The Forgotten Lessons of Dallas 1963 and Memphis 1968
JFK and Martin Luther King were demonized as threats to America before they were assassinated.
By
Gerald Posner
July 15, 2024 5:08 pm ET
WSJ Opinion: Reagan Secret Service Agent on Trump Assassination Attempt
Tim McCarthy was shot defending then-president Ronald Reagan in 1981. The former Secret Service agent says the agency failed Donald Trump despite his surviving the assassination attempt.
Incendiary political language has consequences. Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen agitated his supporters and culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The assassination attempt against Mr. Trump follows years of relentless attacks from left-wing media and many in the Democratic Party, who likened the former president to Hitler and claimed his re-election would end democracy.
The Trump-Hitler comparisons started during the 2016 campaign, accelerated after the 2017 rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., and reached a fever pitch in recent months.
JFK and Martin Luther King were demonized as threats to America before they were assassinated.
By
Gerald Posner
July 15, 2024 5:08 pm ET
WSJ Opinion: Reagan Secret Service Agent on Trump Assassination Attempt
Tim McCarthy was shot defending then-president Ronald Reagan in 1981. The former Secret Service agent says the agency failed Donald Trump despite his surviving the assassination attempt.
Incendiary political language has consequences. Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen agitated his supporters and culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The assassination attempt against Mr. Trump follows years of relentless attacks from left-wing media and many in the Democratic Party, who likened the former president to Hitler and claimed his re-election would end democracy.
The Trump-Hitler comparisons started during the 2016 campaign, accelerated after the 2017 rally by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., and reached a fever pitch in recent months.