Two years ago today, a bullet came within centimeters of changing American history forever in Butler, Pa. What followed should have been a moment of national reckoning, a bipartisan agreement that this had gone too far. Instead, the rhetoric that helped create that moment never really stopped. It just went quiet for a few days. So where does that leave us two years later?
Florida GOP Chairman Joe Gruters marked the anniversary with a statement that captured exactly where things stand. "Two years ago today, God spared President Trump's life on that field in Butler, Pennsylvania," Gruters said. "I believe he was spared for a reason: to save America. Today, he is doing exactly that — delivering the largest tax cut in history, a secure border, and the Great American Comeback. But two years later, Democrats' incendiary rhetoric is still fueling violence — including April's assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Until they condemn this hatred and stop it, Democrat calls for unity are worthless."
I still remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was at a winemaker’s dinner when the news came via text. I assumed it was an internet hoax. Why? Because almost always that’s what such news tends to be. Still, I had to check. Within seconds, it was clear this wasn't a hoax at all. A gunman had just tried to kill President Trump in Butler, Pa.
I left the event early so I could get to work covering it.
It's strange how time works with a moment like that. Some days it feels like it happened forever ago. Other days, I can't believe it's already been two years. What hasn't changed, unfortunately, is the political environment that put Trump in a sniper's sights in the first place.
"It's time to put Trump in the bullseye," President Joe Biden said of Trump just days before the failed assassination attempt. Months earlier, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, introduced legislation that would have stripped Trump of Secret Service protection if one of the partisan prosecutions against him ended in a conviction.
Of course, Biden called for the temperature to come down after Butler.
That lasted about five seconds.
The vile rhetoric from Democrats in Congress came roaring back almost immediately, and on social media, plenty of leftists made no secret of their disappointment that the shooter had missed.
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The media's reaction was its own kind of disgrace. CNN's initial headline on the shooting read "Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after he falls at rally,” as if Trump had merely taken a tumble. Axios, meanwhile, accused Trump of being "too rough, too loose, too combative with his language," even though it was Democrats calling him a dictator and an existential threat to democracy.
More attempts on Trump's life have followed since Butler, and political violence aimed at the right hasn't stopped. Last September, a gunman assassinated Charlie Kirk. Through all of it, the left's rhetoric hasn't cooled by a single degree.
Two years after Butler, the same people who spent years describing Trump as an existential threat to democracy still haven't reckoned with what that kind of language produces when it reaches an unstable person with access to a rifle. I think things are going to get worse before they get better, if they ever do at all.
