“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

—William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939, from the “The Second Coming.”

Truth be told, I was about to sit down last night to write a politically incorrect piece on what I saw as a misguided effort to improve American health care by donating a small fortune to what is already one of the wealthiest medical schools in the country, Johns Hopkins University, when I got the news.  There had been an assassination attempt on one of the candidates for the U.S. Presidency.

Can you honestly say you were surprised?

The individual targeted is irrelevant.  Frankly, I thought it would most likely be Biden first.  But it doesn’t really matter.

Within hours, extremists on both sides began spinning their own version.  The Far Right insisted this was a government set-up to silence Trump.  Where was the security?   How did the shooter get through?  Biden was behind this! (As an aside, my personal favorite was the comment by Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who blamed it on Critical Race Theory—despite the shooter being white).

On the Left it was different.  This is all fake!  Just grazed on the cheek?  And he jumps up pumping his fist?  Then T-shirts go on sale less than 12 hours later?  Give me a break.  It was all a trick to get sympathy.  The German Reichstag fire of 1933 all over again!

Believe whatever you want, but the facts are just beginning to come out.  A 20-year-old registered Republican took his father’s (wait for it—I know this will come as a shock) AR-15 and shot at the president.  Others in the crowd were hit.  At least one died. The shooter was also killed.

Really, can you say you were surprised?  The hate, fearmongering, finger-pointing, and scapegoating of this election season are without precedent.  Both parties have received horrific messages.  Election workers (whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent) have been threatened.  The messages stated the workers would be murdered, their spouses raped, and their children tortured.

Are you really surprised that someone followed through?

America has a long track record of assassination and assassination attempts.  We’re also the most violence-prone of any developed country (sorry, if you want to compare us to Venezuela, Iraq, and Zimbabwe, you’re in the apples and oranges category).  We’re number one in the world in firearms ownership.  We’re killing ourselves off daily.  You already know what I think about this stuff.  I wrote about it here: 1, 2, and 3 .

Can you actually be surprised when it just happens to be someone who’s running for President?

Are we finally going to take this stuff seriously?  It shouldn’t go unnoticed that many in Washington who are screaming the loudest about this are the same people who openly laughed and mocked when the husband of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was attacked and nearly had his skull crushed. 

The FBI has long warned that the greatest threat to America comes not from foreign terrorists, but from Americans.  We’re now seeing that play out as predicted.

Sorry, but if you mix extreme hatred and loathing, refer to others as scum and vermin who are poisoning our nation, then drop it all into a witch’s brew of powerful firearms, this is exactly what you get.

The shooting of former President Trump was a tragedy.  But no more or less so than Sandy Hook Elementary, Stoneman Douglas High School, Uvalde Elementary, the Orlando night club, or the Emanuel AME Church shootings.  Of course, I could go on and on and on.

Shortly after the assassination attempt, 13 people, including a child, were shot in Birmingham, Alabama.  Put that in the context of a grazed cheek and ear.

Pundits will view all of this in the context of election calculus.  Will it garner sympathy?  Will it get Trump elected?  Will it be like Brazil in 2019, when Jair Bolsonaro, an anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-woman candidate who was behind in the polls, was critically stabbed?  He eventually wound up getting elected, much to that country’s eventual dismay.

Within hours of last night’s shooting, some Trump supporters were citing “Divine intervention” as the reason Trump escaped death.  Even Trump himself claimed God had protected him.

Really?  How about those who were killed or seriously hurt?  Didn’t God want to look out for them?

For those who would view Trump’s survival as an indication of God’s favor, remember this:  Adolf Hitler survived 6 assassination attempts.  Was God favoring him, too?

Donald Trump is still the same candidate today that he was at 6 PM yesterday, no better, no worse.  Whether you vote for him or President Biden should be based on policy and track-record, not sympathy and photos. 

I have no idea what motivations the shooter had.  But I know who’s to blame.

You are.  I am.  We all are.  All of us who tolerate, accept, and abet the hatred and violence that is becoming the norm, not just in American politics, but in American society as a whole.

We all own this.  And the next time the trigger is pulled?  Who do we blame then?