In Brief: Unity?
America came one inch from transforming, instantly, into a different country.
When Donald Trump was shot last Saturday, everything changed and nothing did. Despite Secret Service failures, the real story is division in America.
Matt Walsh called the assassination attempt “inevitable” because of those divisions. He recaps at length the security failures before getting to the point about unity.
The Left’s decade-long campaign to label Trump a Hitlerian dictator who wants to destroy democracy is actually dangerous because it’s A) not true, and it’s B) the sort of thing that, if believed, is all but guaranteed to bring about exactly the result we saw on Saturday. That’s the point. It’s why they say it.
Think of it this way: If Trump really is an evil dictator who wants to destroy America, it would be not only understandable but in fact morally righteous to kill him — which is why it doesn’t make any sense for all of these Leftists to now be expressing grief and claiming that this kind of violence is unacceptable. Really? Wait a minute. I thought you said he’s Hitler? How could it be unacceptable to kill Hitler? I’ve heard people debate whether killing baby Hitler would be okay. But killing adult Hitler? What’s there to think about?
From a political perspective, Democrats are in a real conundrum. There doesn’t appear to be any way out of it. They can’t say Trump deserved to die, but if he didn’t deserve to die, then he isn’t Hitler incarnate. So what can they do?
Walsh then spends time unpacking political violence and when it actually might be acceptable. Such as, say, killing Adolf Hitler. His conclusion is powerful:
So where do we go from here? There have been many calls for unity in the wake of the shooting. Trump himself has said that he is going to re-write his convention speech to focus on national unity. That makes a lot of sense as a political strategy. It’s certainly the right move in a presidential campaign, in response to such an event. But can it actually happen? Can this country be unified now? Is there any chance that we all come together and put our differences aside, now that we have come so close to chaos, now that the thin veil was very nearly ripped to shreds?
The answer, I’m afraid, is no. That is the conclusion we come to if history is our guide — and it should be, because, as I said at the beginning, we are living in history, not at the end of it. And history shows us very clearly that when political tensions eventually lead to political assassination attempts, things don’t just stop there. The tide doesn’t come to a screeching halt. The factions don’t pull up short and say “Oh geez, maybe this has gone too far guys.” That’s not the way this has ever worked. We are not history’s great exceptions. It’s time that we admit that to ourselves.
What that means is that the forces which, at a minimum, set the stage for this — the forces which have demonized Trump and the movement he stands for — the forces which have tried to destroy him in every possible way — the forces which have actually destroyed many normal Americans far less powerful and prominent than Trump himself — those forces are still at work. Still scheming. Still plotting against Trump, and against you. We cannot unite with them. The only national unity to be had will be had in their defeat. They must be defeated. That is the only way. Trump was right in what he said on stage after the shots rang out, with blood smeared across his face. He didn’t shout “unite.” He shouted “fight.” And that’s what we have to do. Now more than ever.
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- Matt Walsh