07/15/24

Good morning! It’s Monday, July 15th.

National Respect Canada Day, which is different than July 1st’s Canada Day. It’s just a day to, you know, appreciate Canada.

And I think that’s nice.

And now, the news.

July 13th, 2024

-via AP News, NBC News, and Washington Post

We start how we start in America, with one person dead, and three people injured, including two critically, after a shooter (who is also dead) opened fire at Trump’s rally on Saturday.

I am, of course, talking about the still-developing story that, on Saturday afternoon, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, apparently attempted to assassinate former President Trump at a rally in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

There are a million more questions than answers but, from eyewitness statements here is what we know:

Shortly after Trump took the stage, at least two rally-goers noticed a man, Crooks, army crawling onto a roof across the street from the state while holding a rifle. He was pointed out to police. One officer started climbing a ladder to approach Crooks, but Crooks pointed the rifle at him and he retreated down the ladder. Crooks then fired, hitting Trump in the top of his right ear, as well as others in the crowd.

Secret service pulled Trump off the stage, though not of course without Trump doing a fist pump into the air, and worked (frankly, at times, against Trump) to get him into a car and away from the rally.

Secret Service also fired at and killed, Crooks.

In the crowd, a 50-year-old former fire chief died after using his body to shield his wife and daughter. The two critically shot are now stable.

It is now being investigated as domestic terrorism. A motive is still not known and what’s being described as “suspicious devices” were found in his car and home. His family is cooperating with the investigation.

It is being described as a lone wolf attack.

Crooks is a registered Republican. It is also believed he donated $15 to ActBlue, a liberal-leaning group where his donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project, which is a national group that rallies Democrats to vote. Those are two things you’re going to hear talked about – though, because they are complicated and diametrically opposed, while they are facts, I’m not sure how particularly illuminating this at, nor how helpful conversations about those facts will be.

Still - those are the facts about what happened. That is what we know right now.

We may learn more information, we may not. We may never have a full picture of what drove Crooks to do what he did.

Someone posted online that the picture of Trump, blood on his face and fist in the air, was a moment where you know things have changed but you’re just not sure how yet.

And here is the part of the episode where I kind of was hoping that maybe I wouldn’t need to do this episode at all. Like, maybe my mic would break or something and I could conveniently not need to talk about this.

Because I don’t know what to say.

This changes everything and nothing.

Political violence has no place in the world, and yet we see it constantly.

When I talk about shootings on this show, I say “we start how we start here in America” because these shootings are far too common. This is a very American problem. The shootings and that it happened at a political rally.

In response to the shooting, there have been attempts, mostly from Republicans, to blame this on Democrats and the dangerous rhetoric on the left. Marjorie Taylor Greene is having a lot of big feelings – it’s the media’s fault, it’s Biden’s fault, it’s the Democrats’ fault at large, the Secret Service didn’t do enough… meanwhile, her pinned tweet from April of 2022 is: “Today and everyday is 1776. Never give up our freedoms. Never let the left steal them away. Be a watchman on the wall and stay on guard every single second of every single day because the left will stop at nothing until they destroy our faith, our families, and our freedoms.”

And though she spelled “every day” as one word – the point is not the very embarrassing typo but the fact that her pinned tweet is telling her followers that people are out to get them specifically and they need to be a watchman on a wall.

I don’t, right this second, really want to have a conversation about passing and placing blame, but it would be disingenuous not to mention that the leaders of one political party celebrate violence, including by making fun of Nancy Pelosi’s husband for almost dying, laments that those who attempted to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer were charged, and believe those who are in jail for storming the Capital are political prisoners.

But it’s the Democrat’s fault for calling Trump and the danger he poses to our future.

Here’s the thing… two things can be true at once:

What happened to Trump can be absolutely unacceptable. Full stop.

And also, Trump continues to be a threat to a threat to our country.

No good comes from what happened over the weekend. No good at all.

But I saw a lot of people online talking about how this election is sealed.

It’s not over. It’s not done.

This nation deserves better than Trump and it deserves better than us tossing our hands up.

Ballots over bullets.

Voting over violence.

We have decisions to make right now. About what kind of country we want to be and what kind of people we want to be.

We are a nation borne of violence. We read about it in our history books and watch it play out every day. Political violence is a part of our past. It doesn’t need to be a part of our future.

Saying we all need to come together and hold hands is… a nice episode of a WB show (aka my favorite kind of show). It’s not really possible right now. That’s a sweet idea, not a helpful piece of advice.

And who am I? Who cares what I think? What do I know?

But all I’ve thought about this weekend is how to move forward after this, and here’s where I’m at – right now, we need to have thoughtful and rational, nuanced, conversations. It is okay to say you’re sorry he got shot while also talking about what a threat he poses to this country.

It’s okay to say you’re sorry he got shot while also agreeing that the rhetoric on the right is dangerous.

Nuanced, thoughtful, conversations.

That’s right now. Your personal conversations, your public posts, might not fix everything, but they might be able to turn down the temperature in your own community. And that’s helpful.

That’s right now. That’s what we can do right now.

And then in November, we can cast our ballots against Trump and Project 2025. We can reject the violence of the weekend, while also rejecting everything Trump stands for.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Be good to others. Be good to yourself.

I’m proud of you.