Source: Spencer Platt / Getty
Vice President Kamala Harris‘ campaign headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, was shot up on Sept. 23. No one was injured but it’s the second time this month that the Democratic HQs there has been attacked. The first incident occurred just after midnight on Sept. 16, according to Axios. That night the windows of the building were shot out.
Here’s what happened on Monday, according to NBC News:
Tempe police said that officers responded Monday after calls from workers, and that they observed what appeared to be gunshots through the front windows of the office which is shared by staff members for the Arizona Democratic Party, the Harris campaign and Senate and House campaigns to boost turnout for the party in November. “No one was inside the office during the overnight hours, but this raises concerns about the safety of those who work in that building, as well as those nearby,” Public Information Officer, Sgt. Ryan Cook said in a statement Tuesday.
While we should be disgusted about the violence that’s defining the 2024 presidential race, we shouldn’t be surprised. Since being fired by voters in 2020, Trump has dedicated himself to saying and repeating the kind of dangerous lies designed to ratchet up the most unhinged, mostly–but not only–white folks who are his base. Between being found guilty of nearly three dozen counts of fraud in criminal court, and liable for rape and defamation in related cases where the plaintiff, E. Jean Carroll, was awarded more than $80 million, we know he didn’t have much time planning the great America he’s got his followers believing in. He said so himself, but smoothed over by assuring people he had “concepts of a plan.”
When is enough going to be enough?
At what point, and after how many incidents that can be traced directly back to threatening remarks Trump makes at his rallies, on social media and at presidential debates, does his free speech become yelling fire in a crowded theater? How many violent incidents, including ones that have killed people–and are directly traceable to his rhetoric–will be enough?
No one in their right mind supports the alleged attempts on Trump’s life, but it’s seems a lot more fair to spend time worrying about the people who are the victims of the violence he calls for. His opponent in the race–and so many others– is the victim, of the climate he’s invested himself in creating, and that’s where our focus should be.
Frank Carillo Source: Roanoke City Jail / Roanoke City Jail
The Harris campaign office shootings were this month. In August, it was “Locked and Loaded” AR-15 guy, Frank Lucio Carillo. He openly threatened the vice president more than a dozen times. There was the mini-mob of MAGAs who stomped through Chicago on Day 3 of the DNC vandalizing art with the vice president’s image.
(I’d say try to imagine a small group of Black teenagers doing anything like that at the RNC, but then I remember the five out-of-state cops who shot and killed a Black man, Samuel Sharpe, Jr., who didn’t have a gun and was not threatening them.)
The point is that while the vandalism may not seem to be as serious as other incidents, they’re all part of a violent, extremist culture that has to stop. Trump supporters will brush these incidents against Harris and others. They’ll use visuals to show the “real violence” Trump experienced on July 13.
Notably, the former president felt good enough to pose for a photo op seconds after the bullets rang out, and before security even had a chance to make sure there weren’t any more shooters in the area.
Source: Anna Moneymaker / Getty
Meanwhile, and since Trump seems to be doing just fine, in the same month that Vice President Harris’ offices were shot up twice, the Libertarian Party in New Hampshire literally called for her assassination in a since-deleted post on X, New Republic reported.
Here are the Party’s actual words:
“Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero.”
More from NR:
“Later that day, the party published a follow-up, announcing that it ‘deleted a tweet because we don’t want to break the terms of this website we agreed to’ and claiming that libertarians are ‘the most oppressed minority.’ [The following day] the account released a lengthier additional follow-up, insisting that the original tweet did not call for Harris’s assassination but ‘merely acknowledg[ed] how some members would react to one.’
But the newest post somehow made things worse, referring to historical instances of violence that were supposedly “necessary to advance or protect freedom,” including the assassination of “past tyrants like Abraham Lincoln.” Further, it stated that “it’s good when authoritarians” (that is, “progressives, socialists, and democrats”) are made to “feel unsafe or uncomfortable,” which the account’s provocative posts “are frequently explicitly intended” to do.”
It’s got to stop. We’ve got more than a month until November. And then we’ve got after November.
SEE MORE:
‘Is He Dead?’ Why Black People Are Not Grieving The Failed Assassination Of Donald Trump
Context Matters: To Understand Trump’s ‘Bloodbath’ Threat, Just Look At His Past Language
