One year ago, America stood on the edge of catastrophe and witnessed what can only be described as a miracle. At approximately 6:15 PM in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump—the Republican presidential nominee—was nearly assassinated during a rally. The would-be killer, perched brazenly on an unsecured rooftop less than 400 yards from the stage, unleashed rifle fire. One bullet clipped Trump’s ear, missing a fatal headshot by mere millimeters. The fact that he survived is nothing short of providential.
I remember that day well. And I remember being told that Trump had been shot. I wasn’t home at the time, and couldn’t believe it, and figured it was just some social media rumor that had gone viral. And then video started circulating. I don’t remember much about the event I was at, because I was trying to follow what was going on, desperate for information, and desperate to get back home where I could follow what was going on more efficiently and report on it so that our PJ Media readership could find out the latest information.
And the more we learned, the more disturbing things got. We learned that the Secret Service apparently ignored warnings from rally goers that there was a man on a roof with a rifle and that the Biden administration rebuffed the Trump campaign’s requests for more security. All of this came out within hours of the attempted assassination. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of the Democrats came under scrutiny. The media quickly sought to downplay the assassination attempt. Leftists took to social media to claim the entire thing was staged. Kamala Harris, who would eventually take Biden’s place on the ticket, had once joked about killing Trump. And, perhaps even more disturbingly, Democrats had, well before the assassination attempt, tried (and thankfully failed) to deny Trump Secret Service protection. Worse yet, some on Trump’s Secret Service detail believed that the lack of resources for Trump’s security was politically motivated.
Mere months before the assassination attempt, it was clear that Democrats were trying to find ways to leave Trump vulnerable to assassination. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) even introduced a bill to deny Trump Secret Service protection in the event one of the Democrat prosecutors trying to convict him on bogus charges succeeded. I wrote at the time that Democrats were “being incredibly unsubtle about their desire to get Trump killed and to potentially facilitate that.”
It was a rare moment of opportunity for Democrats to reflect on their rabid hatred of Trump. They could’ve admitted that calling your political opponents “Hitler” for years can have real-world consequences. They could’ve acknowledged that leadership means exercising restraint, even in tense political moments. But they didn’t.
Related: GAO Bombshell: Secret Service Left Trump Exposed to Deadly Threat in Butler, PA
Instead, Joe Biden had the gall to sit in the Oval Office and lecture the nation about “lowering the temperature.” Not once did he acknowledge the nonstop stream of reckless, dehumanizing rhetoric coming from his own party. Instead, he trotted out the usual talking points. He mentioned January 6, the attack on Paul Pelosi, and the supposed plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. But curiously absent? The 2017 congressional baseball shooting, the BLM riots that torched cities in 2020, and the leftist attempt to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. According to Biden, only Republicans are guilty of overheated rhetoric, and only Trump and the MAGA movement need to chill out.
And just like that, the Democrats fell right back in line—no pause, no reflection, not even a flicker of self-awareness. They didn’t miss a beat. The same hate-filled drum kept pounding, the same dangerous talking points kept flying. It’s the kind of rhetoric that doesn’t just permit political violence—it practically guarantees it. Because to the left, violent rhetoric is only a problem when it’s not aimed at Republicans.
A year later, nothing has changed. Democrats are still peddling the same reckless, inflammatory narrative that nearly got Trump killed—and there’s no sign they plan to stop. If anything, they’ve expanded their target list. The same vile rhetoric they used to dehumanize Trump is now being leveled at ICE agents for doing their jobs and upholding the law. Violence has become the left’s native tongue. It was true then, and it’s just as true now. And make no mistake—this isn’t fringe behavior. It’s a top-down problem.
