David Frum, a prominent “Never Trump” pundit and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, published an article on Sunday in the Atlantic blaming former President Donald Trump for his own attempted assassination.
Trump narrowly survived the attempt on his life when a bullet from a high-powered rifle grazed his ear during a rally in Pennsylvania. One man in the crowd, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed; two others were injured (not including the assassin, who was immediately shot by the Secret Service).
Frum, who dissented from the conservative movement the moment Bush left office, recently lamented that Trump was allowed to participate in last month’s debate against President Joe Biden:
David Frum is now arguing that the opposition should not be allowed to compete in elections. These are the people who say they are defending democracy. “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform” https://t.co/ZiaG4etG4x
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) July 1, 2024
On Sunday, he penned an article in the notoriously anti-Trump Atlantic, “The Gunman and the Would-be Dictator,” saying that Trump had incited the violence that led to Saturday’s attack:
Now the bloodshed that Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. The attempted murder of Trump—and the killing of a person nearby—is a horror and outrage. More will be learned about the man who committed this appalling act, and who was killed by the Secret Service. Whatever his mania or motive, the only important thing about him is the law-enforcement mistake that allowed him to bring a deadly weapon so close to a campaign event and gain a sight line of the presidential candidate. His name should otherwise be erased and forgotten.
It is sadly incorrect to say, as so many have, that political violence “has no place” in American society. Assassinations, lynchings, riots, and pogroms have stained every page of American political history. That has remained true to the present day. In 2016, and even more in 2020, Trump supporters brought weapons to intimidate opponents and vote-counters. Trump and his supporters envision a new place for violence, as their defining political message in the election of 2024.
He lamented:
Nobody seems to have language to say: We abhor, reject, repudiate, and punish all political violence, even as we maintain that Trump remains himself a promoter of such violence, a subverter of American institutions, and the very opposite of everything decent and patriotic in American life.
The article is hidden from the public behind a paywall.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.