A Moral Sickness

People have been warning for some time that the rhetoric of violence, particularly on the left, would at some point provide the psychological justification in the mind of some already unstable individual to actually carry out an attempt to vent his hatred in a notorious act of violence.

We can't marinate our politics in constant expressions of hate for our opponents without eventually having that hatred boil over in horrible violence.

The hateful rhetoric on the left, from our president on down, has now issued in the death of at least one man, serious injury to a couple of others, and the near assassination of a political candidate.

RedState's Mike Miller quotes Georgetown Law Professor Jonathan Turley who wrote that:

The assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump left a nation stunned. But the most shocking aspect was that it was not nearly as surprising as it should have been. For months, politicians, the press and pundits have escalated reckless rhetoric in this campaign on both sides. That includes claims that Trump was set to kill democracy, unleash “death squads” and make homosexuals and reporters "disappear."

Turley continued:

President Biden has stoked this rage rhetoric. In 2022, Biden held his controversial speech before Independence Hall where he denounced Trump supporters as enemies of the people. Biden recently referenced the speech and has embraced the claims that this could be our last democratic election.

Some of us have been objecting for years that this rage rhetoric is a dangerous political pitch for the nation. While most people reject the hyperbolic claims, others take it as true. They believe that homosexuals are going to be “disappeared” as claimed on ABC’s “The View” or that the Trump "death squads" are now green lighted by a conservative Supreme Court as claimed by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

Here are a few more examples from Turley:

As soon as Trump was elected, unhinged rage became the norm as with Kathy Griffin featuring herself holding the bloody severed head of Trump.

Just recently, another celebrity, actress Lea DeLaria, begged Biden to “blow [Trump] up” after the recent presidential immunity decision. DeLaria explained that “this is a f*****g war. This is a war now, and we are fighting for our f*****g country. And these a**holes are going to take it away. They’re going to take it away.”

For months, people have heard politicians and the press call Trump “Hitler” and the GOP a Nazi movement. Some compared stopping Trump to stopping Hitler in 1933. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) declared Trump “is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy and he has to be eliminated.” He later apologized.

Others say that Trump “will destroy the world” unless he is stopped.

Matt Margolis at PJ Media reminds us that President Biden's violent rhetoric has been over the top as well.

“Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation,” Joe Biden said a couple of weeks ago. “He's a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He's literally a threat to everything America stands for.”

Just last week, he said, “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

When Sarah Palin used bullseyes on a map the left used that as an excuse to blame her rhetoric for the attempted murder of congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Why do they not hold Joe Biden to the same standard?

Margolis adds this:

Madonna threatened to blow up the White House during the Women's March on Washington after Trump took office. Mere months into Trump's presidency, Kathy Griffin staged a photo with a severed, bloodied head of Trump, and actor Johnny Depp asked the crowd at the annual Glastonbury Festival, "When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?"

Essentially, they normalized and trivialized political violence. Heck, they even consider it justifiable.

Consider the countless instances where Trump was compared to Hitler or labeled as a tyrant. Such comparisons are not merely hyperbolic; they are dangerous. They suggest that Trump is not just a political opponent but an enemy who must be stopped at any cost.

One Biden megadonor "joked" about making Trump an actual martyr.

A Democrat politician compared the outpouring of prayers for Trump to "sympathy for the devil."

Jaqueline Marsaw, a staff person for January 6th Committee Chair Bennie Thompson urged would-be Trump assassins to get some shooting lessons.

Libs of Tik Tok has a two and a half minute montage of lefties condoning political violence.

The leftwing hoi polloi, as one might expect, have been no better, celebrating the attempt on Trump's life, calling the would-be assassin a "hero," lamenting that he missed, etc.

There's a sickness in our politics, and the worst cases afflict many of those on the political left. If there's anything comparable to this on the right I'd appreciate readers sending me the links, because I'm sincerely unaware of it.