Bullets Can’t Save Liberalism
Plus: Why Democrats can’t back down from the election fight.
Andrew’s back this morning from a week’s vacation in northern Michigan—what’d he miss? Happy Monday.
Violence Isn’t the Answer
—Andrew Egger
What to say that hasn’t already been said about Saturday’s attempted assassination of Donald Trump—an evil attack that left two rallygoers critically injured and one dead?
And how in particular should we respond—those of us who did and do see Trump as an urgent threat to our liberal order and consider defeating him to be America’s most urgent political priority?
The going line in Republican circles today—although, remarkably, not from Trump himself so far—is that making the case against Trump bloodies the hands of Trump’s critics. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Sen. J.D. Vance tweeted. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Others have argued that widespread horror at the attack among Trump’s critics proves they were disingenuous all along: “If Trump is really an evil super villain dictator who wants to destroy our system of government or whatever then assassinating him would be morally justified,” the conservative writer Matt Walsh argued. “But they don’t want to justify this, which means they’re confessing that everything they said about him for ten years was nonsense.”
It’s tempting merely to laugh all this off, to point to its unbelievable disingenuousness. It’s Trump’s critics who have turned up the rhetorical temperature in America? Here was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s response to the attack: “The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, murdering the innocent unborn, violence, and bloody, meaningless, endless wars . . . The Democrat party is flat out evil, and yesterday they tried to murder President Trump.”
It’s Trump’s critics who have embraced and excused political violence in America? On the site today, Gabriel Schoenfeld rolls back the tape:
Given the opportunity in a 2020 debate to condemn white supremecists and militia groups and to renounce violence, all Trump would say to the paramilitary Proud Boys was, “Stand back and stand by.” They did stand by. On January 6th, five people died as a consequence of the insurrection that Trump incited, with the Proud Boys taking part. Repeating his false claims of election fraud—“We won this election, and we won it by a landslide”—Trump said to a roaring crowd at his rally the morning of January 6th, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” In short order, scenes of violence erupted at the U.S. Capitol, interrupting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history. Leaders of the Proud Boys have been convicted of sedition for their role in the violence. Trump has suggested that, if he is re-elected, he would consider pardoning them.
After Paul Pelosi, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband, was attacked with a hammer, fracturing his skull, Trump repeatedly mocked him, making light of the violent assault. At one rally, Trump said if re-elected he would “stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi,“ before asking a crowd of supporters, “How’s her husband doing by the way?” and saying a “wall around her house” didn’t do a “good job” of protecting him. The MAGA crowd roared with laughter.
Walsh’s point, however, is worth responding to explicitly. Why is it not, as he claims, a contradiction for Trump’s fiercest critics to despise the notion of assassinating him? Because while Trump’s embrace of political violence, alleged criminal behavior, and attempts to short-circuit our elections present a grave threat to the liberal order, they are not the only threat against it. If the people can’t choose their own leaders under the law in fair elections, what’s left to protect?
—Andrew Egger
Should the Democrats Blink?
—William Kristol
At the end of last week, I participated in an excellent conference on “Liberalism for the 21st Century.”
The panel discussions were intelligent and forward-looking. The discussions in the hallways were lively and stimulating. It was an altogether encouraging couple of days.
I mention this because of the contrast between this upbeat gathering of liberals (in the broad sense) and the downbeat, not to say beaten down, members of the Democratic party. It is this party, after all, to whom has fallen the rather important task of defending liberal democracy in the United States. Are they up to it?
This weekend was not reassuring.
Item one: A “senior House Democrat” told Axios yesterday that “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.”
He said this at a moment when, despite Joe Biden’s awful debate, the presidential race is still pretty close. Trump remains under 50 percent in the polls. Most Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump. He was, let’s not forget, the first president in almost three decades to lose a reelection bid, in 2020.
Yes, Trump’s a capable and clever demagogue. But he can be defeated. And it’s important that he be! Perhaps Democratic politicians resigned to a second Trump term should not just be resigned but resign, and let others step forward who are willing to exert themselves to defeat Trump at the ballot box in November.
Item two. It is increasingly obvious, however, that Trump is less likely to be defeated by Biden than by any next-generation Democrat. So maybe those “senior” Democrats should spend less time being resigned and more time stepping up to persuade and pressure Biden to step aside.
We saw President Biden’s virtues on display this weekend. He’s a public-spirited and responsible leader. It’s good that he’s president.
But let’s not kid ourselves: The only people happy with his performances these days are the ones grading him on a curve of “better than the worst debate performance ever.” And you couldn’t watch him this weekend without thinking that it is not reasonable to ask the American public to believe he can do this job for four more years.
Take a look, by the way, at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaking extemporaneously yesterday to mourn the attack on Trump and honor the fallen. Who can watch that and seriously think Biden is the best Democrat to take us forward in November?
In light of the terrible assassination attempt, it was understandable and proper for Democrats to suspend political hostilities last weekend.
But the weekend’s over. Are Democrats simply going to continue to sit back and not answer the appalling slanders of prominent Republicans?
Andrew noted above that Senator J.D. Vance, on the short list to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, said that the Biden campaign’s “rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Vance had no evidence this was true when he said it. There is still no evidence that this is true.
Perhaps Democrats should call out the lie? Perhaps they should denounce this slander? Perhaps they could even point out that it’s Republicans like Vance who think it’s great that disturbed 20-year olds have easy access to powerful weapons? Perhaps they could note, as Gabe Schoenfeld does, the unquestionably true fact that it is the Republican presidential nominee and his followers who have embraced the rhetoric of hatred and violence over the last nine years?
A Democrat from another era, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, used to quote a French rhyme from a 19th century song:
Cet animal est très méchant;
Quand on l’attaque, il se défend.
This beast is very wicked:
When attacked, it will fight back.
Perhaps Democrats should fight back when they are slandered and defamed. Perhaps they should move to secure the best standard-bearer possible for a very important election. Perhaps they should seek to win instead of being resigned to losing.
Just a thought from an ex-Republican who’d prefer to see liberal democracy survive and flourish, here and around the world.
—William Kristol
Quick Hits: Opposite Ends of a Bullet
In the Atlantic, David Frum brings the heat:
The 2024 election was already shaping up as a symbolic contest between an elderly and weakening liberalism too frail and uncertain to protect itself and an authoritarian, reactionary movement ready to burst every barrier and trash every institution. To date, Trump has led only a minority of U.S. voters, but that minority’s passion and audacity have offset what it lacks in numbers. After the shooting, Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and call to “Fight!” to summon waverers to their cause of installing Trump as an anti-constitutional ruler, exempted from ordinary law by his allies on the Supreme Court . . .
The despicable shooting at Trump, which also caused death and injury to others, now secures his undeserved position as a partner in the protective rituals of the democracy he despises. The appropriate expressions of dismay and condemnation from every prominent voice in American life have the additional effect of habituating Americans to Trump’s legitimacy. In the face of such an outrage, the familiar and proper practice is to stress unity, to proclaim that Americans have more things in common than that divide them. Those soothing words, true in the past, are less true now . . .
Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life . . .
All decent people welcome the sparing of his life. Trump’s reckoning should be with the orderly process of law, not with the bloodshed he rejoiced in when it befell others. He and his allies will exploit a gunman’s vicious criminality as their path to exonerate past crimes and empower new ones. Those who stand against Trump and his allies must find the will and the language to explain why these crimes, past and planned, are all wrong, all intolerable—and how the gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory, are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.
Like everyone else here in this forum, I presume, I condemn political violence.
But I am very dismayed to have heard journalists and political pundits over the weekend talk about how the Democrats and Republicans have united to condemn political violence.
NO – to be clear, the Democrats have been consistent in their condemnation of political violence towards anyone. The Republicans have only condemned it when it is aimed towards their candidate or a fellow Republican. When Paul Pelosi was attacked, it was a laughing matter…
Just more than a week ago Kevin Roberts, President of the Heritage Foundation stated: “… we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be” ?
Now, this morning, I am hearing that some elected Republicans are blaming the Democrats for the attempted assassination of trump, and journalists and pundits are saying they will be watching in the next few days to see if the Democrats dial back their “rhetoric” regarding the existential threat that trump and the Republican Party pose to democracy.
To quote Charlie Sykes, “FFS”.
The media has got to get a grip on what is happening. If trump wins in November, they will want each of us to care when they are targeted in the way that authoritarian regimes target a free press. I want THEM to care BEFORE that happens. Democracy may die in darkness, but we are now certain that it can also die in the full light of day.
Remember that when Democrats will be fully blamed for not saving Democracy yet again…
History will be much more clear-eyed, I suspect. They will take note of Biden’s refusal to step aside, to be sure, but the bulk of the blame will rest squarely where it belongs: on the shoulders of a sick and compliant Republican Party that chose power in an authoritarian regime over democracy, a free press that continually confuses both-sides-ism with fairness, and a bought-and-paid-for Supreme MAGAroo Court that left impartiality to die by the wayside, then purposefully slow-walked their absurd Presidential Immunity decision to bolster their favored candidate’s chances in November…
Everyone seems to be missing the point that a Republican-registered gun-lover shot at the felon ex-president. Students who were with him at high school said he loved history and politics and was definitely right-leaning. I don't get how this is reflecting badly on Dems. Please, someone, explain.