Joe Biden, the Media and the Democrats Helped Create the Conditions for Political Violence.
On September 2, 2022, the then President Joe Biden gave a speech in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, a sacred place, where our country was founded. And there he gave perhaps the most demagogic speech a sitting President has ever given. Now denouncing the political opposition is nothing new but, in the speech, Biden claimed that Republicans were not just wrong or misguided, rather, he claimed that they are a “threat to democracy”. Clearly crossing the line, he went on to say,
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Words like “extremist”, “fascist”, and threats to “the very foundation of our republic”, are practically a call for assassination. Now Biden didn’t mention Charlie Kirk by name, but we have to ask, who was more MAGA then Charlie Kirk. Indeed, Charlie was the epitome of the MAGA extremist. He helped get Trump elected, and more broadly he was one of the most effective spokesmen for the conservative agenda, especially among young people.
He was fearless and impossible to outdebate, which caused great anger on the left. Kirk built an organization to raise money and fund his activities. He was young, intelligent, charismatic and active. Many on the left wanted to silence him, and many wanted to kill him. Sadly, last week someone succeeded. The shooter made his motive clear; he opposed what Kirk believed. Kirk was killed for espousing a conservative pro Trump ideology.
I remember hearing Biden’s speech back in 2022 and at the time I did think that there would be repercussions from his rhetoric. Also, notably, I don’t remember anyone in the mainstream media denouncing Biden for such a dark and divisive speech. They overlooked the fact that Biden, while running on the promise of uniting the nation, now was vilifying his opposition.
Biden gave, I am sure someone else wrote it, the speech to rally his base before the midterms, but how could violence not come from such a warning. Biden was not unique in his hateful, false and irresponsible rhetoric. Vice President Kamala Harris compared Trump to Hitler. It seems to me that once you compare your opponent to Hitler there is nowhere else to go. You can’t make a more serious charge.
In addition to the demagogue Biden, the mainstream news media brought on people, egged them on, and gave them a platform to spew the over-the-top anti Trump rhetoric. Did they not think that violence would result?
Trump has secret service protection and yet he was shot once in the ear, luckily, he turned his head in time, and he was almost shot again a few months later. His high-profile supporters have no such protection, so they are vulnerable. The shooter agreed that Trump, and his surrogate Charlie Kirk, were extremists’ and threats to our Republic, so he took the opportunity to kill Charlie.
Now the media seems surprised that violence took place. They shouldn’t be. For years they have facilitated the smearing of conservatives.
Since the Kirk shooting the media has come up with a new talking point. They now recognize that political violence exists, and claim that it is bipartisan. The way they do it is fundamentally dishonest. It works like this, every time a Democratic politician, or family member is attacked that counts as political violence, even if there is no evidence that their political views had anything to do with it.
For example, they count the home invasion and attack on Paul Pelosi, Husband of Nancy Pelosi in 2022, as an example of political violence. The problem is that there is no evidence that the mentally disturbed man, David DePape, had any political disagreements with Paul Pelosi, a private citizen, and not a politician. The theory is that DePape wanted to kidnap Nancy, but she was not at home. Paul Pelosi confronted him, and DePape beat him with a hammer. The vicious attack on Paul Pelosi had nothing to do with political differences.
The media also commonly mention the killing of the Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representative, Melissa Hortman and her Husband Mark Hortman, and the shooting of another Democratic member and his spouse in June of this year, as examples of political violence. The shooter in both cases was Vance Luther Boelter. He is labeled as a Republican by the media, although former Democratic Governor Mark Dayton appointed him to the state’s Workforce Development Board back in 2016. And Democratic Governor Tim Walz reappointed Boelter in 2019. In addition, Boelter may have personally known one of his victims, which could help explain a motive.
The media frequently mentions the attack on the house of Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, as an example of political violence coming from the right. However, the burning of his house was most likely a case of antisemitism, and not an attack by a partisan Republican. That is the attack didn’t come from the right.
By comparison a real example of political violence would include the 2017 shooting of Republican members of Congress, such as Representative Steve Scalise, who almost died, and three other victims. The shooter was a former Bernie Sanders volunteer named James Hodgkinson, who learned that Republican members of congress would be coming to a ballpark in Alexandria.
Also, we shouldn’t forget that conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was stalked. Fortunately, the police caught the man who showed up on Kavanaugh’s street with a gun. Remember Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer’s promise, “You will reap the whirlwind Justice Kavanaugh, you won’t know what will hit you.”
Another example of political violence was the murder of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson. The alleged killer is Luigi Mangione, an anti-capitalist warrior who killed Thompson over policy differences. Many on the left are trying to turn Mangione into a hero.
There are many examples of left-wing violence that have a clear motive. The media’s examples of right-wing violence are murky to say the least.
David Shephard is the author of two books: Elections Have Consequences, A Cautionary Tale.
Norton’s Choice: An Inside Politics Exposé: Shephard, David: 9781892538802: Amazon.com: Books
4 comments
You saw what ABC did to Jimmy Kimmel?
I remember Biden’s Red Socialist speech. It clearly represented the rise of Democratic socialism within the now defunct democrat party. The speech would have been perfect for the likes of Obama, Mamdani, Sanders, AOC – and I often think that a Biden in decline had nothing to do with it other than present it in an angry and confrontational way. I hear that Biden is having difficulty raising money for his library and that is more than appropriate for a man who sold out the country.
Democrats are apt to mention violence against Democrats, and then let the listener assume that the violence was perpetrated by a Republican and let them draw that false conclusion. The reality is that, when political violence occurs, there is an 80% likelihood that the perpetrator was politically to the Left of the victim.
There are a number of fake charts supposedly showing that republicans are responsible for the majority of these political assassinations and school shootings. The authors of these charts site some obscure sources. I suspect that the Kirk assassination has been ascribed to republicans because his assassin was raised in a republican family.