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‘It is a Trap, Don’t Fall For It’: Republicans Using Trump Shooting to Stifle Democratic Criticism on His Criminal Record, Rape Allegations, And Jan. 6
'It is a Trap, Don't Fall For It': Republicans Using Trump Shooting to Stifle Democratic Criticism on His Criminal Record, Rape Allegations, And Jan. 6, Warns Analyst
Following an attempt on Donald Trump's life, key Republican figures wasted no time in attributing blame to what they describe as aggressive rhetoric from Democrats scrutinizing his criminal history, ties to the authoritarian Project 2025, and role in the January 6 insurrection.
dailyboulder.com
It is similarly neither violence nor an incitement to violence to point out Trump’s antidemocratic and authoritarian plans. The assassination attempt does not eradicate the former president’s promises to gut the bureaucracy to better bend it to his will and to deploy the military domestically to carry out mass deportations. It does not allow him to escape criticism of his refusal to recognize the results of the 2020 presidential election or his attempt to invalidate votes cast in majority-Black cities for Joe Biden. It does not clear from the record the fact that he was impeached for inciting insurrection. The Supreme Court has already made it more difficult to hold him accountable for these acts through legal avenues, but the assassination attempt, as horrible as it is, does not erase those acts from reality.
The point is not that Vance and Co.—in encouraging Trump’s violent language while chastising his political detractors—are hypocritical. They are, but hypocrisy is so common in American politics as to be barely worth noting. Rather, the point is that would-be autocrats and their supporters are not bringing about unity or calm, or lowering the political temperature between rival factions, by blaming those who criticize their political programs.
We should, of course, look to our leaders to decry assassination attempts and shootings. But using such attempts to silence criticism, be it from the media or the political opposition, does not make for a more unified or safer country. Just a more divided, dangerous one.
