Trump’s hypocritical crusade on violent rhetoric — and the country’s emerging split reality
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump’s hypocritical crusade on violent rhetoric — and the country’s emerging split reality
Aaron Blake 9-11 minutes 4/27/2026
A month ago, President Donald Trump unabashedly celebrated the death of former FBI Director Robert Mueller. “ Good, I’m glad he’s dead ,” Trump said. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”
On Monday, Trump and his White House responded to a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this weekend by decrying Democrats’ supposedly beyond-the-pale rhetoric and labeling them a “ cult of hatred .”
Their chief example of this kind of rhetoric? ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel telling a joke that made light of Trump’s potential demise. Days before this weekend’s shooting, Kimmel joked that first lady Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.”
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Apparently, it’s OK for Trump to celebrate a public servant’s death; it is not OK for Jimmy Kimmel to joke about Trump’s.
The shooting at this weekend’s dinner has yet again led Trump and his White House to focus on Democrats’ rhetoric, despite Trump’s own demonstrated history of extremely ugly rhetoric . Republicans are largely repeating a blame game they waged after Charlie Kirk’s assassination last year.
Thus far, the strategy hasn’t appeared to work. Polls show Americans generally view the right’s rhetoric as more violent and dangerous.
But the water is getting muddier.
Episodes of political violence have almost become a choose-your-own-adventure in which many people — on both sides — seem to embrace attractive-but-false narratives about the motivations behind political violence.
And that’s liable to lead to ugly places.
“This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of [Trump] and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat Party, and even some in the media,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
The first thing to note is that definitive statements about alleged shooter motivations this early are generally speculative, at best. Often, reports surface that suggest the perpetrators had mental health issues.
The accused attacker, Cole Tomas Allen, apparently left a paper trail that provides clues about his potential motivation, including social media posts that compared Trump to Adolf Hitler and encouraged others critical of his presidency to purchase guns.
But as with Charlie Kirk’s assassin, it’s difficult to draw such a direct line until you know more.
Secondly, while it’s completely valid to think it was a terrible idea for Kimmel to joke about Trump’s death, the president long ago ceded the moral high ground on such things. Pearl clutching over Kimmel’s jokes or Democrats’ rhetoric without addressing Trump’s own rhetoric is a remarkable exercise in selective outrage.
Trump has, quite simply, crossed the line both more forcefully and more often. There’s the prominent example of the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, when he encouraged his supporters to protest and stayed silent for hours as violence broke out, resulting in multiple deaths, but there’s plenty of other examples, too.
To wit:
- He celebrated Mueller’s death.
- He responded in remarkably callous fashion to the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife in December.
- Despite complaining about the left making Nazi comparisons, he in 2017 compared the intelligence community to “ Nazi Germany ,” and in 2024 called former President Joe Biden’s team a “ Gestapo administration .”
- Despite complaining about the left calling him a “fascist,” he spent years using that word against his foes .
- He made light of a hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband that left him with a fractured skull and other serious injuries.
- He mused about “ Second Amendment people ” blocking Hillary Clinton from appointing judges.
- He reposted video of a supporter saying, “ The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat .”
- He reposted a message from a supporter warning about people rising up to “physically fight” for Trump .
- He praised a convoy of supporters who dangerously surrounded Biden’s campaign bus in 2020.
- He praised Montana’s governor for assaulting a reporter .
- He has repeatedly raised hypotheticals in which his supporters rise up in justified violence .
That last one is a particularly important theme. Even as Trump’s White House was assailing Democrats’ rhetoric after Kirk’s death, Trump suggested right-wingers who get politically violent do so for valid reasons , while left-wingers do not.
Trump’s comments on Mueller’s death were in a similar vein. Maybe it’s gauche to celebrate death, he seemed to be saying, but just think about how much damage this guy did.
It’s the kind of calculus that plenty of others have used to justify political violence.
Beyond that, the avoided tragedy this weekend has cast a spotlight on an increasingly inauspicious trend: Lots of people are developing a warped view of who perpetrated political violence.
Prominent Republicans have for years leapt to attach tragedies to the left , often before there’s real evidence and before investigators have reached conclusions. The reality is that many people who commit or attempt political violence don’t fall cleanly into one label or another.
To this day, many state it as a fact that would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was a leftist, even though he was a registered Republican who remains something of a black box. A similar dynamic played out with Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman’s assassin .
On the left, even some prominent figures strained to believe Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA supporter or a right-wing “groyper,” which the evidence does not back up.
That’s not to say the two sides are equal-opportunity offenders. Prominent Republicans have clearly jumped to conclusions much more than Democrats in recent years, including when many major right-wingers theorized that Paul Pelosi’s attack was the result of a gay lover’s feud.
But the split reality is a growing problem.
At least for now, Trump and the GOP’s purported belief that Democrats are the worse offenders doesn’t seem to be shared by the public.
A Gallup poll in October, shortly after Kirk’s assassination, showed 69% of Americans said Republicans had gone too far in using inflammatory language, compared to 60% who said the same of Democrats.
But the two sides were overwhelmingly likely to blame the other for the actual violence.
A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll showed 72% of Republicans said Democrats were responsible for most political violence, while 73% of Democrats said Republicans were most responsible.
(The data suggests it’s actually the right that has perpetrated more political violence for decades, though there is evidence the left has closed the gap since Trump returned as president.)
And there’s an increasing perceived linkage between rhetoric and violence.
Since the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in 2011, NBC News polling has repeatedly asked people whether major examples of political violence were driven more by “a disturbed person” or “extreme political rhetoric.”
The percentage who blamed political rhetoric more has increased from 24% in 2011, to 41% in 2017 (after the congressional baseball shooting), to 49% in 2022 (the Pelosi attack), to 54% in 2024 (Trump’s assassination attempt), to 61% last year (Kirk’s assassination).
Remarkably, majorities of both sides agreed that rhetoric was more to blame for Kirk’s assassination — 54% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans.
But it seems quite possible both sides might be attaching it to the other side’s rhetoric , rather than their own.
So what we have is a situation in which the two sides each see one another as the culprits behind growing dangerous rhetoric that they increasingly connect directly to actual violence.
That’s not a recipe for taking the temperature down; it’s a recipe for politics to descend into darker and darker places.
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This list does even mention the times Trump said protesters at his rallies should be beaten up.
It also doesn't mention how his supporters say the same shit and worse ALL THE TIME and then act all offended and shocked at rocks on a beach. They're just not honest people and I'm not sure why anyone, themselves included, think of them as Americans anymore. They've already ceded their loyalty to Trump and have thrown a grenade at reason, sacrificing facts and reality regardless of the collateral damage all to prevent their base waking up and abandoning such a stupid gross flawed convicted felon and accused pedophile. It's not even really in debate anymore. Trying to reason with them is like trying to reason with a flat earther who keeps just saying "Well you have your opinion, and I have mine" as if the fact the earth isn't flat is just "an opinion".
I would agree , and it seems MAGAs who can be reasoned with are few and far between.
I've already said my piece about liars and got smacked for it because someone here is a fucking snowflake who says much worse,
Reminds me of the speech Kyle gives in Terminator. They don't feel pity or mercy. They can't be reasoned with
I removed 2 comments here that I really should have written up. Please don't antagonize each other under the guise of a comment.
but if you feelit has become a necessity, perhaps shroud within just enuff ambiguity, to make em' all have to think again about again thinkin, asz too witch way is this clown goin, cause if one goes two directions at once, once he splitz into too much hatred in a whirld spun loose, cause we weren't wrapped too tite.....
Trump has said some pretty disgusting things but it isn't his supporters that is doing the vast majority of political violence or feel violence is justified in the past few years.
Right, just look at all those FBI plants.
Wow. One picture with no caption.
You sure got me. S/
Wow. One deflection with no evidence to back it up.
You sure got em. /s
[✘]
remember back when all those thumper preachers were quoting some prayer for the death of obama? they'll be a lot of fun ...
So progressives and trump are the same. Got it.
So, any supporter and defender of Trump is no better than a supporter and defender of progressives. Got it.
So, now that you believe you've established we're all the same, what now? Why are conservatives complaining about progressives if they know they're no better?
Of course, the answer is that they even know they're not the same because the evidence they aren't is overwhelming. Trump and his defenders are much, much worse which is why they're desperately trying to claim simple equivalency since actually being better would be too far a stretch for their already paper-thin premise.
Peddling in absolute bullshit seems to be a hallmark of MAGA. Do you feel any remorse whatsoever by lying and misrepresenting reality like that?
I compiled this from several searches that you obviously didn't bother to do:
John Wilkes Booth - Confederate sympathizer affiliated with the Know Nothing Party.
Lee Harvey Oswald - Pro-Soviet Marxist. No documented affiliation with the Democratic Party.
Sirhan Sirhan - Palestinian-Jordanian citizen whose actions were politically motivated against Robert F. Kennedy’s support for Israel. Not aligned with any U.S. political party.
James Earl Ray - Not a Democrat and had no formal political party affiliation, though he supported segregationist candidates.
John Hinckley Jr. - Not identified as a Democrat. No direct ties to any political movement, but came from an oil company family that supported Republicans. Was mentally ill and shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.
Thomas Crooks - Pennsylvania voting records show that Crooks was a registered Republican.
Tyler Robinson - Registered as unaffiliated. Never voted.
[✘]
lol. Booth was “A sympathizer with the know nothing party” and not a voter for the democrat party. okay. prove it.
Given you posting history do you think you are less unhinged and not wore thna trump?
I love it when you make it easy.
wiki
The American Battlefield Trust
visitmaryland.org
Do you need more?
Yes. actual evidence. What is the source? Contemporary newspaper documentation? A Booth writing?
So, per you, the best evidence that he wasn't a Democrat in when he killed Lincoln is an unsourced claim that he attended a rally for a party on its last legs of relevancy when he was a schoolboy. Cool. I guess I'm still a Democrat then.
Why do you consider a "gotcha" to be the claim that Booth was a Democrat ? The political parties have changed ideologies since 1865. Booths political affiliation is irrelevant today.
You're hilarious. You deny multiple sources on historical evidence with the only argument - 'nah-ah' How about YOU put up some evidence to support YOUR position?
Because he has no other argument and picking one minor point deflects from the wider argument as if pulling a thread unravels it all. It doesn't and the deflection itself is weak.
Up until 1825 just a few short years before the civil war, there was the "Democratic Republican" party, the names "Democrat" and "Republican" have interchanged from liberal to conservatives' multiple times throughout our history. The one thing that hasn't really changed are the positions of liberal's vs conservatives when it comes to slavery and white supremacy. The liberals have traditionally been fighting against the status quo of slavery and white supremacy that were just mostly accepted practices/beliefs back then, and conservatives fought and still fight tooth and nail to at least keep the last vestiges of their white supremacy even if they've been forced to abandon slavery.
So, anyone using the moronic party name definitions to represent the massive divide in ideology between liberals and conservatives is being dishonest, but that's the point, I guess. Conservatives refuse to admit to their long history of protecting slavery and white supremacy and the rest of us have to sit here and roll our eyes as conservatives try and dodge their ideological connection to the conservatives of the past using semantics. But they're only fooling themselves every time they try and pretend the rabid dumb fuck poorly educated racist Southern Democrats didn't all migrate to the Republican party after seeing the Northern Democrats embrace black Americans even if it was just to get their votes early on as LBJ admitted to. While Democrats embraced black voters, Republicans courted the bitter former Southern Democrats.
Trying to pretend that didn't actually happen and that somehow the extremely conservative confederate flag waving Southern Democrat party changed so much from its conservative anti-black rights stance to then be a champion for black rights and voting for black Americans is simply beyond stupid, it's obviously intentionally misleading. We still have "extremely conservative confederate flag waving Southern" Americans today, and everyone knows that best describes the Republican party because they are one in the same.
Modern democrats
"Lee Harvey Oswald - Pro-Soviet Marxist. No documented affiliation with the Democratic Party."
It's not the documentation, it's the ideology. He represented democrats of that era and the same of many of them today.
"Sirhan Sirhan - Palestinian-Jordanian citizen whose actions were politically motivated against Robert F. Kennedy’s support for Israel. "
So, a democrat
"James Earl Ray - Not a Democrat and had no formal political party affiliation, though he supported segregationist candidates."
So...a democrat
"John Hinckley Jr. - Not identified as a Democrat. No direct ties to any political movement, but came from an oil company family that supported Republicans. Was mentally ill and shot Reagan to impress Jodie Foster."
You MIGHT have a point with this one
"Thomas Crooks - Pennsylvania voting records show that Crooks was a registered Republican."
Trump was a registered democrat until right before he ran for president in 2016. I guess that makes him a democrat today. I'm sure you would support that s/. Also, Tucker Carlson was a registered democrat until 2020. We can affiliate him with democrats, although his recent views show that he really still does have the liberal ideology in him.
"Tyler Robinson - Registered as unaffiliated. Never voted."
Yes because all republicans want to take out those with the same beliefs s/. He is a freak of nature loving transsexuals and played with the furries. Not normal for any ideology but progressivism.
? What kind of bass ackwards logic is that? Just because many former conservative Democrats over the last half century started identifying as conservative Republicans, as the Democratic party moved further away from their white Christian conservative roots and actually started eroding the foundations of white conservative Christian control, doesn't mean that makes them "a democrat today". Far from it, they have simply chosen the party that aligned with their ideology of white conservative Christian power which is as clear as the nose on their faces.
It's not a mystery as to why Republicans courted disaffected former Southern Democrats and appealed to their "conservative" values which meant, and still means, keeping the status quo of white conservative Christian power. To them that means Christian values, low minority populations which to them equates to 'low crime', and they only want to see liberals, gays, trans or Muslims in movies and only in roles that show how dangerous they are to white hetero Christian society.
It's also not a mystery as to why those who have been embracing the confederate flag and defending confederate monuments today aren't from the party that their confederate ancestors once belonged to, that party abandoned those confederate ideals. It's why those flying the confederate flag today and protecting the monuments to the confederacy are Republicans and support Trump. How much more evidence does any rational person need?
Trump left the Democratic party for the same reason as so many former conservative Democrats before him. The Democratic party was no longer pushing a white conservative Christian agenda and instead was supporting affirmative action and integration as well as supporting many black and minority Americans as candidates in legislative races. This obviously was and is a threat to some thin-skinned conservative bigots and is not something ANY conservative Christian white supremacist would tolerate in their chosen political party.
I get why some are so desperate to cling to the party name because it's easy to tie it to whatever side of an argument you want to make, but the one consistent in this debate is that it has always been between conservatives and liberals, and you'd have to have a lobotomy not to see that Southern Democrats were conservatives at odds with their liberal Northern Democratic counterparts. And while Northern Democrats did compromise with the racist conservatives in the South to maintain a huge political advantage at that time, that compromise began to fracture when Northern Democrats authored, supported, passed and signed into law the civil rights act and voting rights act.
And that was of course, why the Republicans saw an opportunity to turn the tide and use Democrats fracture against them.
So why waste anyone else's time by trying to deny the obvious? The Republican party is now the party of the KKK, white nationalists, white supremacists, confederate fans, defenders and descendants, misogynistic incels and bitter white conservative Christians desperately clinging to the sinking decayed barge of racist white conservative Christian irrelevancy. That's what makes the convicted felon Trump a Republican today and why such a vile piece of rotted shit is so popular among them.
‘The Republican party is now the party of the KKK, white nationalists, white supremacists, confederate fans, defenders and descendants, misogynistic incels and bitter white conservative Christians desperately clinging to the sinking decayed barge of racist white conservative Christian irrelevancy’
Never mind that the vast majority of your post was nothing more than an unhinged rant, this did stick out. Maybe you can ask the far left SPLC why they had to pay these groups so tjat this organization can exist.
BTW…..why is your side falling lockstep for a nazi senate candidate in Maine? Seems like you (collective ) you democrats are the, and the fans of….nazis.
To say the least, your post was unhinged and obtuse
"guess I'm still a Democrat then". No, you're still a member of the "Know Nothing Party".
We know that it is stupid to run an actual nazi as a Senate candidate in Maine.
Why don't you?
Don't need to ask that because that's just a total bullshit claim and the case is going to get thrown out on its fucking face like every other fake case this administration brings. What a bunch of fucking losers.
Wow. Talk about unhinged bullshit. I think perhaps rightwing conservatives need to just take a minute, pull their head out of Trumps ass, breathe, and then try again to communicate without regurgitating laughable conspiracy theories. The rest of us can wait.
So much denial...[✘]
Your entire comment 3.1.12 not only an unhinged rant, it is a total fraud. It is really hard to imagine the stupidity of a comment like that, but there it is.
Apparently, some of them like it there. Read their comments on here day after day.
Prove it? Right back at you. You have access to the exact same internet that I do. No credible source contradicts my statement. He was a Confederate sympathizer, and he was affiliated with the Know Nothing Party.
Not that the "democrat party" [sic] of the 1860s has much to do with today, but what evidence do you have to support your claim.
You mean modern Republicans. The Know Nothings were rabidly anti-immigrant.
You're aware that the Kennedys were Democrats, right? Extremely popular ones at that.
Not at all. Unlike the claim in your meme, there is ample evidence that he switched from D to R to run for president. It's an unassailable fact. He knew he needed gullible morons to lap up his con man bullshit and un-American demagoguery.
The meme you posted is nothing but malicious, unevidenced, bad faith MAGA bullshit, and here you are defending it. Classic.
No kidding! Confederate sympathizer=Democrat.
e was affiliated with the Know Nothing Party.
The sum total of proof that claim is claim is an unsourced wiki note that he attended a rally while in school. That's it.
Booth cared about slavery. The know-nothings weren't a pro-slavery party like the democrats were. The "know nothings" weren't even relevant when Booth was an adult.
Booth was a well now confederate sympathizer. At one point he was interested in abducting Lincoln to try and force better peace terms for the South.
Not in the North, remember? The party split into two factions in 1860, the Northern and Southern Democrats, with each running their own candidate against Lincoln that year. Ironically, the latter (the good-ole boy southern racists) are Republicans today.
The southern faction shouldn't even count during the war (being enemy traitors), but still, can you show us anything other than your own opinion actually linking Booth to either? Anything solid? Historians apparently can't.
Even if he voted for one of the D candidates as a protest against Lincoln in 1860, a protest vote still wouldn't make him a Democrat. People do that today and it doesn't make them dyed-in-the-wool members, or even necessarily supporters of the party of whichever candidate they cast their protest vote for. In fact, in 1860 he might very well have voted for the Constitutional Union Party, which was a successor to the Know Nothings (if he voted at all).
The point is, history didn't leave us anything tangibly linking Booth to the Dems (even for what they were at that time), so stop pretending it did to suit a sick MAGA narrative.
But yet your only response is ‘nuh uh’. Typical reactionary response.
‘He was a Confederate sympathizer’
So, again…….a democrat
Are blacks not able to vote now.
Think hard before you answer that.
What do you call lying about a photo to make a racial point about a black person?
... another typical race baiting article on NT published by a maga member.
Shhhh! Don't let facts and reason ruin a perfectly good rightwing conservative fiction! Don't remind them that there was also a Democratic Republican party! Don't let the cat out of the bag about how while party names have shifted through the years, the one identifying characteristic of those racist Southern Democrats that hasn't changed was that they were white conservative Christians in the Southern States that maintained political control of those States. That power structure has never changed, only the party name of those in control did. But make sure you only whisper these facts because we wouldn't want to upset the bigots still desperately trying to tuck their white sheets under their civvies.
Lol. Northern Democrats supported slavery. Many supported the confederacy.
e facts because we wouldn't want to upset the bigots
I don't mind getting the people who spread racist lies about Clarence Thomas mad.
Imagine falling for that meme....
You just compounded the stupidity.
For the education of those who may not be aware:
"Reactionary"
Based on your comment, 'nuh uh' must be a typical right wing response. Given the substance of your right wing comments, that would be an appropriate description.
It's amazing isn't it. As the saying goes, "give 'em enough rope...". Of course, in this context maybe I shouldn't use that old saying since history shows in the past that if some white conservative Christians get their hands on a length of rope, they go hunting for a minority to string up.
Yes, compounding the stupidity of your posts is an expertise of mine...and everybody else.
Maybe one of these days your posts will contain facts...maybe some that will even hold up in court if needed.
Yes...no black has been lyched in over 70 years, but I wonder why you did not post anything about 13 percent of the population committing over 50 percent of violent crimes TODAY...no matter what color the victim is s/
BTW.. I looked up your "source " of this definition and I found that the "definition" you posted is the third "sourced" definition on the page.
The first was Collins....no mention of your bs definition, and the publisher is Harper Collins.
the second was Websters...again.....nothing mentioned of the bs definition you posted,
and then, the third "source" on the list that has the definition you posted. This is the "source " of the "definition".."Most material © 2005, 1997, 1991 by Penguin Random House LLC. Modified entries © 2019 by Penguin Random House LLC and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd". No mention of the dictionary that your "definition" is in.
Whenever there is a list of definitions, the farther down the list the one your bias is confirmed, usually means the source used is a fringe source, like the Urban Dictionary.
In other words, your "definition" and "source" is bs and would never be held up in court.
The real reactionaries are leftists that the first instinctual reaction at the mention of the name Trump is triggered TDS.
These are people who’ve spent 20 years trying to start panics and destroy people lives over racist dog whistles that only they seemed to hear who are now lining up to support a guy with a literal SS tattoo. Suffering from TDS is a kind descriptor for their issues .
Your comment is hilarious, mostly incoherent, and truly pathetic.
The link I posted to the Collins dictionary states word for word exactly what I posted in my comment.
As for Webster's:
Opening my Webster's New World Dictionary @ page 1117:
Now you're adopting the Humpty Dumpty methodology:
You mean like everything leftists call conservatives over and over again and now have no meaning…like racist, nazi, white supremacist, and now….reactionary.[✘]
[✘] Your argument is a losing one and would get
thrown out of court. Seems to be a theme.
It will not be long before some of these leftists will openly use nazi symbology in their campaign ads and their lemmings will nod their heads in agreement.They are only doing it in semi secret now
People are rolling their eyes at the stupidity of your comments.
The MAGA false cry of "Decorum", " Civility" "Respect", is not what they dish out.
Every time a Republican is elected President, it's respect our President right or wrong.
But every time a Democrat is elected President the verbal disrespect is off the charts negative.
They didn't respect Obama or Biden even though they held the highest office.
Those civility, respect and decorum rules were not followed even when the majority of Americans voted for a Democrat.
They are so full of hatred toward their own fellow Americans who don't vote Republican that Trump followers attacked the United States Capitol in the ultimate act of disrespect.
Attacking both the Capitol, the will of the voters, and law enforcement, I wonder if any MAGA will ever come to realize that they are the real problem in America, not Democrats.
No Trump rally ever, ever had as many protesters as the Women's March, or some of the No Kings marches. Not even the attack on the Capitol had as many people as other marches.
They are trying to install minority rule of an authoritarian which is contrary to Anerica, our laws, our history, and contrary to the actual will of the people.
We don't care if you respect them or not...just stop trying to kill them.
"No Trump rally ever, ever had as many protesters as the Women's March, or some of the No Kings marches. Not even the attack on the Capitol had as many people as other marches. "
Because no one at a Trump rally is getting paid. Many leftists show up to their "protests", most having no idea what they are protesting They are only there BECAUSE they are getting paid.
"They are trying to install minority rule of an authoritarian"
Care to point out EXACTLY what Trump has DONE that is authoritarian, and just not what is the imagination of many on the left?