Commentary: The Shot Heard ‘Round America

by Shaun Kenney

 

Virginia House Speaker Don Scott and Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert issued a joint statement just hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump in Pennsylvania:

“We were shocked and alarmed to learn of the violence that took place at the rally today. This is not a reflection of our shared values. 

“In America, we settle political differences through free and fair elections. There is no place for violence in politics. Every American has the right to gather peacefully and participate in our political system. We are praying for the victims and President Trump and their families.”

As of this moment, precious little is known about the shooter. President Joe Biden was asked whether or not he believed the shooting to be an assassination attempt — Biden demurred.

The legacy news media for its part has behaved deplorably. Headlines which read that Trump was rushed offstage, that he fell, that there were “popping noises” or Newsweek’s headline that “MAGA Response With Outrage After Trump Injured at Rally” — the political left acted with one voice and one central nervous system.

Compounding matters were comparisons to January 6th by Democratic operatives, suggesting that the assassination attempt was somehow excusable because people died during the riots at the US Capitol.

“They Are Shooting At Us”

I really wish I could sugar coat this. The fact of the matter is that the rhetoric in this country — and it is Democrats aiming at Republicans both rhetorically and literally at this point — is the sort which encourages this sort of violence.

Folks, I have taken about 10-12 phone calls from friends and activists and the like. What one might have described as anger 24 hours ago has moved to something closer to another word: resolve.

Even tonight among Democratic friends there seems to be a tendency to point outside of this box and excuse the violence. That this wasn’t an assassination attempt, or worse, that it was deserved. Trump had it coming.

That line of reasoning is totally inexcusable.

I’m sorry — today was a consequence of rhetoric. Of aiding and abetting mental illness as policy. Of excusing bad behavior as dissent. Of treating every disagreement as a form of hate speech. Democrats can point the finger back at mean tweets all they’d like — it doesn’t fly anymore.

You cannot have a conversation with people who are actually shooting at you.

So Are Democrats Going to Dial It Back?

We already know the answer to that question is a direct and unapologetic no.

They are attempting to assassinate our presidential nominees. They attempted to assassinate a Republican congressman. They are actively burning Catholic parishes and pro-life pregnancy resource centers.

They burned three dozen cities causing billions of dollars in property damage and called it mostly peaceful.

They are pushing gender ideology on children as young as six. They are pushing Critical Race Theory in government classrooms and calling it diversity, inclusion, and equity. Food is more expensive. Gas prices are up. Salaries are stagnant.

Soren Kierkegaard once wrote that it was very easy to do the most terrible things to another human being. All you had to do? Do it on principle:

“It is acting ‘on principle’ which does away with the vital distinction which constitutes decency. For decency is immediate (whether the immediate is original or acquired). It has its seat in feeling and in the impulse and consistency of an inner enthusiasm.

“‘In this way everything becomes permissible if done ‘on principle’. The police can go to certain places on ‘official duty’ to which no one else can go, but as a result one cannot deduce anything from their presence. In the same way one can do anything ‘on principle’ and avoid all personal responsibility. People pull to pieces ‘on principle’ what they admire personally, which is nonsensical, for while it is true that everything creative is latently polemical, since it has to make room for the new which it is bringing into the world, a purely destructive process is nothing and its principle is emptiness — so what does it need space for? But modesty, repentance and responsibility cannot easily strike root in ground where everything is done ‘on principle’.”

— Soren Kierkegaard, “The Present Age” (1846)

The political left hate the rest of us on principle. It’s the core fallacy of every Marxist. If you aren’t fighting the system, you are part of the system and if you are part of the system, you are hurting people just as certain as if you were violently stealing their stuff. Ergo, as the late socialist Herbert Marcuse reminds his students, error has no rights — and you are permitted to do the worst things on principle to those individuals — yes, even hate them! — so long as you can convince yourself that they are wrong.

That’s the trap the Democrats have fallen into, folks — they really do hate us.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Once you feel it, that sense that they hate you for the crime of disagreement? On principle, they can bend the rules to get to the man. On principle, their violence is excusable while resistance to that violence is fascism. On principle, any means necessary becomes a vital function of Our Democracy (TM) in the face of extremism — and anything that even questions such tactics is, by definition, extreme.

Our task is to resist this impulse. Yet I will readily admit, I do not know how to get our friends on the left to see that it is they — not us — who are the problem. They demand change, but of others — not themselves. They demand revolution, but not from their elites. They demand equity but not effort, rights without responsibility, respect without duties.

That’s not the condition of a free people. That’s the condition of a baby — and we all know what their position is on babies. (HINT: If inconvenient, they die)

Quo Vadis? Does Their Rhetoric Get Better?

Advice for the next couple of days?

Sleep on it.
Go to church.
Take a walk in the woods.
Talk to your friends.

The US Secret Service and the FBI will conduct an investigation. Online chatter will do likewise and there are a million little rabbit trails to wander down. Don’t bother with any of it — the chessboard isn’t going anywhere and the rules won’t change anytime soon.

Yet I keep coming back to a very similar impulse: RESOLVE.

Here’s the trap — hating them back doesn’t fix hate, nor does violence resolve violence. Self-defense is most certainly a cardinal virtue. We do not have to become them in order to beat them.

Most certainly, point out the dilemma to your Democratic friends and politely — but firmly — do not let them wiggle out the duties and responsibilities they owe to the rest of us. Not taxes, not government, but the unwritten social contract which undergirds and fastens every political community. More than that, they are wrong on this.

Instead, ask them pointed questions. What do they feel about assassination attempts? If we can shoot fascists, can’t they shoot Trump? What about you for supporting Trump? What are they doing about extremism in their own ranks? How are they engaging with people with whom they disagree? What position do they take that is outside the progressive monolith? How do they argue that among their friends? If at all? Where do they agree with Republicans? Where do they agree with Trump? Surely he must be right on something. Anything??

Best question? Can they state your argument in its best possible light? Can you do likewise for their argument? You’d be surprised how few Democrats can do this; Republicans nearly always can thanks to a steady media diet.

Yet I worry intensely that our friends on the left simply cannot see the forest for the trees. Their fanaticism — and it is a religious fanaticism no less dangerous because it is secular rather than sacred — blinds them on principle.

As Marx and Marcuse caution, to admit any humanity in your opponent is not merely treason but apostasy. To admit this signals that they too can become the victims of a violence which they themselves — at first rhetorically and now quite literally — once engaged in and now will become its victims. No one volunteers for the gulag, right?

So What Happens Now?

In the meantime, there are a whole host of people who were on the fence about Donald Trump before this failed assassination attempt. No longer — when they start shooting at us, that’s a pretty clear indicator that the politics have changed from the force of argument to the argument of force.

Either the Democrats begin to grapple with their myopia in earnest or this gets worse in a very bad way. The most I could encourage anyone is to remember Solzhenitsyn and refuse the lie — because violence is a lie. Our means should be consistent with the ends, and if our ends are honorable then so too should be our means.

If you get that? Welcome to the Republican coalition — because if you can excuse what happened today and not question your allegiance to the Democratic coalition who refuse to call this spade a spade? I’ve got nothing for you.

Beyond that, I don’t have a terrible amount of hope that the Democrats writ large or individually are going to proceed with any degree of retrospection. I really don’t. There’s a chance this could spark a national conversation — but if the early hours indicate and Biden’s initial refusal to condemn this attack as an assassination attempt is indicative — they are going to blame Trump for wearing that dress. My hopes aren’t terribly high.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Personally, I give them… one chance in three.

More tea, anyone?

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Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.
Image “Donald Trump Defiant” by Donald Trump.