I really wish that we'd all stop using terms like "crazy" or "nut" when describing assassins or would-be assassins. We've done this since at least the JFK assassination. The idea is that only a crazy person could become an assassin. But there have been assassins since the dawn of time. Few have been crazy. The truth is, the lone gunman l…
I really wish that we'd all stop using terms like "crazy" or "nut" when describing assassins or would-be assassins. We've done this since at least the JFK assassination. The idea is that only a crazy person could become an assassin. But there have been assassins since the dawn of time. Few have been crazy. The truth is, the lone gunman lunatic is a convenient way of memory holing these things, without looking into the powerful people who may have a lot to gain from the assassination.
A big premise of this article was that the author should have realized that Routh was a nut. But Routh was in no way mentally ill. He was a radical, and obviously quite dangerous, but he was rational and functional, and able to build an organization that was profiled very positively by all sorts of big time media.
And, as the article alludes to but doesn't quite have the courage to explore, Routh's political views are actually very mainstream Democrat. His Twitter feed could have come straight from the pages of The Free Press. The idea that Trump-Hitler is an existential threat to democracy and all that is good, who must be stopped at all costs or else all life will cease, is the central message of the Harris campaign, just as it was the central message of the Biden campaign. We've been inundated with this message, wall-to-wall 24/7 for the last decade. Not by rando nutjobs, but by the most prestigious Establishment outlets. Important people have been quite vocal about wishing Trump dead. There have been prestigious theatre productions fantasizing about Trump's murder. The Guardian (I think, perhaps it was some other similar outlet) ran an article entitled "Where is John Wilkes Booth when we need him?"
These assassination attempts are not unintended consequences of overly heated rhetoric. I think they're pretty clearly very much the intended outcome, the logical next steps in the decade-long effort by the Democrats/Establishment to destroy him, as he is the leader of the reform movement. They started out with the illegal investigations/infiltration of his 2016 campaign, then moved on to the Russia hoax, where the Obama Justice Dept and FBI consciously decided to derail the Trump presidency with all of those investigations predicated on manufactured evidence that they knew was fake. Then all of the clearly-visible irregularities in the 2020 election. And more recently all of the "lawfare" where they've indicted and convicted him on transparently absurd charges. He's currently facing up to 144 years in prison for the New York conviction, with the others still pending. And he's similarly had a close to half-a-billion dollar judgment against him for borrowing some money and then paying it back on time to the satisfaction of the lender. All of the censorship, and pathologizing of free speech. (Today, you can't be a Democrat in good standing if you support free speech in any fashion. As they constantly point out, only a Nazi or White Supremacist would support free speech). And let's not forget all of the attempts to remove him from ballots. These are all lighter versions of political assassination, in that their intent is to remove the adversary from the field rather than engage with him politically.
And, notwithstanding the standard pox-on-both-houses ploy that TFP seems to be using in discussing this latest attempt, there is nothing on the MAGA side of the ledger that comes remotely close to what the Dems are doing. (Although I will note that TFP is at least better than the rest of the MSM in this, in that those are actually blaming Trump for the attempts). This is an entirely one-sided affair. While Trump certainly uses heated rhetoric, he's at least talking about policy. Or if he does get "personal," it's either in response to personal attacks on himself, or about something truthful, such as the Biden family's corruption. There's nothing that Trump or any prominent MAGA says that even remotely encourages violence. Conversely, the leftist political philosophy that the Democrats openly and proudly now embrace explicitly accepts violence as a legitimate political tool. That may either be active physical violence like the Antifa/BLM riots, or more passive violence like cancel culture that tells everyone that they may lose their jobs if they voice unauthorized opinions.
And I'm not sensing any kind of vibe that anyone in the MSM (or TFP for that matter) is actually upset that people are trying to kill Trump. I suspect that secretly most are disappointed that the attempts so far have failed. Or perhaps they fear that there may be some political fallout. TFP's coverage of both attempts has been almost non-existent. There's certainly no sense of indignation, like they project when covering topics that are important to them.
Articles like this are a good first step, but really, some serious soul-searching is in order here. A recognition that this creeping totalitarianism and violence are all coming from the Democrats, and that this has become a central pillar of their ideology, would be a good start. And it wouldn't hurt if TFP communicated that they're at least somewhat uncomfortable with it.
Well said. Two attempts on Trump by people that donated to Democrats in the space of two months. How many assassination attempts on Harris or Biden, ever? Zero. Leftists are totalitarians at heart. If the childless cat ladies and beta males could have all Trump voters rounded up and put in camps (by someone else, of course) they absolutely would.
I really wish that we'd all stop using terms like "crazy" or "nut" when describing assassins or would-be assassins. We've done this since at least the JFK assassination. The idea is that only a crazy person could become an assassin. But there have been assassins since the dawn of time. Few have been crazy. The truth is, the lone gunman lunatic is a convenient way of memory holing these things, without looking into the powerful people who may have a lot to gain from the assassination.
A big premise of this article was that the author should have realized that Routh was a nut. But Routh was in no way mentally ill. He was a radical, and obviously quite dangerous, but he was rational and functional, and able to build an organization that was profiled very positively by all sorts of big time media.
And, as the article alludes to but doesn't quite have the courage to explore, Routh's political views are actually very mainstream Democrat. His Twitter feed could have come straight from the pages of The Free Press. The idea that Trump-Hitler is an existential threat to democracy and all that is good, who must be stopped at all costs or else all life will cease, is the central message of the Harris campaign, just as it was the central message of the Biden campaign. We've been inundated with this message, wall-to-wall 24/7 for the last decade. Not by rando nutjobs, but by the most prestigious Establishment outlets. Important people have been quite vocal about wishing Trump dead. There have been prestigious theatre productions fantasizing about Trump's murder. The Guardian (I think, perhaps it was some other similar outlet) ran an article entitled "Where is John Wilkes Booth when we need him?"
These assassination attempts are not unintended consequences of overly heated rhetoric. I think they're pretty clearly very much the intended outcome, the logical next steps in the decade-long effort by the Democrats/Establishment to destroy him, as he is the leader of the reform movement. They started out with the illegal investigations/infiltration of his 2016 campaign, then moved on to the Russia hoax, where the Obama Justice Dept and FBI consciously decided to derail the Trump presidency with all of those investigations predicated on manufactured evidence that they knew was fake. Then all of the clearly-visible irregularities in the 2020 election. And more recently all of the "lawfare" where they've indicted and convicted him on transparently absurd charges. He's currently facing up to 144 years in prison for the New York conviction, with the others still pending. And he's similarly had a close to half-a-billion dollar judgment against him for borrowing some money and then paying it back on time to the satisfaction of the lender. All of the censorship, and pathologizing of free speech. (Today, you can't be a Democrat in good standing if you support free speech in any fashion. As they constantly point out, only a Nazi or White Supremacist would support free speech). And let's not forget all of the attempts to remove him from ballots. These are all lighter versions of political assassination, in that their intent is to remove the adversary from the field rather than engage with him politically.
And, notwithstanding the standard pox-on-both-houses ploy that TFP seems to be using in discussing this latest attempt, there is nothing on the MAGA side of the ledger that comes remotely close to what the Dems are doing. (Although I will note that TFP is at least better than the rest of the MSM in this, in that those are actually blaming Trump for the attempts). This is an entirely one-sided affair. While Trump certainly uses heated rhetoric, he's at least talking about policy. Or if he does get "personal," it's either in response to personal attacks on himself, or about something truthful, such as the Biden family's corruption. There's nothing that Trump or any prominent MAGA says that even remotely encourages violence. Conversely, the leftist political philosophy that the Democrats openly and proudly now embrace explicitly accepts violence as a legitimate political tool. That may either be active physical violence like the Antifa/BLM riots, or more passive violence like cancel culture that tells everyone that they may lose their jobs if they voice unauthorized opinions.
And I'm not sensing any kind of vibe that anyone in the MSM (or TFP for that matter) is actually upset that people are trying to kill Trump. I suspect that secretly most are disappointed that the attempts so far have failed. Or perhaps they fear that there may be some political fallout. TFP's coverage of both attempts has been almost non-existent. There's certainly no sense of indignation, like they project when covering topics that are important to them.
Articles like this are a good first step, but really, some serious soul-searching is in order here. A recognition that this creeping totalitarianism and violence are all coming from the Democrats, and that this has become a central pillar of their ideology, would be a good start. And it wouldn't hurt if TFP communicated that they're at least somewhat uncomfortable with it.
Well said. Two attempts on Trump by people that donated to Democrats in the space of two months. How many assassination attempts on Harris or Biden, ever? Zero. Leftists are totalitarians at heart. If the childless cat ladies and beta males could have all Trump voters rounded up and put in camps (by someone else, of course) they absolutely would.
Very well thought out and worthwhile critique