Moments after the shots rang out in Butler, Pennsylvania, a colleague and good friend texted me one word: “Unbelievable.” He was wrong. What the world witnessed Saturday was in fact, inevitable. Let me walk you through how it all happened.
What do we know so far?
A twenty-year-old man tried to kill President Trump but failed.
WATCH — Lindsey Graham: Trump’s Reaction After Being Shot “Will Be an Iconic Moment in American History”:
Apparently, he’s a registered Republican, but the only party he has ever donated to is the Democratic Party, and he did so on the day of Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The murderer failed to kill President Trump, but by inches.
Instead, he murdered an innocent bystander and critically wounded two more of the former president’s supporters.
How did it happen, who’s to blame, and what will happen next?
At the operational level, the Secret Service appears to have failed in all sorts of concrete ways. The most egregious of which was failing to secure the building used by the wannabe assassin, which is less than 200 yards from where the president was standing.
On top of that, if we are to believe the eyewitnesses who have already gone on camera, multiple attendees saw the shooter scale the building during President Trump’s rally and alerted the authorities as he did so, yet no decisive action was taken.
WATCH — Defiant: Bloodied Trump Pumps Fist to Crowd After Assassination Attempt at Rally:
C-SPAN
Lastly, unlike earlier instances, most notably when Ronald Reagan was shot, the agents responsible for the life of the president failed to immediately move their charge out of the “kill box” and rush him to a hospital, despite the fact they did not know the extent of President Trump’s injuries, or whether or not the first assailant had an accomplice in the crowd ready to take another shot or detonate an explosive device whilst he remained in situ.
But what about matters above the tactical and operational? Who bears culpability at a national and strategic level?
It is quite remarkable that even some well-known conservatives have joined in the “let’s come together” bromide, calling for unity and for their MAGA compatriots to avoid “divisive rhetoric.”
President Trump was shot yesterday, and apparently it is conservatives who have to “behave.”
WATCH — Axelrod: Trump Will Be Greeted at RNC as a ‘Martyr’:
Well, I reject that wholeheartedly because there is only one party that has normalized political violence in America, and it is not the Republicans.
No matter how hard you try, there is no conservative politician, let alone President Trump, who did any of the following:
- Threatened Supreme Court justices because they had different views to their party over abortion as Senator Chuck Schumer did.
- Publicly told her followers to surround and harass any member of the Trump cabinet they see in public like Congresswoman Maxine Waters did.
- Call for physical violence again President Trump, as former Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi has done.
- Raised funds to pay for the bail of BLM rioters arrested for arson and vandalism as Kamala Harris, the vice president, has done.,
- Or, just 5 days ago, tell an audience of his political supporters that they have to put a “bullseye” on President Trump, like President Joe Biden did.
No, if there is one political party in America that has enflamed passions and dehumanized those they politically disagree with, especially President Donald Trump, it is the Democratic Party.