Democrats rushed to blame Governor Sarah Palin’s “targeted districts” in January 2011 after Jared Loughner shot and injured 13, including Representative Gabby Giffords. Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic, twice judged mentally incompetent to stand trial, and showed little political interest except a hatred of both President George W. Bush and Rep. Giffords.
The claim was bogus, but Democratic leaders were more than happy to blame Palin.
Now the controversy is on the other side. Biden has both defended and backed away from his call to “put Trump in a bull’s-eye” in the aftermath of the June 13 assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Thomas Matthew Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a left-wing political action committee that has used incendiary language against President Trump. While Crooks’ motives are yet unclear, President Biden and Democrats have struggled to hold themselves to the same standard they once held for Governor Palin.
House Democrat Rep. Jared Golden of Maine called on his party to stop the hyperbolic remarks portraying Republicans as “diabolical caricatures bent on destroying the country.”
Derek Hunter asked the question in The Hill on July 17th, “Why are Democrats glad Trump survived if he is a Nazi and a threat to our nation?” But the real question many are asking is whether the Pandora’s Box has already been opened. Democrats in 2012 were comparing Nikki Haley to Eva Braun, Hitler’s mistress, and Biden himself told a group of African Americans in 2012 that Mitt Romney would “put them back in chains.”
Even before that, comparisons between Bush and Hitler abounded as did regular Democrat allegations that Bush was not a legitimate President and stole the 2000 election.
After the shooting in Pennsylvania, Democrat leaders have expressed horror and tried to walk back some of their party’s most violent rhetoric but the allegation that a second Trump Presidency would lead to a racist dictatorship may have already taken root in their base.In politics, double standards abound. But in the wake of an assassination attempt less than four months out from the Presidential election, many democrats are stuck. Is Trump truly a threat that must be eliminated by any means necessary? Or is he just an opponent with a different vision for preserving American democracy?
