Victor Davis Hanson: The Deadly ‘Get Trump’ Climate Continues

Just two months after the failed Trump assassination attempt by one Thomas Matthew Crooks, we witnessed Sunday yet another foiled one, by Ryan Wesley Routh—a would-be assassin and anti-Trump/radical pro-Ukraine War social media addict.

Somehow he, too, once again got within relatively easy shooting range of former President Donald Trump.

Is there a continued pattern here of lax Trump Secret Service protection, coupled with a general social media and televised climate that equates Trump with Hitler and lowers the bar on assassination?

That is, are we sending unambiguous messages to would-be assassins that a) lots of Trump-hating people would welcome an assassination attempt and canonize the wannabe assailant; b) it would not be that difficult to pull an assassination off, given security laxity and incompetence; and thus c) we will likely witness a series of such unhinged attempts?

On Aug. 14, almost exactly two months ago, I predicted the following:

If Donald Trump all summer has been compared by his enemies to Hitler and his murderous Third Reich, and if a 20-year-old would-be assassin and murderer with ease took up a sniper’s position to kill Trump—without a notified Secret Service or other law enforcement attempting to abort the shooter’s attempted assassination—what signal does that send to other would-be assassins for the next 80 days of the 2024 campaign?

Is the message that if a 20-year-old amateur sniper can brazenly and visibly for nearly an hour breach all Secret Service security perimeters to shoot eight times at the president, hit him in the ear, kill one innocent bystander, and wound two others, then almost any future, more-experienced serious shooter could match or exceed the ability of that disturbed amateur to get close enough to Trump to fire more than eight shots at his head?

And that shooting Trump in many leftist quarters would subsequently earn the unhinged killer eternal fame, applause, and immortality?

And that if there are such anticipated rewards and perceived opportunities, then we may well see more attempts on candidate Trump’s life?

And here is just today’s example of the usual left-wing daily vitriol equating Trump with some sort of existential enemy that must be somehow stopped—expressed on both television and social media:

After the would-be assassination attempt, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York posted this: “Extreme MAGA Republicans are the party of a national abortion ban and Trump’s Project 2025. We must stop them.”

Jeffries is spreading untruths: Trump has never supported a national abortion ban and has consistently distanced himself from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. And after such deliberately lying, what exactly does the House minority leader mean by “We must stop them”?

And after Sunday’s failed assassination attempt, Rachel Vindman, wife of Alexander Vindman of Trump’s first impeachment notoriety, and sister-in-law to current congressional candidate Eugene Vindman, D-Va., posted, “No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon.”

What does Ms. Vindman mean? Another weekend, just another attempt to kill Trump, so no big deal?

And also, on MSNBC, Democratic activist the Rev. Jacqui Lewis ranted (to the silence of the network’s host, Jonathan Capehart), “Let’s not pretend that Donald Trump isn’t exactly like Mussolini, exactly like Hitler … . You nice Christians, kind, loving Jewish people … we’re not these people. We’re not these people. And we’re not going to get what we want if we elect this fascist, authoritarian weasel.”

So, what does Lewis suggest to Americans that they do with such a “Hitlerian weasel”?

And we should remind Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden—for yet the nth time—that Trump did not call for a “bloodbath” if he lost in November. (He was talking about the economic consequences to the U.S. automobile industry of mandating electric vehicles, and outsourcing automobile plants and jobs to Mexico.)

Nor did he claim that white supremacists were “good people” at Charlottesville, Virginia—but, as the liberal Snopes fact-checked, just the opposite: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

These serial assassination attempts, unfortunately, occur in a weary context of Russian collusion, laptop disinformation, state ballot removal, and lawfare. And they are starting to reflect a larger environment of justifying extralegal means to achieve the ends of ending Trump’s presidency and later reelection by any means necessary.

So, is it all that hard over the next 50 days for Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to extend adequate Secret Service security for ex-president and Republican presidential nominee Trump (which some congressional Democrats, led by Jan. 6 Committee Co-Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., had sought to stop entirely in April of this year)?

And can we just stop with the demonizing of Trump as a “Hitler/fascist/bloodbath/weasel/dictator” that must be stopped—before we see third, fourth, and fifth such assassination attempts?

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