It could not have been otherwise: the news coverage yesterday, whether “mainstream” or “alternative,” was all about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. So was the commentary, of course; how could commentators talk about anything else? And now, in the aftermath of this “hinge event,” there will be other consequences and developments that will occupy the print and pixels for a few days longer. Nothing else will be allowed to matter.
And that is as it should be.
It’s been said many times – I’ve certainly said it often enough – that the point of elections is to replace bullets with ballots. But what happens when the bullets fly anyway, even with a scheduled election nearing day by day? Is it possible to combine electoral campaigning with flying-lead warfare and still have anything like an orderly society? It doesn’t seem so to me.
We’ve heard enough talk about how the nation is teetering. Again, some of it has been from me. Today it all seems like mere preliminary. The action has just arrived, and there’s nothing nice about it.
Images and metaphors abound. “The masks have dropped.” “The gloves are off.” “Time to get down and dirty.” The Vegetable-in-Chief used a particularly striking one just before the shooting: “It’s time to put a bull’s-eye on Trump.” Before this, we could hope that it would remain no more than rhetoric; today, I’m no longer certain that it will… or should.
Andrew Torba, who founded and operates Gab.com, has called feelingly for us in the Right to remain peaceful. Other voices have not been so temperate:
Retreating from these people is NOT the answer. It’s what the general population of not yet insane people have been doing for seven decades in a row. Enough. Fuck retreating. Make THEM retreat, and get back into whatever closet or rock they crawled out of. Be in their face. Stop tolerating their nonsense.
And of course, we have Leftist opinion-mongers claiming that it’s Trump’s fault that someone took a shot at him, and beyond them multiple reports of hysterics on the Left because the shooter missed his target.
Good and responsible people are withdrawing from the public discourse. Who will remain engaged? The less good; the less responsible. The less restrained. What will follow? The followers of Charles Manson called it “Helter Skelter,” after the Beatles’ tune. George Alec Effinger called it “All the Last Wars At Once.” To quote Tucker Carlson in an underappreciated moment: graph it out, man.
This will not end well.
I think that will be all from me today. I feel a need to pray… and after that, to clean and oil the guns. Perhaps you should do likewise, though I’m no one’s idea of a lifestyle coach. Speaking of which, have you been to the range lately? I haven’t, and I have a new rifle to sight in.
Have a nice day.
