OPINION PAGE:

 OPINION PAGE

© 2024 Timothy Moody

The apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf Club was foiled by the Secret Service.

Details are still coming in about it, and it's not yet known why the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, apparently wanted to shoot Trump. The botched attempt was amateurish in every way, just as the one in July was by a kid 150 yards from Trump. 

Conspiracy theorists are having a field day. 

The former President is, of all things, blaming these attempts on his life with what he called the “violent rhetoric” of President Biden and VP Harris.

Of course, that is absurd, especially coming from Trump, who has consistently been guilty of that very thing since he became president in 2016 and even before. 

His speeches, X posts, and comments on his Truth Social platform have been endlessly filled with threatening language and incitement to violence. 

He suggested those protesting the Murder of George Floyd by police should be shot. He implied the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, should have been executed for treason for wanting to protect the Constitution from Trump’s threats to it. He minimized the near-fatal attack with a hammer on Paul Pilosi. And he has endlessly defended and promised to pardon the Jan/6 rioters imprisoned for their attack on the nation’s Capital trying to overturn the 2020 election. 

So, the one consistently creating an atmosphere of violence in the nation is Donald Trump. Neither Biden, Harris, nor Waltz has made any kind of violent threat to Trump, Vance or Republicans. 

The nonstop use of assault weapons on innocent civilians in this country is the direct fault of Congress. Republican members especially have blocked every effort to ban those military weapons. They have blocked background checks in most states. They are against red flag laws. On and on, it goes, of them refusing to support any kind of strict and necessary gun legislation in America. 

So I’m not interested in hearing of any of them, or Donald Trump, complaining about some disturbed shooter with an assault rifle attempting an assassination.  

And as I have said, these violent people are a direct result of Trump’s divisive, unaccountable bullying and permission of violence that he gives every week in speeches, talks, and on his social media platform.

In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, we have a tragedy. Mark Antony, a calculating politician, ignored his duties to the people of Rome to pursue an affair with the seductive Cleopatra. The result was disastrous in many ways. One of Antony’s close associates said of him,

“I never saw an action of such shame,

experience, manhood, honor–never before

did violate so itself.”

Consider that said of Donald Trump. It fits. Daily, he shamelessly violates manhood and honor.

Now, we have both Trump and his vice president candidate J.D. Vance, continuing to tell the lie about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Vance said the story was made up. He also said he would continue to use made-up stuff to get the media’s attention. 

And they wonder why Trump is under attack by emotionally disturbed shooters fed up with the former president’s rhetoric and conduct. Since he has no problem inciting violence and revenge, troubled and psychologically unstable people with guns in this country will act accordingly. 

Trump, Vance, and Republican leaders will use this tragic event against President Biden and Harris, and Democrats, but their shameless hypocrisy is wearing thin. People are not as dumb as they want them to be. 

Violence is no answer to Trump and Republicans' disastrous influence on America. 

Only the votes of responsible citizens can change that by refusing to elect them to lead us.