President Donald Trump survived his third assassination attempt in 20 months on Saturday when gunfire interrupted the White House Correspondents dinner.
The shooter, identified as Cole Allen, reportedly posted anti-Trump and anti-Christian content on social media. He left a manifesto saying he was "no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes," and listing his targets as "administration officials (not including [FBI Director Kash] Patel)... prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest," Secret Service "only if necessary," and the National Guard, hotel security, and Capitol Police "[only if] they shoot at me."
The shooting led to speculation about the rise in political violence. Those on the left focused more on Trump’s rhetoric, framing his words as inspiring violence and him as hypocritical when it comes to talking about political violence. Many on the right focused on the left’s rhetoric. Though some commentators across the spectrum condemned political violence in all forms.
The New York Times Opinion’s (Left) Jamelle Bouie (Left) argued, “The Republican argument is simple. The more Democrats criticize Trump — the more they condemn him as a malign force in American politics — the more they put his life in danger. But this argument does not stand up to scrutiny.”
“To start, even the most heated language coming from Democrats over the past few years falls well within the boundaries of ordinary political discourse in the United States. No elected Democratic leader has called for violence against Trump or his allies. All have condemned such violence when it has taken place. And you would be hard-pressed to find anything different among Democratic Party officials and liberal activists. The same cannot be said about the political right, where figures like Steve Bannon muse about putting ‘heads on pikes’ on ‘the two corners of the White House as a warning.’ And it certainly cannot be said of the president.”
Batya Ungar-Sargon (Lean Right) wrote, “We don't have a political violence problem in America. We have a Left-wing political violence problem in America…The more liberal you get, the more likely you are to justify political violence, whereas the opposite is true on the Right. Young conservatives are less likely to justify political violence than moderates, and half as likely as liberals overall…The Left likes to claim that political violence occurs on the Right, too, but their ‘proof’ comes from thoroughly outdated and discredited polling, or examples that just don’t bear that out.”
A Philadelphia Inquirer (Lean Left) columnist wrote, “If the White House Correspondents’ Association decides to reschedule Saturday’s dinner — aborted after a gunman breached the security perimeter — they shouldn’t invite President Donald Trump…Trump doesn’t respect journalists or the First Amendment. He doesn’t even try to hide his antipathy and singles out female journalists and people of color for abuse, calling them ‘piggy,’ ‘ugly,’ and ‘stupid.’ Although there is no justification for violence or even attempted violence, I can’t help but think it is serendipitous that the president didn’t get a chance to speak at Saturday’s annual dinner. He would have been nasty and disrespectful.”
Daniel Allott (Lean Right), a conservative opinion editor at USA TODAY (Lean Left) said, “This seems to be the instinct of the moment: that the answer to political violence is to push the president further from public life. It is an understandable instinct. It is also the wrong one…A sequestered president becomes harder to hold accountable…When leaders stop encountering people directly, outside controlled environments, their understanding of the country narrows. Advisers and close allies become the primary feedback loop. Polls and virtual town halls can tell a president a lot. But only being in a room with people makes him feel it.”
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