Roger Kimball
The Spectator, July 14, 2024
“Is it any wonder that the “woke” forces arrayed against Trump have moved on to something more kinetic?”
Last week at a fundraiser, Joe Biden said that it was time to get beyond his poor performance at his June 27 debate with Donald Trump. Now, said Biden, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Politico described that as a “forceful message from Biden.”
I guess someone was paying attention. Shortly after 6 p.m. ET last night, just minutes after Donald Trump took the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, several shots rang out. One person was killed, two were seriously wounded. The real target, of course, was the former president. He escaped with a flesh wound to the top of his right ear. Images of a defiant Trump, bloodied but waving his fist in the air as he was shuttled off stage by a gaggle of Secret Service agents, have flooded the internet. Exactly why it was that the Secret Service failed to pick up a rooftop shooter a mere 150 yards away is a question that many will be asking.
In a post immediately after the event, Trump thanked the Secret Service and local law enforcement. He also said, “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country.” I hesitate to contradict the former president, but I would suggest that few things are more credible than that someone should try to murder him.
In some ways, the surprising thing is that it has taken until July 2024, four months before the election, for someone to try to assassinate the once and probably future president. After all, since before Trump was elected in 2016, the Democrats and their poodles in the media, Hollywood and fetid corners of celebrity sweepstakes have been baying for Trump’s blood. Remember Kathy Griffin holding up a fake bloodied head of Trump in 2017? Remember the staging of Julius Caesar in which the title character, cut down by Brutus and the other assassins, is clearly a stand-in for Trump? .. [To read the full article, click here]
