Early reports had Gabby Giffords dead. Mark Kelly learned of her “passing” while listening to the radio. The media was in a hurry to report, and report they did – but most of it was wrong.
Before the ink was dry on the gunman’s fingerprint sheet, the elected Sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupink, passionately proclaimed that “political vitriol” was “absolutely to blame” for the shooting. By early afternoon, Jared Loughner had been identified as the shooter – and identified as white and male. These two latter facts apparently were enough to get the yellow journalism machine in full throttle as Loughner was instantly labeled a neo-Nazi and white supremacist. Then Loughner was a Tea Party guy, an ultra “right” guy, a veteran. None of it was true.
The “person of interest” the media was hunting was a cab driver, and Giffords wasn’t dead – Facts were intruding on the myth, but true believers were too red-faced with hate to bother with facts. Yellow journalists went into overdrive.
By late afternoon of the shooting, the kooks on MSNBC were exploding with insults – all aimed at the right. The HuffPo and the DailyKosers were ranting about violence and, at the same time wishing death to conservatives. Twitter lit up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The theme was the same: The shooter, they wailed, was provoked by the “right.” Sarah Palin and her “target map” showing congressional districts Republicans wanted to flip. They wailed that Palin had incited the killer. Broadcast media was soon showing the soon-to-be-famous Palin “target map” as Exhibit A. Giffords’ district was on that map, so, ipso facto, Palin had put the gun in the assassin’s hand.
They concluded Palin’s rhetoric generally and her target map specifically caused Loughner to turn to mass murder. By nightfall, the torches were lit, and the pitchforks were out. The mob was collectively screaming for blood; the mob wanted Palin’s head on a pike. By the next day, facts had gotten in the way.
Loughner wasn’t a white supremacist. He wasn’t a foot soldier in a conspiracy; he wasn’t a “right-wing kook”; he wasn’t a vet. He was simply – a kook. Loughner was described by acquaintances as strikingly anti-social. He was often seen talking to himself, and when he spoke to others, he made little sense. He didn’t watch TV and didn’t listen to talk radio. The types of books he favored were written by Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx. He wasn’t part of the “Tea Party” or any party or group for that matter. Loughner was a drifter, a loser, a nihilist, and crazy person.
No one needed a degree in psychology to determine that Loughner wasn’t a political assassin — he was just nutty as a fruitcake. Loughner attended Giffords events three years before his rampage and apparently didn’t get the attention from Giffords he thought he deserved and started a slow boil. He held a personal grudge, and on January 8, 2011, he acted on it. This rebuff occurred three years before he pulled a gun and shot 19 people. It predated Palin and her target map. It predated Arizona’s SB 1070 and predated Obama. This information, coupled with his disinterest in TV, cable news, or talk radio (and adding his mental illness to the mix) would lead anyone with the IQ of a gnat to the conclusion that Loughner’s rampage had no link to political rhetoric, political imagery or current events.
In a book called “Gabby,” Gabby’s husband, Mark Kelly, railed against Palin and, again, resurrected the Palin myth. Kelly posited that although Palin wasn’t “responsible” for Loughner’s rampage, Palin’s use of a “target” map was “irresponsible.”
Following the invasion of Iraq, George Bush was vilified, often portrayed as Hitler on posters in cartoons and in media and by celebrities. Leftist comedian Janeane Garofalo referred to the Bush administration as the “43rd Reich.” Linda Ronstadt said that all Republicans were a “new bunch of Hitlers.”
It became so tiresome and overused a meme was created to mock the uncreative left. It showed a children’s book with Hitler in pajamas on a toboggan titled “Everyone I Don’t Like Is Hitler.”
Then came Trump.
Trump wasn’t a politician. He didn’t have a filter. The swamp hated him for his unwillingness to play along. The political class and the embedded bureaucracy went after him. The lie that won’t die is the Russia collusion myth. It didn’t matter that the left’s savior, Robert Mueller, and his report didn’t implicate Trump as a stooge of Putin; the left has never let go of that lie. There was no war in Ukraine while Trump was president, but it’s Trump who is the Putin’s pocket. How Trump is Putin’s puppet is never answered. It’s just a given because Trump is Hitler.
Then J6 happened. Although the mob was removed from the Capitol with the vote to confirm completed within hours, those few hours of mayhem convinced a vast cohort of the crazy left that “democracy had been on the brink.” Transfer of power and democracy were never in danger, but the cult of the deranged had formed.
Like all false religions, it needed an antagonist. It had one in Donald Trump. When Trump announced that he was going to run for president, the cult marshaled its priests, high priests, and idols to deliver the sermon to the cult’s congregants. Donald Trump is evil. He must be destroyed. Trump is Hitler reborn. Trump is a threat to democracy. Trump is a threat to your very lives. Week after week, month after month, the cult’s idols — the celebrity class — told cultists the same thing: America as we know it will end if Trump returns to the White House. Old lies were repeated. New lies invented. The Lincoln Project’s favorite midget, Rick Wilson, said Trump should get a bullet:
On X, in late December 2023, the “Biden/HarrisHQ” posted this:
Not to be outdone, three days later, the Washington Post published an Op/Ed that offered
“Yes, it’s okay to compare Trump to Hitler.”
There has been a never-ending stream of vitriol aimed at Trump — almost every nitwit actor or musician letting their fans know that democracy is at risk. Then the hammer dropped. At the debate, President Joe Biden demonstrated that he’s a human carrot and the left went into full panic. Biden’s campaign started to tank. So what to do? Turned up the rhetoric. Unending “Trump’s a fascist” and “Trump is the end of democracy” rhetoric. Biden and Harris repeated, ad nauseam, the lie that “Trump has vowed to be a dictator,” knowing full well that that isn’t what he said.
True believers listened.
They heard the call to arms. Who wouldn’t want to stop Hitler? Who wouldn’t defend democracy against a dictator? Surely, a thousand celebrities can’t be wrong. The priests are telling them that they must stop the new Hitler.
True believers listened.
Trump was shot on Saturday. Was the gunman motivated specifically by the unending bad-faith lies and the constant stream of false comparisons and fear porn? “Trump will end democracy,” and he’s “literally” Hitler was being repeated right before Trump was shot. As certain as the sun will rise, I am certain of that. The gunman, that madman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump and managed to murder an innocent man, was, indeed, motivated by the left’s unending fear porn and violent rhetoric. This is what they believe. Violence is the objective — and true believers are disappointed in the result.
That woman is not an aberration; she’s just upfront and honest about her bloodlust and her belief in false gods and idols.
The gunman pulled the trigger; the left loaded the gun.
