You know what happened over the weekend, and you know what’s been happening since. President Trump was shot at one of his rallies, and what should have been a casualty sealed his fate as a man that the world would never forget. When he should have been shaken and afraid, he stood defiantly and showed the world exactly what America used to be, and what America can be again. He reminded us what real strength looks like.
When I heard what happened and saw the footage, I didn’t feel anxiety or fear…and if you know me, you know that’s not like me at all. I don’t know how to explain it. I didn’t feel the need to pray. I knew he was fine, and I knew that what had happened had to happen. Of course, I knew it would be great for his campaign, but this felt bigger than the election. It felt like something that would change the course of history but whether it will be for better or worse has yet to be determined.
The Left’s reaction has been predictable. At the highest levels, you saw them making “thoughts and prayers” tier statements about political violence and minimizing the sheer magnitude of what took place. Certain outlets reported “Trump being rushed off stage after loud noises.” And of course, there were a large share of people lamenting that the shooter didn’t accomplish what he’d set out to do.
Some right of center accounts have made it their personal mission to report the people cheering on an assassination attempt to both their employers and the authorities. And we’re not just talking executives or journalists, or other professions that are easy to hate. We’re talking Home Depot cashiers and teachers.
And if I’m being honest with you, I don’t know how to feel about it.
I know that if the roles were reversed, and Joe Biden came within millimeters of losing his life, and I made a joke about wishing the shooter finished the job, most of these people wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me. They’d do everything in their power to make me as miserable as they could. They’d rejoice at the thought of me unemployable and behind bars.
After all, these are the same people so blinded by their partisan allegiance that they celebrated the Department of Justice treating January 6th protesters like terrorists when most of them are guilty of trespassing at most. These are the same people that thought you should be forced out of society based on whether or not you wanted to take an experimental and ineffective vaccine.
I know that the reason the Right is in the position it’s in now is because for so long, we’ve wanted to play by the rules. We wanted to be fair and consistent and principled. We wanted to take the high road. But the high road led us straight to hell.
The high road paved the way for the Left to take control of every cultural institution in our country. It gave us open borders, DEI, rampant anti-Americanism, a crippled economy and a neutered military. It gave us most of the problems we have today – and it’s why so many Republicans were vehemently opposed to Trump when he first emerged as a serious presidential contender in 2015.
He was vulgar, he was mean, and he wasn’t afraid to play dirty. He never apologized, he never backed down, and he rarely backtracked. In other words, he was everything the Republican Party had been too afraid to be, and who they desperately needed – even if he had to drag some of us kicking and screaming towards victory.
All of that to say, I understand what’s at stake, and I understand that now probably isn’t the time for moral grandstanding.
I understand that our country is on the brink of collapse, and if it’s going to be saved, polite, sensible people are going to either commit or excuse impolite, insensible acts.
But there’s still a part of me that recoils at the thought of abandoning my virtues, and seeing other people I respect do the same.
I understand the Left on a fundamental level. I’ve seen it up close and personal in painstaking detail. I know that individually, self professed socialists can be good people. A lot of so-called Marxists are just gullible teenagers and 20-somethings that have fallen for the proletariat propaganda machine and don’t have enough life experience to know better. But as a collective, serious communists are vicious cretins that would commit unfathomable acts of evil without a second thought to advance their ideology.
That’s why it’s both so important that the Right is willing to stoop to their level to protect our Republic, and why I’m so afraid of stooping to that level. I’m afraid of becoming them because I know exactly who they are and what they’re capable of.
I’m stuck between what I believe and what I love, because in order to preserve what I love, I have to betray what I believe on some level. I have to silence my conscience, and any time you find yourself in that predicament you’re playing a dangerous game. I believe you only have so many times to ignore the angel on your shoulder before it stops returning.
I wish I could wrap this blog post up with a real answer about the path forward, that I could feel confident in, but I can’t. All I can say is that if we want America to be great again, the most influential leaders on the Right will need to seek God in everything they do and every choice they make.
what do you think?