On Sunday, there was another apparent attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump. Though the suspect was never close enough to Trump to have him in rifle range and his motive is unclear, Trump said on Fox News that the man "believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it." In a fundraising email, the Trump campaign repeated this line and illustrated it with a screenshot of a social media post from the "Kamala HQ" account that included a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., calling Trump "extremely dangerous" and "a threat to democracy." Similarly, his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, posted, "Kamala Harris has said that 'Democracy is on the line' in her race against President Trump" and "[t]he gunman agreed." Numerous prominent right-wing media figures, such as Ben Shapiro, Tim Pool and Chaya Raichik (of Libs of TikTok fame) have taken up the same talking point. Shapiro, for example, blamed those who claim Trump "is Hitler without the mustache" for inspiring the suspect. And Trump himself doubled down on the point in a long X post, writing, "Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!" This is a preview of Ben Burgis' latest article. Read the full column here. |
