Fomenting Violence

For a long time — since that baseball field in northern Virginia in 2017 where a Bernie Sanders supporter almost killed House Majority Whip Steve Scalese — Democrats have demonstrated a rabid appetite to kill their political enemies.

They targeted Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. They applauded the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. They mocked Charlie Kirk for dying.

Last night, a Kamala Harris fan from California opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. According to his Social Media accounts, he was looking to take out the president, the vice president or any other officials he could hit.

It was the third major attempt to kill President Trump, who survived Butler and West Palm Beach, and now the WHCA dinner, in as many years.

Perhaps it is too much to call the Democrats a party of assassins. But not too much to blame them, and their agents in the trad-media and in the celebrity class, for fomenting violence.

Their rhetoric of hate gives a permission structure for those who would kill. How many times can you call a man a fascist or liken him to Hitler before a left-wing crazy hears the call? How many times can you call a man a crook and threaten impeachment before rhetoric becomes reality?

Only last week, House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries declared, “We are in an era of maximum warfare. Everywhere, all the time.” Also last week, CNN published a piece on its website titled, “How Would An Assassination Attempt be Staged?”

And certainly, the reaction of Democrats online to news that Trump had survived another assassination attempt was shameful. Andrea Hovis, a teacher, posted, “I’ll pray for better aim.” Taylor Lorenz, a former Washington Post reporter who attended the WHCA dinner last night, has been calling for “better aim” for a year now.

If ever there was an abuse of the First Amendment — hiding behind press freedom to encourage assassination of the president — this is it. The very same journalists who ducked under tables to take cover from an active shooter had only days before had been threatening to boycott the event because Trump calls them the fake news.

In an insightful piece in the Daily Wire, Bethany Miller noted that President Trump’s appearance at the dinner “isn’t a threat to journalism — journalists are.”

As a former president of the WHCA, I can tell you that the event is not about the free press as much as it is the free drinks, glamour shots on the red carpet, and that great elixir of politics, access to power.

The nattering nabobs of journalism — has-beens like Dan Rather and Sam Donaldson — boycotted the event because they said inviting Trump is hypocritical. But they are the hypocrites. As Miller wrote, “The dinner was fine” when President Obama roasted Trump in 2011, a mockery that many believe prompted the Manhattan real estate mogul to run for the presidency. Ditto when comedians mocked him in absentia, for the five years he boycotted Washington’s most self-important event. “Now that he’s back in the room as the elected president, suddenly it’s unbearable.”

Trump is brilliant at forcing the media — and the Dems — to take positions that are unpopular with the public. They defend criminals, fight election ballot security, lobby for a return to an open border. And the Trump White House, thank you Karoline Leavitt, has been masterful at changing the atmosphere in the briefing room.

There is a New Media seat, and she also calls on journalists sprinkled throughout the room who are less hostile than the front-row regulars from the alphabet networks. Next week she goes on maternity leave, and word is the White House will bring in a bevy of fill-ins — including Vice President Vance, and perhaps Trump himself.

The result of all this history and charges of hypocrisy is a great collapse of public trust in the mainstream media, and a standing up of a new conservative media landscape.

But unless the Dems and the media end their campaign of vitriol, Trump’s Cabinet are no longer safe. Many have gotten Secret Service protection. Others have moved to military housing to keep their families safe. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of Health & Human Services, did not take cover. He sat ramrod straight, perhaps remembering his father’s assassination in the hallway of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in 1968.

The latest assassination attempt took place at a time when the Secret Service has gone more than 60 days without salaries because Dems on the Hill think it’s good politics to de-fund ICE. And it was a reminder of why a White House Ballroom is a good idea. Only the other day, another rogue judge stopped the project arguing that:

“The fact that the ballroom is planned to include security features such as bullet-proof windows and a drone-proof roof does not bring the structure within the scope of the [national security] exception. While these features may well be beneficial, Defendants have not provided any national security justification for why these features must be installed immediately such that they should be excluded from the scope of the injunction.”

Well, Judge Leon, here’s the justification.

President Trump graciously agreed to a redo, promising to reschedule the WHCA dinner within the next month. I wish he had tied it to a mechanism to force the Dems to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security. And the SAVE America Act.

Recently a friend texted me and asked if I wanted to join her at a No Kings march. Gosh, I thought, I wish our side had a king. Then Trump might not have to suffer from Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s hostility, or duck assassins’ bullets.