Let The "Right Wing Violence" Narrative Begin
Corporate Media Needs To Shut The Hell Up
Corporate media really needs to just shut down and go away.
Bear in mind that we are still less than twenty-four hours since the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee was shot.
We are less than twenty-four hours after at least two rally attendees were also shot, one of them fatally.
Donald Trump is still recuperating from being shot—thankfully, the injury appears to have been minor—and already corporate media is trying to spin the attempt on his life as more threats of violence from his supporters.
The corporate media take on Trump’s official statement posted on Truth Social was to carp and criticize for not telling Trump supporters not to retaliate, for not condemning all political violence, for not “cooling the temperature.”
You can listen to their bleating noises for yourself:
They’re troubled that Trump’s inner circle is tweeting out statements of outrage? Seriously?
The. Man. Was. Shot.
Reality check: getting shot is pretty damn outrageous.
Second reality check: getting shot for having the temerity to stand for Presidential election is beyond pretty damn outrageous.
Of course Trump’s team is pretty damn outraged. I’m not on his team and I’m pretty damn outraged. This is not how I want to see American politics unfold. This is not how I want to see political candidates or even politicians treated.
I want to know who these “officials” are who are saying that the biggest threat is “retaliation”.
This is, we should remember, a fluid news event, and since that video clip aired we have learned the identity of the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
We have also learned that he was both a registered Republican and a Democratic donor (to ActBlue).
So is he a right-wing lunatic or a left-wing lunatic? Or just simply a lunatic?
Yes, I am assuming he was a lunatic, because, at the tender age of 20, he is an unlikely candidate to be a paid professional assassin. My own personal take—which I freely admit is speculation—is that he acted on his own. My own personal speculation is that it is unlikely he was paid to assassinate Donald Trump.
Does that mean there is no connection between Democratic rhetoric demonizing Donald Trump and this shooting? Does that make it unreasonable to presume a linkage between Democratic rhetoric demonizing Donald Trump and this shooting?
Let me remind you of an important fact here:
The. Man. Was. Shot.
I do not know anything about Thomas Matthew Crooks’ politics. I am inferring from the fact that he tried to shoot Donald Trump that he was opposed to Donald Trump’s candidacy, which implies that he did not like Donald Trump’s politics.
At a minimum, if he was opposed to Donald Trump’s politics we may safely presume he would have resonated with anti-Trump rhetoric coming from Democratic politicians, including the President.
Is it so unreasonable, then, for conservative commentator Mark Levin to remind his followers on Twitter/X that Joe Biden only recently indulged in some highly evocative anti-Trump rhetoric, saying it was “Time to put Trump in the bullseye”?
That statement was reported by Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times—hardly a “pro-Trump” source or a “conservative” publication.
With such rhetoric coming from Joe Biden, is it unreasonable that Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia should call for Biden to be indicted?
We should be mindful that even Joe Biden retains freedom of speech in this country, Even though Donald Trump was shot scarcely a week after Biden made that statement, it is highly unlikely that Biden’s statements would count as incitement for assassination under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg1 tests. Even if a linkage between Biden’s “bullseye” statement and the shooting can be proven and not just inferred, Biden’s statement to donors and its subsequent leakage by donors to the New York Times, is simply too far removed from the shooting for it to stand as a call to imminent lawless action.
As a matter of legal reality, such an accusation against Joe Biden is no more credible than the accusation leveled against Donald Trump that he incited acts of violence during the J6 quasi-riot at the nation’s Capitol.
Yet we should also note that Trump’s supporters are not wrong when they say that Joe Biden and the Democrats have a “by any means necessary” mindset when it comes to stopping Donald Trump from running for re-election. J.D. Vance is not wrong about that.
Remember, the House Judiciary Committee has released a report laying out in painstaking detail what the Democrats have been willing to do to the American criminal justice system, all in the name of stopping Donald Trump from standing for re-election.
If the Democrats are willing to engage in this level of corruption using the courts, is an assassination attempt really an unreasonable speculation? Hardly.
What we would remember, however, is that such comments by Trump’s supporters are speculation. As of this writing, there is no credible evidence being circulated that establishes a criminal conspiracy by any Democratic politician or supporter to assassinate Donald Trump. While the outrage is understandable, the speculation that this was a Democrat conspiracy is at present just speculation. Given the shooter’s relative youth, I highly doubt there will be any such credible evidence. Technically it’s not impossible, but it seems most improbable.
Should Joe Biden assume any responsibility for the shooting as a result of his intemperate rhetoric? Ultimately, that’s a stretch. Such evocative imagery is very much in keeping with American culture even beyond politics.
People routinely react to criticisms of their political viewpoints by saying “they’re over the target”—an allusion to WW2-style aerial bombardments. A “bullseye” reference is no more a call for shooting someone than being “over the target” is a call for bombing one’s political opponents into oblivion.
If corporate media is truly interested in “lowering the temperature” in this nation’s political discourse, they can start by not reflexively carping and criticizing a man for not incorporating their preferred modalities of virtue signaling when making a statement right after having been shot.
If corporate media is truly interested in “lowering the temperature,” they can begin to do so by stopping their reflexive demonizing of both Donald Trump and his supporters. They can cease and desist from their constant disdain for political conservatives and all those who do not think like they do.
I am not, politically speaking, a huge fan of Donald Trump. I am not the slightest bit interested in identifying as a “MAGA” Republican—or any Republican, for that matter. I find some of the knee-jerk ad hominems that spew from “MAGA” types on social media to be every bit as inane and offensive as that which comes from the Democrats and their corporate media shills.
Yet all Donald Trump supporters, all Republicans, and all Democrats are still 100% all American. This election cycle is all about electing an American President—not a “Democratic” President or a “Republican” President. Whoever wins the office has a duty to the whole of the American people, whether they are on the political left, the political right, or sit in the political center.
Corporate media—and Big Tech social media as well—has largely forgotten that. They have long treated Donald Trump and his supporters with contempt, condescension, and disdain. That we have no clear evidence establishing a clear link between that contempt and the assassination attempt does not make that contempt any more palatable. It does not make that contempt any more justifiable. It does not make that contempt in any way acceptable.
We do need to lower the temperature of our political rhetoric. We do need to find a way to come together as one American people, because that is what we are. I hope and I pray that we find a way to do just that.
Corporate media’s “blame the victim” approach to what Donald Trump and his supporters have said after an attempt on Donald Trump’s life is not lowering that temperature, but raising it. Corporate media’s snarkiness about what Trump’s supporters are saying is not bringing us together as one American people, but dividing us and driving us farther apart from each other.
If “blame the victim” is the caliber of commentary we can expect from corporate media about an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate, then corporate media needs to stop commenting.
Corporate media needs to stand down and shut the Hell up.
Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969)
Same fuckers killed Shinzo Abe of Japan with same stand down technique…….WEF, Soros, Obama, Rothschild, Biden family gotta go!
The Trusted New Initiative goes to work immediately - the US equivalent of Pravda.