Trump Being Shot At Connects Conservative Violent Rhetoric to Acts of Conservative Violence

With the Felonious Rapist Traitor having been shot at by what appears to be a real attempt at assassination no matter how inept the assassin and the Secret Service appear to have been, we should all be questioning our contributions to the violent and divisive rhetoric currently flying around the country.

Let’s take a look at how violent political rhetoric contributes to violence in our society in general and political violence specifically. We’ll want to take it in some kind of logical order, or at least what passes for logic in my brain:

1. Political Violence is Perpetrated by the Right, Not the Left.
   1. Don’t Let them Gaslight You about Political Violence
2. Violent Political Rhetoric Leads to Political Violence
   1. Prejudiced Norm Theory and Disparagement Humor, the Root in the Surge of Political Violence on the Right
3. Examples of Violent Rhetoric in Response to Trump Being Shot At
   1. Create the World You Want to Live In
4. The Republican National Convention is going Full MAGA
   1. When They Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them
5. Image Attribution

Political Violence is Perpetrated by the Right, Not the Left.

As reported by Reuters, while violent crime plummets to new lows in the US, political violence is soaring to new heights. You would never know either of these things if you get your news from social media, the legacy media, or conservative media outlets.

After the Felonious Rapist Traitor was shot at, we heard calls for the left to tone down its rhetoric about extremism on the right. You’ll also hear lip-service to the idea of conservatives toning down their rhetoric, too.

There are two BIG problems with all of this:

• BOTHSIDESISM. It is NOT both sides. It is the conservatives who are committing most of the acts of political violence. It isn’t even close. Read the Reuters article and let us know what you think in the comments.
• UNVERIDICALITY. Conservative complaints about unfair treatment of Trump, the 6 January Insurrectionists, white male Christians, and others are simply not true. Trump and the insurrectionists have been found guilty by a jury of his peers and indicted by state and federal grand juries. No one is stopping Christians, white male or otherwise, from practicing their sincerely held religious beliefs. We’re just asking them not to include the rest of us in their practice. The bottom line is, the conservatives are not being truthful. They are being purposefully deceptive.

[M]uch of today’s political violence is aimed at people – and most of the deadly outbursts tracked by Reuters have come from the right. Of the 14 fatal political attacks since the Capitol riot in which the perpetrator or suspect had a clear partisan leaning, 13 were right-wing assailants. One was on the left.

The recent violence coming from the right, Carnegie’s Kleinfeld said, “is focused on stopping people or ending people’s lives.”

Political violence in polarized U.S. at its worst since 1970s by NED PARKER and PETER EISLER on 9 August 2023 for Reuters

Don’t Let them Gaslight You about Political Violence

Don’t let them gaslight you by telling you. All of the problems in our political system have instigated and promoted by the conservatives in our country to overthrow the will of the people as expressed through our elections. It is as simple as that. If we’d let it alone, the system would work just fine, and protect all of us from the conservative extremists.

Violent Political Rhetoric Leads to Political Violence

While we’ve all been thinking it since the Felonious Rapist Traitor slithered down the gold veneer escalator spouting hatred of Browns, Blacks, and women, we have been pretty good about not saying it. To be clear, if we’re being honest, most of us have entertained a thought that included Trump and assassination in it.

In many ways, it would put us all out of his narcissistic miserable insecurity and save us a lot of heartache and grief. But, wishing harm and death upon people is not acceptable. We make our choices known with the ballot, not the bullet. It is one of the better features of democracy.

We’ve seen it in action at several key moments in American history. The Great Depression started in 1929, but we patiently waited until the 1932 elections to change the ineffective government of Hoover for that of Roosevelt. We waited for the 1968 elections to make our displeasure over the prosecution of the war in Viet Nam known and ended up with Nixon in a remarkably parallel scenario to what we’re facing now, but that is fodder for another blog post.

Our culture is deeply democratic. We believe strongly in the making our voices heard through the ballot. It is probably why none of the white nationalists attempts at starting a “race war” by mass shootings of Blacks and Browns has never worked. It is only the white nationalists who don’t believe in democracy. But, again, a topic for another blog post.

Prejudiced Norm Theory and Disparagement Humor, the Root in the Surge of Political Violence on the Right

Let’s reach back to one of the first posts on Ye Olde Blogge to tell the tale of prejudiced norm theory and disparagement humor:

Thomas Ford has researched the effects of disparagement humor extensively and has developed prejudiced norm theory. The theory states that for people who are relatively high in prejudice against the targeted group, disparagement humor will increase the tolerance for prejudicial acts against that target group. That is a fancy obfuscationist scientific academic way of saying that telling racist or sexist or racist sexist jokes coarsens society and makes behaving in a discriminatory or prejudicial way more accepted. In other words, it breeds assholes. It’s an asshole magnet.

Hate Begets Hate by CALICOJACK on 21 MAY 2016 on The Psy of Life Blog

Second Amendment solution jokes will be heard by people prone to gun violence as giving them permission to commit gun violence. They feel understood and encouraged by such statements and the people making them. We needn’t do a granular review of all of the ways that Trump and MAGA Republicans have encouraged violence among their supporters, do we? If you have a particularly egregious example, please share it in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.

But, wait a minute, what about liberal, including your own, Jack, responses to Trump being “shot” at and injured?

Examples of Violent Rhetoric in Response to Trump Being Shot At

We’ll run through a few examples, including one of my own, thanks to loyal reader, Ali Redford, for calling me out on my own questionable rhetoric. It couldn’t’ve happened to a more deserving fellow. I’ve been waiting for someone to take this shot for the past eight year. It is the kind of thing you say in the heat of the moment and only makes things worse. It never makes things better. There is a big difference between thinking these things and articulating them into actual words for the world to read and hear.

We get this one from the troll, mosckerr, Fight Fight Fight. Pelosi Schiff and Nadler attempted to impeach Trump over his refusal to intervene in the Ukraine/Russian war. Bunk on the SS Federal bureaucrat corruption which attempted to pull another Kennedy Kennedy King assassinations & Bay of Pigs — Vietnam war of imperialism. They are the type of unthinking extremist that such violent rhetoric is likely to push over the edge. They are who MAGA Republicans are counting on to commit violent political acts.

Ant is what led to Tenacious D cancelling their concert tour after co-founder, Kyle Gass, made this understandable, but unfortunate joke on stage when asked to make a birthday wish, Don’t miss Trump next time. Jack Black did the only thing to do is in this situation: stop everything and focus on the problem. Kyle Gass isn’t a terrible irredeemable person for having had such a lapse in judgment, but it is a learning moment for us all.

We are responsible for our words and their effects on those who hear them. We know what making crass racial, sexual, and political jokes does to the world we live in. We know the difference between crassness and good taste, too

Create the World You Want to Live In

Okay, “Create the world you want to live in,” is a bit too Pollyannaish, since Hitler created the world he wanted to live in, it does communicate the idea that we should endeavor to live our ideals. It implies that those ideals are based on kindness and respect for the rights of others and all living things. So, keep the jokes about the death of Donald Trump to your own self.

The Republican National Convention is going Full MAGA

The Republicans know that they cannot win a high turnout election. They know they have to do everything in their power to subvert the Democratic turnout and pump up their base, thus, the Black Flag conspiracy theories about Trump being shot at.

Corey Comperatore and the two severely wounded audience members are not paid actors; they actually exist, and they should receive all of our sympathy and good will.

So far at the RNC, we’ve had a good example of not being able to teach an old dog new spots. We’ve had a chorus of the same-old same-old:

• DAY 1: Maddog Greene and all her hateful divisive stylings were featured with her anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, focused on the scapegoat, trans-Americans. Things didn’t get better with NC gubernatorial candidate, Mark Some Folks Need Killing Robinson, mostly lied about Trump and the economy, and Charlie Separation of Church and State is Made up by Secular Humanists Kirk lied about how much Trump had helped the yutes.
• DAY 2: Republican voters are urged to FIGHT for Trump with a wink, a nod, and nudge to the camera. Followed by the apologia tour of the also-rans, including protest-vote favorite, Nikki Haley. They were all careful to make a distinction between good and bad immigrants, you know like Haley’s parents and JD Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, who are good when they are for Trump.

So, yes, it does sound like the Republican Party has learned its lesson about overheated violent rhetoric, and that lesson is, “more, please.” They all know the connection between acts of political violence and violent rhetoric. They know that there are people out there like Crooks and mocskerr who will be triggered and act on their words. They’re planning on it.

They know how people react to random acts of extreme violence, too. ly They are hoping that it spirals out of control. They are banking on it.

When They Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them

The question is, have we as an electorate learned our lesson? Have we learned that the only way to stop the oligarchs and fascists in the Republican Party is through overwhelming defeat at the polls? Have we learned that the only way to save our democracy is through voting for the party and candidates who support democracy and the country? Have learned the Great Civics Lesson from 2016?

Image Attribution

The image was taken from the Fox News story, PHOTO GALLERY: Assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. I cropped it and blew it up to focus on the injury to Trump’s ear… or lack thereof.