politicians, the press and pundits have escalated reckless rhetoric in this campaign on both sides. That includes claims that Trump was set to kill democracy, unleash “death squads” and make homosexuals and reporters “disappear.”
President Biden has stoked this rage rhetoric. In 2022, Biden held his controversial speech before Independence Hall where he denounced Trump supporters as enemies of the people. Biden recently referenced the speech and has embraced the claims that this could be our last democratic election….Some of us have been objecting for years that this rage rhetoric is a dangerous political pitch for the nation. While most people reject the hyperbolic claims, others take it as true. They believe that homosexuals are going to be “disappeared” as claimed on ABC’s “The View” or that the Trump “death squads” are now green lighted by a conservative Supreme Court, as claimed by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow…
As soon as Trump was elected, unhinged rage became the norm as with Kathy Griffin featuring herself holding the bloody severed head of Trump.
Just recently, another celebrity, actress Lea DeLaria, begged Biden to “blow [Trump] up” after the recent presidential immunity decision. DeLaria explained that “this is a **** war. This is a war now, and we are fighting for our **** country. And these a**holes are going to take it away. They’re going to take it away.”
For months, people have heard politicians and press call Trump “Hitler” and the GOP a Nazi movement. Some compared stopping Trump to stopping Hitler in 1933. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) declared Trump “is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy and he has to be eliminated”…Others say that Trump “will destroy the world” unless he is stopped.
Turley didn’t mention that while Trump was President, an adaptation of “Julius Caesar” was staged in Central Park with Trump as Caesar, and the audience cheering his assassination nightly. The claims that “both sides” have engaged in this level of dangerous rhetoric is proof of corruption.
3. It is strikingly obvious that President Biden and the Democrats (and their media propagandists) have no intention of moderating their message of fear and hate despite the temporary lip-service to that objective. In a post-assassination attempt interview with Lester Holt, Biden said it was a mistake to use the word “bullseye” while discussing former President Trump, but that he meant to “focus on what [Trump is] doing.” Yeah, that’s exactly what “bullseye” means, Joe. Then, despicably, he said that he didn’t use “crosshairs.” That was a cheap shot reference to his pals claiming that Sarah Palin was responsible for Gabby Giffords’ shooting because the former Alaska governor had used crosshair graphics to indicate Democratic districts the GOP should try to flip. Palin never said to put Giffords “in the crosshairs,” and, of course, she wasn’t President of the United States.
In post-shootig speeches and interviews, Biden has said things like “Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic” and thatTrump is “a real danger to the country.” Yes, that’s the kind of fearmongering that got Trump shot. The Democrats have nothing else—this is the whole message: vote for us even though we’ve messed up because the other candidate will destroy America. In his interview with Lester Holt, Biden—AGAIN–claimed that Trump had said that white supremacists in Charlottesville were “very fine people.” The Left has to really terrify voters to get them to cast a ballot for Biden, so the calls for moderate rhetoric were and are insincere.
4. Here’s the whole transcript of the rambling, disgusting, lying Holt interview. Althouse, who was nauseated by it, does a good takedown, so I don’t have to. But it does prompt me to agree with myself that Trump should not have let Biden pretend to care that he was shot at.
5. CNN reported that MSNBC deliberately pre-empted “Morning Joe” on Monday because it couldn’t trust Joe Scarborough to eschew making more “Trump is Hitler” claims so soon after the assassination attempt. Conservative pundits are calling this “an admission.”
6. Over at Reddit, moderators deleted the photo of Trump raising his fist with the flag in the background. A picture is worth a thousand words, but if those words might make someone hate Trump less, those defending democracy will censor them. There’s a disconnect there, I think…
Ethics Alarms 
I don’t think it was Joe himself the powers that be at MSNBC were worried about, but one of the stable of a dozen or so “guests” he and Mika regularly have.
Ethics Hero Jack Black?
Jack Black Cancels Tenacious D Tour After Band Mate’s Disgusting Remark
PWS
This is a prevailing winds situation. For all we know, Gass just said what Black was thinking. But they can’t let that remark stand right now as everyone from the President on down is condemning political violence.
Give it a couple of months when the passion this incident has caused has passed and our short memories kick in.
They’ll be back to using elimination rhetoric without batting an eye before you know it.
I saw the video. Black looked surprised Glass said that. I know Black is a Biden supporter but he has stayed away from the vitriolic rhetoric. Glass blew it, though. Very disappointed in him.
jvb
“Gass” not “Glass.’
jvb
Good for him, especially since he appears to be a never Trumper. Still, it’s hopeful that one or two here and there can recognize that there can be a rhetoric too far. A late realization perhaps, but still welcome.
My sister is a die hard Democrat who would never vote for a Republican — even a Liz Cheney, I suspect — but she was horrified at the shooting.
Uh, Jack Black clearly laughed at the Trump assassination remark, as did his audience. He is cancelling the tour because Australia was going to deport him.
Didn’t see/hear Black’s laugh. And it looks like the deportation talk was because of the remark.
PWS
Yes, his bandmate expressed the opinion that he wanted Trump assassinated, Black and the audience laughed. As a result, there was talk of deporting him. So, he cancelled the tour.
5. I said it before, I’ll say it again: Expect to be inundated with a tsunami of Schrödinger’s Douchebaggery
PWS
I wish one, just one (uno, 2-1, 0+1) interviewer of President Biden had the guts to counter that statement with a single question. “Mr. President, which specific foundations of our republic are threatened by Trump and MAGA Republicans?”
Instead, those interviewers just look contemplatively at the President (or whomever is making that completely inaccurate generality) and nod as if in agreement, before pitching the next softball his way.
I’ll lay a Franklin on the table that says if an interviewer did ask that question, the response would ultimately come back to abortion, because right now, that’s all the Left and the vast majority of the Democratic Party cares about: their daily offerings to Molech.
2. The “toxic masculinity” thing is a bit of a misnomer. I suspect it should simply be the “masculinity” thing.
In a so far futile attempt to gin up a piece of fiction, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my time in a very preppy men’s college from 1969 to 1973. A women’s college was opened up across the street in 1978. I’ve come to think in that time there were lots of girls who simply didn’t have much use for guys. They had picked a women’s college, after all. They were what became known as second wave feminists. It is interesting how many of them have gone on to live guy free and often child free lives. There were also normal women among them, but there was a marked vein of them who, it seems, have preferred not to have to deal with guys, or if they have been with guys, the guys have been found defective, and in most cases, dismissed. A strange time and a strange result.
In any event, I think this “toxic masculinity” thing dates back further than people realize. Probably Gloria Steinham stuff, whose father was a schmuck, and she visited her hate for him upon an entire generation of women.
I still cannot believe the head of the Secret Service hasn’t been summarily canned.
Can you imagine if this had happened to Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign? Trump would have been impeached.
yet.
I seriously doubt she will be, Steve. That’s not how the Biden administration works. There are zero consequences for failure when creating chaos is one of the administration’s objectives. After all, competence is white supremacist.
Trump should have demanded this during the phone call.
Not firing her, and her not resigning lends credibility that the agency desired this result.
In other notes, protection detail is unable to engage a rifleman crawling across a rooftop with a rifle until after he shoots the principal, but is authorized to shoot unarmed women crawling though interior door windows without a principal in sight.
I think different rules apply to the Secret Service and to the Capitol Police.
Remember Trump’s observation during the debate how Biden never fires anyone.
I mean, how many train derailments have we had on Pete Buttigieg’s watch? He’s still getting paid.
Because he checks a box. Come to think of it, he’s been out of sight for a while.
I think it’s safe to say Pete has been sidetracked. Har har. I think they’ve tried to do the same with Kamala, but that’s been more difficult. Frankly, I wonder if Pete’s been transported so he’s back home in Indiana.
But have you noticed the reemergence of the preposterous DNC talking point that the Democrats “have a strong bench?” Hilarious. People say that but they never identify anyone on that bench.
No, they do have a strong bench.
They just don’t have anyone sitting on it.
I could try to make a tasteless joke, but I think I’ll skip that part.
What is the Left’s answer to: If Trump wanted to go full Dictator State, why in the hell didn’t he do it when he was, you know, in power????
Because the “Resistance” was successful!
/s
Bingo. It’s the same reason why the Climate Change models haven’t panned out.
Well, the left’s contention that there are a bunch of violent, racist, MAGA extremists in the country has now been debunked. I don’t see one city in flame. I don’t see one looted store on the news. I don’t see one leftist killed or attacked. Are you telling me that in the WHOLE COUNTRY, there wasn’t even 1 Trump supporter who decided to go out and vent his frustration on someone with a Biden sign in their yard? Huh. Interesting.
So now we know who the violent people are. What would have happened if someone took a shot at Obama?
I saw some videos of people who said that they never put a Trump sign in their yard or wore a hat because they were afraid of being harassed or attacked, but now they are going to get one. I have never heard a Biden or Clinton supporter say they were afraid to support their candidate because of what the Trump people would do.
But Michael! January 6! An insurrection!
Hah.
A really annoying lie they use, the “bloodbath” line. I heard that repeated by George Stephanopoulos, I’m pretty sure, in reference to Trump causing a guy to try to murder him. Trump said if he wasn’t elected, the Chinese electric cars would be allowed to flood the domestic market and the job losses in the auto industry (he was addressing some autoworkers, of course) would be a “bloodbath.”
Such blatant misrepresentation.
Biden has been using the “bloodbath” lie in his “but Trump” efforts to deflect from his own comments. He repeated it in his Holt interview, and wasn’t corrected.
It seems that there were over 500 law enforcement ‘assets’ at the Capitol that day. The reason we need to know who they are is so we can determine if an non-affiliated people actually damaged anything. With that many people there, it is very possible that all the damage done was done by the agents and their assets. Until we know who they are, that cannot be discounted.
http://Yikes! https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/bidens-team-deliberately-kneecapped-trumps-security-to-allow-an-assassination-attempt/
Yikes.
jvb