As the leaders of the two major party tickets — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — called for calm and unity after an attempt on Trump’s life wounded him at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday night, partisan idealogues and other foot soldiers in the heated campaign between the two men didn’t appear ready to “turn down the temperature.”
[NOTE: Both Biden, in an Oval Office speech to the nation, and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) used that same phrase — “turn down the temperature” — to implore Americans to deprioritize their grievances and partisanship in favor of cooperation — especially in the aftermath of the violence that threatened Trump and killed a civilian.]
The campaigns themselves have systematically turned down cross-aisle criticisms in the immediate wake of the shooting, but these foot soldiers often aren’t employed by the campaigns.
They are instead hard-wired critics in the public sphere whose accusations against one another continue to raise the temperature despite the pleas from above. Their partisanship doesn’t relent chiefly because neither side trusts that the other has good intentions — and the resulting sense that the opposition lacks integrity makes everything look like hypocrisy.
The best-selling horror writer Steven King is a longtime vocal Trump antagonist, seeing the former president as an autocratic threat to the democratic system. Right-wing media personality Megyn Kelly — a MAGA adherent with fealty to Trump — sees King and his compatriots as hyperbolic instigators when it comes to the former president.
You are a disgusting pig who has done as much as any man alive to cast Trump as an evil, non-human demon. SIT THIS ONE OUT HORROR MAN. https://t.co/NJtZAvqKcp
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 14, 2024
That unbridgeable divide exemplifies America’s extremely divisive chemistry, and that divide exploded into stark relief on X after King mentioned the type of weapon allegedly used in the Pennsylvania shooting — allegedly an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.
Responding to King’s statement, meant to provoke but not vituperative or untrue, Kelly raged at King, writing: “You are a disgusting pig who has done as much as any man alive to cast Trump as an evil, non-human demon.”