This is America in 2024, when even global warming can’t give off the kind of heat that our hyperpolarized political world does.
We barely have time to digest the horror of a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life before Trump is baselessly putting the blame on Kamala Harris and/or Joe Biden, further dividing a country that you’d think couldn’t possibly be more divided.
The fact that there have been two assassination attempts in two months is shocking — even given the long history of political violence in America — but the blame game is utterly predictable.
And all but lost in the debate, somehow, is that two disturbed people — one who was a registered Republican and one a disillusioned Trump supporter who has, at times, voiced political support for Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy and, yes, Bernie Sanders — had easy access to assault-style weapons that could have killed a former president who might be president again.
In the case of Ryan Routh, the alleged gunman at Trump’s Florida golf club, he was a felon who had once been convicted of possessing a “weapon of mass death and destruction.” How exactly did he end up with an SKS assault-style rifle that was fortunately spotted by a Secret Service agent before Routh could fire on anyone?
Of course, gun violence is the last thing Trump wants to talk about. I mean, if you talk about guns in assassination attempts, before you know it, you’ll be reminded that JD Vance told us in the wake of the recent school shooting in Georgia — claiming four lives — that gun violence at schools is a regrettable “fact of life.”
We might even be reminded of another regrettable fact of life — that guns are the leading cause of death in American children.
So, guns, including those that could kill a president from hundreds of yards away, are apparently off the table.
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Instead, Trump blames heated political rhetoric from Democrats for the assassination attempts, even as, at the very same time, he dials up the political rhetoric way past 11, hitting exclusively Trumpian levels.
There has never been a president, or former president or wannabe president who has engaged more in hateful rhetoric than Trump. It has been a defining piece of Trump’s life and certainly of his political life.
You may recall that Trump, along with Vance, have been spreading hateful lies about Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio, where, in the wake of these lies, the town is now under siege. Mike DeWine, Ohio’s Republican governor who has called the dog-and-cat lies “garbage,” has sent 36 state troopers to Springfield, where public schools have received, at last count, 33 bomb threats.
It gets even worse. A festival in Springfield has been canceled. College campuses have been closed. Government buildings have been evacuated. The Proud Boys have come there to march.
Meanwhile, Trump and Vance have been doubling and tripling down on the garbage — what Harris called on Tuesday “hateful rhetoric” — that they have spread about the Haitians in Springfield.
And when Trump was asked by a reporter whether he denounced the bomb threats there, he offered only this: “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it’s been taken over by illegal immigrants, and that’s a terrible thing that happened. Springfield was a beautiful town, and now they’re going through hell. Not going to happen with me, I can tell you.”
Quick fact check:
The Haitian migrants are, for the most part, legally in this country. And if the town is going through hell, it’s because of Trump and Vance and hateful lies, not because of migrants.
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So, yeah, when Trump blames the assassination attempts on violent rhetoric from Harris — who, by the way, doesn’t generally trade in that style of rhetoric — he naturally uses, well, violent rhetoric about Harris and Biden. That is what he does.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at,” Trump told Fox News. “They are the ones that are destroying the country, from both inside and out … It is called the enemy from within. That’s the real threat.”
At around the same time, he was tweeting this: “The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust. Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”
Of course, Trump calls Harris a communist. He usually calls her a fascist, too. And sometimes he just settles for saying she’s dumb as rocks. He said the debate was rigged. He didn’t mention, although he has several times before, that he “hears” Harris had an audio device in her earrings during the debate. Meanwhile, his campaign sent out a fundraising email the same day as the above tweet saying that Biden, who is no longer running against Trump, “hates our country.”
Look, just ask yourself this: Which other American president has called his opponents “vermin”?
What Biden and Harris have said — although Harris has purposely downplayed the charge since she entered the race — is that Trump is a threat to American democracy.
They say it, though, because Trump is a threat to American democracy.
It’s as plain as the January 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It’s as plain as Trump’s plan to pardon the so-called J6 hostages if he is elected president again.
It’s as plain as Trump’s recent threat to jail — for “unscrupulous behavior” — those who he claims rigged the 2020 election, including, he wrote on Truth Social, “Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters & Corrupt Election Officials,” who would be “prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Trump wants Democrats to stop saying that he’s a threat to American democracy, not because it is inspiring assassination attempts — I mean, Trump has said much the same about Biden and Harris — but because that truth is so clear.
So, here’s where we find ourselves in the last weeks of this critical election campaign, which most analysts see as a tossup:
Knowing that Trump is, in fact, a threat to American democracy. Realizing, as if we hadn’t before, that political violence is a threat to American democracy.
And fearing, if history is any guide, there’s every chance that before the Nov. 5 election, things will only get worse.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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