GOP should look in a mirror to address violent extremism

All right, I want to talk today about they, and the weaponization of the term they in the context of the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump, which I I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I will, because of the political environment, I denounce and oppose any attempt to do away with Donald Trump in any way, other than just defeating him in November. But this is the interesting thing. I’m on the left, and I’m denouncing violence against Donald Trump. The would be perpetrators were either former Republicans or former Trump voters, registered Republicans or former Republicans or former Trump voters. The guy who actually graze Trump’s ear was a registered Republican, the guy who was on Trump’s golf course and was caught, thankfully before he even fired his gun, voted for Trump in 2016 and then feeling as though Trump had gotten away from the right wing ism that he wanted was supporting Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy in 2024 so this gets me to the use of they. We’ve heard it from JD Vance. We heard it after the second assassination attempt from Republican senator Tommy Tuberville. We’ve heard it in so many different contexts. They are violent. They tried to kill Donald Trump. It’s used by Republicans, and yet it’s Republicans who tried to kill Donald Trump. So why do they keep saying that they do it? Because they want to wrap it all up in a same in the discussion to make it seem as though those that are prosecuting Trump and those that impeach Trump, those that voted against Trump, those that ran against Trump, and, yes, even those who tried to kill Trump, it’s all the same. They and it doesn’t work, because it’s simply not true. I will mention but I won’t dwell on it that, of course, people who vote against Trump have nothing to do with a Justice Department that investigates crimes and might bring charges forward against Trump, and it has nothing to do with election officials who, in 2020 counted ballots, and it turned out that Joe Biden had one, and of course, none of them have anything to do with those who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. Those were right wingers who did that. Now, why they did it? We can discuss. Sometimes the right likes to focus on mental illness, access to guns as part of it. Radicalization is part of it. Social media is part of it. All of these different things can play roles, but the trick that they’re focused on right now is the classic fear mongering. No evidence that the left has anything to do with the assassination attempts against Trump, no specifics linking anyone on the left. It’s just inflammatory rhetoric meant to stir up fear and rally Trump’s base around this false sense of victimhood when it is the monster the right has created that they lost control of and you can blame for these two thankfully failed assassination attempts against Donald Trump. Now I wanna address one other thing about these it’s become trendy among some. JD Vance has tried it, and so have others to say. You know, all you people on the left keep saying Trump’s a threat to democracy. That’s why these two people tried to kill them. First of all, why right wingers would be listening to the left question Trump’s commitment to supporting democratic institutions. I don’t know. I mean, the last guy said he listened to Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, not anybody else on the left. But it’s critically important to understand that it’s an instance of projection. They are saying when the left questions Trump’s commitment to democracy, they are inciting violence. And yet, for years, Trump has been saying Biden and now Harris will destroy the country.

If you vote for them, there will be a 1929 style depression. She’s a communist, she’s a Marxist, she’s a fascist, she’s a socialist, she is a comrade, whatever they are, the ones using the unhinged, extreme, hyperbolic rhetoric saying the country won’t be great, will have no country, will have no border. While they are the ones doing it, they continue to insist that it is the left that incites violence through those mechanisms. The final thing I want to mention is that on most of these issues we we have data, and the overwhelming political violence in the United States has right wing origins. You have the occasional, you know, eco warrior, eco terrorist, very seldom which you could say that.

Left wing political violence. The political violence is overwhelmingly right wing in the United States. Civil rights groups track it, anti defamation, league, Southern Poverty Law Center, so if they really want to limit divisive rhetoric, which can make people become violent, like they did on January 6, remember they should look inward, rather than to the left of the political aisle. So.