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The Shot Heard Round the World
America on the Brink
Like most Americans, I was shocked and saddened by the events of last Saturday, when a would-be assassin’s bullet nearly ended the life of former (and potentially future) President Donald Trump. Watching the horrific and yet all-too-familiar events of the day unfold, I couldn’t help but be reminded of other times in our nation’s violent past when the actions of some malevolent or misguided individual sought and often succeeded in changing the course of American history. And though, in this instance, the former President may have thankfully — and quite literally — dodged a bullet, I fear the heart of our democracy may have been struck instead.
For almost immediately, the deep-state conspiracies began to circulate throughout MAGA world that perhaps the Secret Service had permitted the attack to occur, or possibly even President Biden himself had given the order. (After all, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Trump v. United States would almost certainly provide him presidential immunity if he did, so perhaps the justices were somehow involved as well.) And such dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric has not been confined to the echo chambers of the far-right fringe but has instead been amplified by such now mainstream voices within the Republican Party as Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently posted that “The Democrat party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump,” and Congressman Mike Collins who went a step further and actually called on the local district attorney in Pennsylvania (where Saturday’s attack occurred) to charge the sitting President with “inciting an assassination.”
To his credit, President Biden hasn’t deigned to dignify such absurd accusations with a response, having instead taken to the airwaves on numerous occasions to staunchly repudiate the attack, reminding us that “our politics must never be a literal battlefield. We resolve our differences at the ballot box — not with bullets…. We’re neighbors or friends, coworkers, citizens. Most importantly, we are fellow Americans, we must stand together.” But, sadly, this admittedly admirable effort has done precious little to quell the calls for retaliation still bubbling up from the Right and now threatening to boil over. As a result, I believe violent acts of vengeance against…
