EGN NEWS DESK
I used to be sitting in an empty horse-racing grandstand having a cigarette, about to order a steak on the Hollywood Casino in Washington, Pa., once I noticed on my feed {that a} second assassination try on Donald Trump had been confirmed.
After saying a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, I walked again into the Bistecca steakhouse, took again my seat on the bar and instructed the bartender and two guys there, “Another assassination try in opposition to Trump.”
TRUMP BLAMES BIDEN-HARRIS ‘RHETORIC’ FOR LATEST ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT, SAYS HE WILL ‘SAVE THE COUNTRY’
“Are you stunned?” one man, a retired Teamster requested, a line that triggered a reminiscence. “It virtually appears regular now,” the bartender added. Then I ordered a ribeye and a glass of Merlot and we went again to watching the Chiefs in opposition to the Bengals.
None of the networks lower away from the motion for information protection, my cellphone wasn’t blowing up with notifications, and my guess is that 90% of the folks down on the ground of the on line casino, or within the sportsbook, had no concept something had even occurred.
We all know that if such an try had been made on Vice President Kamala Harris’ life, the video games wouldn’t solely have been lower away for the information, they’d possible have been suspended. But that is about greater than media bias, it’s about social callousness.
Let’s take a step again and understand that this response to a former president and present candidate practically being killed is totally weird, and was not the response simply two months in the past, the final time Trump was virtually whacked by a loony leftist, if you’re preserving monitor.
That day, I used to be at a restaurant in Toledo interviewing some voters when information of the primary try broke. People stopped of their tracks and assembled by the TVs on the bar to look at protection. There was an electrical air of shock and concern.
And but, this was the second I used to be reminded of in Pennsylvania as information of the second try broke. One of the blokes again in July, after we had been watching Trump wipe blood from his face, mentioned the very same phrases: “Are you stunned?”
To be honest, the horrible occasions in Butler had been extra dramatic. Corey Compatore tragically misplaced his life, and the imagery was heartstopping. But if the Palm Beach assassination try had occurred on July 13, as a substitute, then that Toledo restaurant would nonetheless have been shocked.
The normalization of this assassination try on Sunday was palpable, no matter each politician and pundit on all sides for probably the most half furrowing their well-plucked brows and decrying political violence.
This desensitization of homicide makes an attempt in opposition to political opponents is a hazard that can’t be overstated. It can solely forebode a future wherein not solely do extra makes an attempt happen, however Americans’ fundamental respect for the lives of these they disagree with diminishes.
In the America of 25 years in the past, after we didn’t hate one another fairly so vociferously, the pure factor that might be occurring this week can be an occasion with Donald Trump, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden all teaming as much as remind us of our core nonviolent values.
That may be very unlikely to occur although, as a result of in the present day the one factor that issues is profitable the election. Both sides deal with the opposite as an existential risk, not as a associate in governance, however what’s the level of profitable if the nation is so bitterly divided that it will possibly barely perform?
The youthful of the 2 males on the steakhouse, a mustached buddy of the Teamster, ultimately weighed in. He had some sense of who I used to be, and the place I’m perceived to be on the political spectrum. “I’m extra to the proper,” he mentioned.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
“So you suppose this coulda been…,” I interjected.
“Yeah,” he mentioned. We each knew what I meant.
I wished to inform him he was loopy, and to take off his tinfoil hat, however I couldn’t, not as a result of I believe anybody official had something to do with both assassination try, however as a result of we’re lied to recurrently, from COVID, to Russian Collusion, to Hunter Biden’s laptop computer.
What, I’m supposed to inform him to belief what he reads?
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Around midnight, I used to be smoking a cigarette outdoors of my resort, by a facet door I’d propped open with a rock. Darkness had blessed the virtually mountainous panorama of Western Pennsylvania and staring up on the large spherical moon I thought of all of it, the assassination try, the response, the enterprise as standard perspective.
And all I may suppose was, “Are you stunned?”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS
