So, how long did it last? How long, after the attempted assassination of the former president and current front-runner, did all the "turn down the temperature" and "scale back the rhetoric" we heard from the mainstream media endure? How long did the cooling period last after their grudging concession that while they can't stand Trump, maybe they went overboard with the constant shrieking about the end of Our Democracy™ and the rise of yet another Worse-Than-Hitler president?
Apparently, they couldn't restrain themselves for even 48 hours.
On Monday, the New York Times published an essay by Elizabeth Spiers, in which she describes the election not as a peaceful tally of the votes of citizens but rather "an all-out war with an illiberal megalomaniac." Trump, she claims, "will happily destroy American democracy if it buys him one more ounce of power..."
With a stunning inability to recognize irony, Spiers then laments that partisan animosity "is rarely resolved via civil debate." Yes, Elizabeth, that point was made last Saturday, when someone who perhaps agreed with you that Trump was an "illiberal megalomaniac" out to "happily destroy American democracy" climbed a rooftop and tried to vaporize his head on live television.
Not to be outdone, Joy Reid ranted that Trump abuses and humiliates minorities. Huffington Post called JD Vance a "next-gen authoritarian," and MSNBC host Alex Wagner accused him of believing in the "supremacy of whiteness." President Biden himself, in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, called Trump a "threat to democracy." This was all said after the assassination attempt.
Way to turn down the temperature. Kudos for scaling back the rhetoric.
We all remember when, a few days after 9/11, President Bush took the stage to tell the world that you're either with us or you're with the terrorists. He made pains to clarify that he wasn't equating Islam with terrorism and made a very public effort to extend a hand of friendship to the allegedly peaceful Muslim world. In return, the Muslim world spit on his outstretched hand. But he had to say he tried.
Donald Trump's speech last night was conciliatory and unifying. That's fine by me. We conservatives are a forgiving, peaceful bunch, and I applaud Trump for rising above the fray. Like Bush, he had to say he tried.
And isn't it odd that when we get attacked, it's always our side extending an olive branch to them rather than their supposed moderates extending one to us?
Trump can be conciliatory while also insistent that you're either with us or you're with the Antifa thugs, drag pedophiles, and Hamas sympathizers currently doing everything they can to finish the job that al-Qaeda started. He can make pains to clarify that he isn't equating classical liberalism and the Democrat Party with domestic terrorism and can make a very public effort to extend that same hand of friendship across the political divide. But the point must be crystal clear that the ball is in their court, not ours. They, not us, must cast out the degenerates from their ranks. They, not us, must prove that the "vast majority" of people on their side are moderate and oppose political violence.
If the CNN and MSNBC reactions to his speech are any indicator, Trump will receive the same response from the Left as Bush did from the Islamic world.
What's that, you say? January 6th?
Go ahead, scream J6 at the top of your lungs. That's all you have: the horror of witnessing an unarmed gaggle of horned shamans and female Air Force veterans climbing through windows. But before you do, be prepared to discuss these other days:
April 14th: The day anti-Republican John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln in 1865
Sept 6th: The day anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley in 1901
Nov. 22nd: The day communist Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John Kennedy in 1963
April 4th: The day George Wallace's campaign volunteer, James Earl Ray, assassinated Martin Luther King in 1968
June 5th: The day Palestinian extremist and anti-Semite Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy in 1968
Feb. 22nd: The day Black Panther supporter Samuel Byck killed a policeman and a pilot while trying to hijack a plan to fly it into the White House to assassinate President Richard Nixon in 1974
Sept. 22nd: The day radical leftist Sara Jane Moore tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in an attempt to incite "violent revolution" in 1975
June 14th: The day Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer James Hodgkinson shot at baseball-playing Republican representatives and senators, hitting and almost killing Rep. Steve Scalise and two others in 2017
June 8th: The day Nicholas Roske traveled to the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to assassinate him in 2022 before getting cold feet and turning himself in
Notice a pattern? And finally...
July 13th: The day Thomas Crooks shot President Trump, wounding him and two others and killing a retired fire chief
Who is Thomas Crooks? I hesitate to jump to conclusions, as little has been released about him other than he is a registered Republican (in a state with closed primaries) who donated $15 to a Leftist PAC on his inauguration day. However, dark details are emerging from those who knew him best. His former classmates described him as no fan of President Trump.
Not to fear...the FBI is on it. They couldn't discern a motive for the self-declared Islamic supremacist who yelled "Allahu Akbar!" while gunning down soldiers at Fort Hood. They won't release the manifesto of the trans activist who murdered children and staff at a private Christian school. But they're focused like a laser beam on discovering why Crooks did what he did. Expect answers to start trickling out circa 2078.
But regardless of whether or not our great-great-grandkids are told the truth about his motives, the reaction from the Left tells us all we need to know. As I write, it's been less than a week since the assassination attempt, and it feels like the mood on the Left is right back to where it was last Friday.
So, yes, we have the stain of Jan. 6th. Democrats have the stain of the Ku Klux Klan, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Occupy, the violent Rotunda takeovers, the BLM riots, CHAZ, Antifa, Hamas, and so many others, as well as all the aforementioned assassinations and attempts. Political violence in America is almost exclusively the purview of the Left.
So when they say Jan. 6th, remind them about July 13th. When they complain about mean tweets, remind them about July 13th. When they accuse us of divisiveness, remind them about July 13th.
Never forget July 13th. I promise that we conservatives won't let you.
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