Victor Davis Hanson: The Deadly ‘Get Trump’ Climate Continues. 1/2

Victor Davis Hanson | September 16, 2024

Just two months after the failed Trump assassination attempt by one Thomas Matthew Crooks, we witnessed Sunday yet another foiled one, by Ryan Wesley Routh—a would-be assassin and anti-Trump/radical pro-Ukraine War social media addict.

Somehow he, too, once again got within relatively easy shooting range of former President Donald Trump.

Is there a continued pattern here of lax Trump Secret Service protection, coupledwith a general social media and televised climate that equates Trump with Hitler and lowers the bar on assassination?

That is, arewe sending unambiguous messages to would-be assassins thata) lots of Trump-hating people would welcome an assassination attempt and canonize the wannabe assailant; b) it would not be that difficult to pull an assassination off, given security laxity and incompetence; and thus c)we will likely witness a series of such unhinged attempts?

On Aug. 14, almost exactly two months ago, I predicted the following:

If Donald Trump all summer has been compared by his enemies to Hitler and his murderous Third Reich, and if a 20-year-old would-be assassin and murderer with ease took up a sniper’s position to kill Trump—without a notified Secret Service or other law enforcement attempting to abort the shooter’s attempted assassination—what signal does that send to other would-be assassins for the next 80 days of the 2024 campaign?

Is the message that if a 20-year-old amateur sniper can brazenly and visibly for nearly an hour breach all Secret Service security perimeters to shoot eight times at the president, hit him in the ear, kill one innocent bystander, and wound two others, then almost any future, more-experienced serious shooter could match or exceed the ability of that disturbed amateur to get close enough to Trump to fire more than eight shots at his head?

And that shooting Trump in many leftist quarters would subsequently earn the unhinged killer eternal fame, applause, and immortality?

And that if there are such anticipated rewards and perceived opportunities, thenwe may well see more attempts on candidate Trump’s life?

And here isjust today’s example of the usual left-wing daily vitriol equating Trump with some sort of existential enemythat must be somehow stopped—expressed on both television and social media:

After the would-be assassination attempt, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York posted this: “Extreme MAGA Republicans are the party of a national abortion ban and Trump’s Project 2025. We must stop them.”

Jeffries is spreading untruths: Trump has never supported a national abortion ban and has consistently distanced himself from The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. And after such deliberately lying,what exactly does the House minority leader mean by “We must stop them”?

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/09/16/deadly-get-trump-climate-continues/