In the week before the latest attempted assassination of President Trump, The New York Times conducted the softest of softball interviews with leftist pundit Hasan Piker.
A typical line from Piker on his Twitch livestream: “Let the streets soak in [landlords’] red Capitalist blood.”
Talking to the Times, Piker refused to condemn Luigi Mangione for murdering a complete stranger, Brian Thompson — because, in Piker’s view, Thompson had committed “social murder” by being the CEO of a health-insurance company.
Piker isn’t a “fringe figure” on the left. He has interviewed major Democrats and plans to sit down with California Gov. Gavin Newsom soon. New York Times journalists nod along with his ideas.
If that’s fringe, what’s mainstream?
The alleged White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooter also didn’t sound fringe in his manifesto.
He sounded like a conventional Democrat, making the sort of accusations against Trump that you might hear on a CNN or MSNBC panel.
“I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” Cole Allen wrote in his screed.
This was not a man reared in the darkest corners of the Internet, but someone parroting the words of his party’s elected officials and talking heads on cable networks.
AOC and the Squad
In July, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez labeled Trump a rapist in a post on X.
A few months later, Rep. Ilhan Omar yelled out, “You have killed Americans” during Trump’s State of the Union address, calling him a “murderer” as her buddy Rashida Tlaib, seated beside her, screeched about the Epstein files.
In February, Rep. Ted Lieu of California claimed the Epstein files contained “highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald Trump threatening to kill children.”
Needless to say, no such allegations are halfway credible — yet the would-be assassin thought they were.
Spreading disgusting lies like these should be a career-ender, but in the Democratic Party these people are becoming the standard-bearers.
Their media friends help out: Podcast host Touré called Trump a “pedophile” on CNN in November. Scott Galloway called Trump a “rapist” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe in January . . . and so on.
Outside Saturday’s event, protesters’ signs like “Death to the Tyrant” and “Death to All of Them” were barely shocking.
At the “Hands Off” rally a year ago, the precursor to the “No Kings” rallies that followed, signs like “8647” (slang for killing the 47th president) and “Hands Off or Heads Off” over a mock guillotine went all but unnoticed.
We’ve become desensitized to violent rhetoric like this when it comes from the left, specifically because it is mimicked by Democratic elected officials.
Bring it to a halt
Democrats can put a stop to this.
They can say this rhetoric doesn’t represent them, and make it abundantly clear they won’t stand for violence.
They can admit Trump is no rapist, no pedophile, no traitor.
They can tell the truth and call a halt to the intense hatred that’s motivating sick people to take their best shot at our president.
If they don’t, the American people should see their silence as tacit approval.
Karol Markowicz is the host of the “Karol Markowicz Show” and “Normally” podcasts.
