Fiery political rhetoric is usually not fatal

Having survived a second assassination attempt in as many months, former President Donald Trump knows exactly where to blame: his political enemies, the media and Democrats. (Three sides of the same coin.)

“He believed the rhetoric of (President Joe) Biden and (Vice President Kamala) Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump told Fox News, referring to Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old would-be assassin who was apprehended Sunday after camping at the Trump International golf course. “Their rhetoric is getting me shot, when I’m the one who’s going to save the country, and they’re the ones who are destroying the country, from the inside and the outside.”

Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), said similar things.

“No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last two months, and two people have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last two months,” Vance said. “I think that’s pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down its rhetoric, or someone’s going to get hurt.”

It’s true that the other side increasingly speaks of Trump in apocalyptic terms: a threat to democracy, a fascist, Hitler, and so on. But Trump’s own rhetoric is often quite provocative. He has called Harris a Marxist, a communist, and, for good measure, a fascist. And back when he was a prominent supporter of the anti-Trump movement, Vance himself called Trump every horrible name there is.

Politicians often resort to fiery rhetoric, make unfair comparisons, and aggressively inflate the views, statements, and character of their political enemies. This has been going on forever. It is extremely difficult to know whether this is making the problem of political violence worse. Republicans once pretended to understand this and rightly pushed back against Democrats and media figures who lazily and falsely blamed the right for inspiring the shooting of former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords (Ariz.). It is disheartening to watch Trump and Vance easily succumb to the temptation to do exactly the same thing.

Calls for moderation in inflammatory rhetoric are welcome, but the public should be wary of attempts to connect inflammatory rhetoric to real-world violence. As always, it is important to remember that there is very little political violence in the United States. Americans are far more likely to engage in violence against each other because of tensions in the workplace or at home—politically motivated hate is a surprisingly small component of the crimes.

I’m joined by Amber Duke to discuss the second attempt on Trump’s life, the pet controversy, Hillary Clinton’s idea to criminalize the spread of misinformation, and Anna Navarro’s latest perspective.

I finally had time to start the second season of Amazon Prime THE The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series, which opens with an extended sequence chronicling the story of the antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron.

Of course it’s not his entire background story. The Rings of Power takes place during an in-between time period; the previous dark lord, Morgoth, has been defeated and Sauron has seemingly been destroyed. We know that our heroes are destined to feud with Sauron and destroy him once more so that he can eventually rise to power a third time in the more well-known events of The Lord of the Rings The movies. As such, it all seems a bit boring. Sauron’s conflict with Adar, the mysterious leader of the orcs, doesn’t have particularly high stakes: we know for sure that Sauron will eventually defeat all the other villains, among them a dark wizard who seems suspiciously similar to Saruman, Gandalf’s rival (but who isn’t, I don’t think?). (At least, it would be very strange if Saruman were already evil.)

I like the performance of Charlie Vickers, the actor who plays Sauron. And the plot involving the Stranger, who is probably young Gandalf, and his fellow hobbits has an entertaining and whimsical quality. The rest of the show is a bit dull. The actors who play Galadriel and Elrond have failed to give these characters enough dynamism. (Although anyone would seem inadequately bad compared to Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving.) The scenes with the dwarves are extremely boring, bordering on unwatchable. I’ve only seen two episodes and so far there hasn’t been much else.

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