The Politicization of Terrorists and Assassins
Assigning motives to win elections
For the second time in just over two months, a gunman planned to assassinate Donald J. Trump. In both cases, some political party supporters raced to blame the other candidate and party. In the first instance, on July 13, 2024, the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA, was killed on the scene. His almost non-existent social media was scoured in an attempt to link him to a cause. Failing that, some Republicans declared a conspiracy within the Secret Service and the deep state, trying to gain a political advantage. They took umbrage that a political candidate didn’t receive the same level of protection as the current President, which has never been the case. Some Democrats blamed Republican gun policies and looked for reasons to blame Trump himself.
On September 15, 2024, Donald Trump went to his Trump International Golf Course to play an unscheduled round of golf. Ryan Wesley Routh got there well ahead of him, waiting several hours in a wooded area before moving up to the fence line with his loaded semiautomatic SKS-style rifle, similar to an AK-47, waiting for Trump to reach the hole. Routh was interrupted by a secret service agent who spotted his gun sticking through a chain-link fence. The agent fired at Routh, who ran to his car and temporarily escaped, leaving…
