Wrong, wrong, wrong, and also wrong.
It goes without saying that violence is immoral and violence directed at elected officials and candidates all the more so because it is an attack on the nation.
Wishing the assassin had succeeded on social media like Jefferson County elementary teacher Jennifer Ripper did is inexcusable; even joking about wanting a political opponent dead is abhorrent, especially from those who serve as children’s role models.
Complaining that the injured may accrue sympathy is equally appalling, especially when an innocent bystander was killed. Trump’s ear was still bleeding when Colorado State Rep. Steven Woodrow tweeted, “The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.” Woodrow has posted Nazi-Republican comparisons in the past. His apology was tepid.
But finally, using an act of violence to blame political foes is reprehensible. Republicans who blamed Democrats and the press for the shooting which killed a bystander and wounded several others, deserve the same level of contempt as Ripper and Woodrow.
Moments after the shooting, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential pick, tweeted, “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Of course, Vance didn’t mention the time he called Trump “America’s Hitler.”
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, an enthusiastic practitioner of inflammatory speech, claimed “Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting” as well as everyone who has called the former president a threat to democracy. Fellow Republican state Rep. Matt Soper suggested Biden be investigated for “criminal incitement of violence.”
Biden’s crime? He told donors, “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” Are Republicans trying to draw a moral equivalence between inciting a mob to stop the peaceful transfer of power after an election and election-year hyperbole to energize supporters? Maybe I’m imagining things.
Remember when the New York Times blamed Sarah Palin’s rhetoric for the attempted murder of Rep. Gabby Giffords? A Super PAC drew a map with crosshairs on targeted congressional districts where the PAC was spending money to defeat Democrats. One of these districts was held by Giffords. There was no connection between the map and the mentally ill shooter but that didn’t stop the Times from inferring one.
History shows that mental illness rather than partisan politicking is what drives most political assassins. Since the nation’s founding, we have lost four presidents, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy and one presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, to an assassin’s bullet. Other presidents and presidential candidates have taken bullets or narrowly missed them.
One cannot look at shooters like Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, Jr., Charles Guiteau, and John Schrank and not see the commonality; most of these assassins were mentally ill. Schrank thought he was avenging McKinley who told him in a dream that Teddy Roosevelt was behind his predecessor’s assassination. Guiteau believed God wanted him to kill Garfield. Hinckley was trying to impress an actress he’d never met when he shot President Ronald Reagan.
It is likely an investigation into last week’s shooter will find similarities. Most presidential assassins are motivated by mental instability not public policy or political rhetoric.
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This doesn’t mean that political vitriol isn’t a problem. Biden called the MAGA philosophy “semi-fascist” and Trump has also likened his opponents to the Gestapo and fascism. Either these candidates don’t remember high school history class or they don’t care that words have meaning, which casual misuse erodes. Next time someone uses a Nazi, Fascist, or Communist reference, he should be required to read a book.
In one of my first columns for The Denver Post back in December 2013, I excoriated Democrats for calling their rivals “anarchists, arsonists, extortionists, jihadists, and kidnappers.” Ten years and nearly 400 columns later not much has changed, but I have.
While the words fascist, authoritarian, communist, and groomer have replaced the old terms of art, I no longer view inflammatory rhetoric as only one party’s proclivity. Inflammatory rhetoric is rampant on both sides of the aisle and those who demonize their opponents this way cannot turn around and cry victim.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on X: @kristakafer.
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