As Donald Trump recovers from an assassination attempt and Republicans head to Milwaukee for his coronation this week, the GOP elite has rallied around a new messaging strategy: emotionally blackmailing Democratic politicians, journalists, Hollywood celebs, and numerous other Trump critics into shutting up about the former president’s openly authoritarian vows and his extreme policy agenda.
Since the deadly shooting at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday, prominent conservatives have been working to blame the incident on Trump’s enemies for labeling him a “fascist” and for fanning heated “rhetoric” that, in their telling, caused the would-be assassin to shoot at the former and perhaps future American president. “When the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the Republic would end, it heats up the environment,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday, adding: “It’s simply not true. Everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down.”
Two of the finalists on Trump’s vice presidential shortlist quickly blamed the assassination attempt on talk about his authoritarian plans. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) wrote Saturday night. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said the attack on Trump was “aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.”
Top Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday he had been “worried about this for a very, very long time,” adding: “You know, if he wins, democracy is not going to end. He’s not a fascist. He represents a point of view that millions share. The rhetoric is way too hot.”
These messages are all part of a deliberate strategy. Within the first three hours following the failed assassination of the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, three sources close to Trump were already feverishly detailing to Rolling Stone how Republicans could use the shooting to their political advantage — whether for potentially mammoth fundraising, propaganda about Trump being “tough” and a “fighter,” or attacks on Democrats as belonging to the actually violent party every time they bring up things like the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot that Trump instigated.
Such plans were hatched hours before it became public that the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a registered Republican; his motive has continued to elude law enforcement and even his own neighbors. The lack of clarity has done little to deter MAGA and conservative leaders from scapegoating their preferred enemies list.
The attempt on Trump’s life does nothing to change the reality that he is — in fact — running on an openly authoritarian platform. Trump and his closest allies are pledging to punish President Joe Biden and other top Democrats and jail his political opponents; unleash the National Guard and active-duty troops on Democratic-controlled cities whenever he wishes; end the Justice Department’s independence so he can use it to crush his foes, shut down his criminal cases, and erase any hope of accountability for his alleged crimes; retaliate against media outlets that cover him negatively; deport pro-Palestine protesters; oversee an unprecedented crackdown on immigrants, potentially erecting a vast network of camps on U.S. soil; further institutionalize his anti-democratic lies and conspiracy theories that led directly to the Jan. 6 attack; and even invade and bomb Mexico if he feels like it.
Trump has quite literally pledged to be a dictator on “day one.” He later reiterated that he intends “to be a dictator for one day” — arguing such power would be necessary to erect a border wall and “drill, drill, drill.” On the campaign trail, the former president has evoked the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler, accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Saturday’s assassination attempt also does not change the fact that Trump has repeatedly and very publicly endorsed political violence over the years. Trump is calling now for “peace” and “unity,” but he has a lengthy track record of downplaying or excusing the harm done to the victims of pro-Trump violence — to the point that late last year he was onstage mocking House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband after he was brutally attacked by a Trump-supporting conspiracy theorist wielding a hammer.
Trump has frequently promised to pardon the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. He recently shared a meme demanding a televised military tribunal for former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee.
And though Trump allies are chastising Democrats today for calling Trump a fascist or an authoritarian and claiming that such rhetoric causes violence, Trump has routinely called liberals and his enemies “fascists,” going as far as to trash them as “thugs” and “vermin within the confines of our country” at his 2024 campaign rallies.
Trump has campaigned as a populist strongman — that didn’t change overnight.
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