Assassination. The word sends cold chills up and down the spines of civilized people. For more than six decades, ever since the gruesome spectacle of President John F. Kennedy being gunned down in broad daylight, it was unthinkable that such a thing would ever in any way become palatable. But we have now reached the point where the polling results conducted on whether assassinating public figures can be justified are turning heads.
Shocking, yet somehow unsurprising, would be the best description of the responses in a recent survey of more than 1,200 Americans by Rutgers University. Forty-one percent (41%) of respondents who self-described as left of center – and 29% who described themselves as right of center – believe the generalized proposition that the murder of a “powerful political leader” is “at least somewhat justified.” But when the question turned specifically to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, the number among leftists jumped to an unfathomable 48% for the world’s wealthiest man and 55% for the sitting president. Considering the two attempts on the life of Trump in 2024, this means there is evidently a sickeningly high percentage of those who hate Trump so passionately that they were either indifferent or somewhat supportive of the murderous intent of the two men who (allegedly) came dangerously close to killing Trump: Thomas Crooks in Pennsylvania and Ryan Routh in Florida.
Why Don’t We Know More About Crooks and Routh?
It is truly remarkable how little has actually been uncovered about these two would-be assassins. The Biden administration slow-walked inquiries into the matters and barely demonstrated any interest in pursuing the twin assassination attempts. But now we have finally discovered at least some significant information. On April 8, federal prosecutors revealed that Routh attempted to obtain military-grade weapons – including a rocket launcher, which would have made the job of taking out Trump far easier. Routh wrote to a Ukrainian contact, “[S]end me a rpg [rocket-propelled grenade] or stinger, and I will see what we can do … [Trump] is not good for Ukraine,” according to court documents obtained by Fox News. But he was unsuccessful, settling instead for a military-grade SKS rifle that he employed in what federal prosecutors claim was a premeditated act that Routh had been planning for six months.
Meanwhile, we still have very little knowledge about the motivation of Thomas Crooks, whose shots from an unguarded rooftop at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, PA, killed one man and missed blowing out Trump’s brain by millimeters. How is this possible? “Why do we know nothing about that guy in Butler?” Elon Musk shouted during his speech at February’s CPAC conference. On Crooks’ phone, FBI investigators found encrypted messaging accounts on platforms based in Belgium, New Zealand, and Germany. A private investigator from Erie, PA, who was hired by a private client to investigate Crooks shortly after the infamous Butler rally, told the New York Post on February 27 that “he believes a ‘criminal network’ was operating with him at the time of the assassination attempt, [which] is still in existence and still wants to kill President Trump.” Amid allegations that Biden’s FBI had obstructed the investigation into the assassination attempt, Trump reportedly told the Secret Service on February 8 to get to the bottom of it: “No more holding back because of Biden … I’m entitled to know. And they held it back long enough. No excuses.” And still, we know precious little about the infamous event.
Multiple Assassination Attempts by the Left
As we learn more about Routh’s political motivation, we have also discovered the motives of the man who attempted to murder Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022. Nicholas Roske, who pled guilty on April 8 to the charge of attempting to assassinate a justice of the United States, will go on trial on October 3. He told authorities he desired to kill the justice over concerns at the time about the Supreme Court’s upcoming decisions to overturn abortion protections and expand gun rights. So political motives were again at the heart of an attempt to upend the existing order through assassination. If Roske had succeeded, Joe Biden would have appointed Kavanaugh’s successor, and the composition of the conservative-majority High Court would have been significantly altered. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was thought by many to be at least somewhat culpable due to his threats at a rally in front of the Supreme Court in March of 2020 as it contemplated overturning Roe v. Wade. Schumer shouted through a bullhorn, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” Other justices, most prominently Samuel Alito, have also been threatened and forced to move their families to safety, among other security measures.
Another prominent example of just how extreme the radical left has become is through their open support for Luigi Mangione, who (allegedly) murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood on a sidewalk in Manhattan last year. A “Free Luigi” movement has broken out among the far left, with more than $700,000 contributed, to date, to Mangione’s legal defense fund. And it is not just random radicals who are responsible. Shortly after the murder, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) shockingly defended Mangione to a point, stating, “[P]eople can only be pushed so far,” as if anger at the country’s health care system provides some justification for homicide. But Warren went even further by saying, “[T]he visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system.” Some would call this aiding, abetting, and normalizing politically motivated murder.
Republicans Escaping Assassination
All in all, there have been eight assassination attempts on presidents and prominent Republicans since that awful day in November 1963 – two on Gerald Ford, one on Ronald Reagan, one on a number of congressional Republicans that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana near death, and the two on Trump. Two would-be assassins fell victim to their own incompetence. One threw a grenade at George W. Bush in Tbilisi, Georgia (the country, not the state), but it didn’t go boom. The other thought he was shooting at Bill Clinton, but the president was on the opposite side of the White House watching a football game. We will never know how many other assassination plots have been foiled in their tracks, but it is likely numerous.
Dozens of books were written about the JFK assassination. Multiple researchers devoted their entire careers to figuring it out. Would the same have happened if Mr. Trump had not barely pivoted his head to avoid certain death by an inch in Butler, PA, or if a Secret Service agent had not spotted the barrel of a rifle sticking out of the brush surrounding the Trump golf course in Florida? One wonders. The 47th president now enjoys a level of protection thought to be greater than any president in history. Nevertheless, given the near-psychopathic hatred of him on the left, the fact that he’s already escaped death twice, and the de facto justification of murder by the likes of Elizabeth Warren, President Trump – and Elon Musk, for that matter – can hardly believe he is safe. The left has proven repeatedly that it is willing to settle political disputes with the barrel of a gun, and the threat appears to be growing.
