The aftermath of the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has exposed an unsettling reality in America today: a growing acceptance of — or at the very least, a disturbing indifference toward — violence against political opponents.
According to a new survey that RMG Research conducted for the Napolitan News Service, a staggering 17% of voters believe that America would be better off if last week’s assassination attempt on Trump had succeeded. This includes an alarming 28% of Democrats, with another 24% unsure whether America might be better off if Trump were dead.
Only 48% of Democrats could definitively say that the country would not be better off if Trump had been killed.
These numbers are nothing short of horrifying. When nearly half of a major political party cannot outright reject the idea of the assassination of a political opponent as a solution, we are witnessing a moral breakdown in the very fabric of our society — or at least the Democratic Party.
“It is hard to imagine a greater threat to democracy than expressing a desire to have your political opponent murdered,” observed Scott Rasmussen, president of RMG Research.
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He's not wrong. It's a troubling trend that the left is increasingly desensitized to political violence. Many on the left similarly felt that the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, which caused billions of dollars in property damage and left several people dead, were morally justified. I suspect more Democrats felt Ryan Wesley Routh was morally justified in trying to assassinate Trump than let on in the poll.
While many of us were horrified that someone could get so close to killing Trump again, a sizable number of Democrats are indifferent. Just over half of all Democrats (51%) still don’t believe that it’s necessary to increase Trump's security. This dismissiveness toward a twice-targeted former president is a stark contrast to the 62% of all voters who recognize the need to bolster Trump’s protection.
Also, just like the last assassination attempt, many on the left are buying into the conspiracy theory that the whole thing was a set-up. A stunning 49% of Democrats think it’s at least “somewhat likely” that Trump or his campaign orchestrated the attempt on his own life, with 21% saying it’s “very likely.”
Rasmussen, while noting his optimism for America’s future, candidly admitted, “For years I’ve been saying that things will get worse before they get better. These numbers suggest that the phase of getting worse is clearly upon us.”
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We’re standing at a dangerous crossroads in our nation's history where assassination is no longer universally condemned; instead, a significant portion of the electorate sees it as an acceptable means to an end. How did we get to this place? The inflammatory rhetoric of the left has radicalized the Democratic Party.
Is it too late to change things? I hate to say it, but if we don’t find a way to address this toxic political environment, America’s best days may indeed be further away than we’d hoped. I think the Democratic Party has a lot of soul-searching to do.
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