To be clear, I have never been in favor of violence being a change agent in politics. I did not post anything gleeful about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, because I was not happy that once again someone has decided to affect a political race with a bullet.
Our history, though, speaks to the fact that this has been a factor for years:
Andrew Jackson and Ronald Reagan were both the target of unsuccessful assassinations. Murdered were Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Theodore Roosevelt survived an attack when he was three years out of office and now Donald Trump, running for another term, joins that list.
There was an attempt on Franklin Roosevelt’s life in 1933 after he had been elected. President Harry Truman was intended as a target in 1950. President Gerald Ford was attacked twice in 1975. An assailant fired bullets at the White House hoping to kill President Barack Obama in 2011.
Candidate Robert Kennedy was murdered in 1968 and presidential candidate and Alabama Gov. George Wallace was seriously wounded.
Who knows how many other attempts were quietly thwarted by law enforcement.
It is a very dark and disturbing part of our history and society. What does it say about us?
The reactions to this new incident have also been disturbing. Just scroll through Facebook and check out the memes people are posting. The following are some I found interesting.
“Cult — When you’re willing to prop up and drag a near-corpse across the finish line to win. Common sense — When you follow a man who stands strong after almost losing his life. We are not the same.”
Indeed. We are not the same. To call President Joe Biden a “near corpse” is silly. Despite his health status, Biden has shown in the last few days he will marshal all of his personal resources to keep doing the job of president and to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris.
(Note to those who hate Biden: remember, thanks to your Supreme Court justices, the presidency has a certain amount of immunity. That apparently includes Biden. What will he do with this new status in the last months of his administration?)
Here’s another one: “When you realize THEY told you to blindly support a corrupt old man at any cost And then THEY turn on him without a second thought (Think they care about you?)”
So, Democrats are not being responsible because they expressed concerns about the president’s health after the debate? This is still a republic governed by a Constitution. They exercised their freedom of speech and sought to act in the best interests of the nation. What is wrong with that?
With a photo of Trump with his fist raised right after the shooting, someone has attached a quote attributed to Plato, “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
What is interesting about this one is the fact that Trump has been noted time after time for his lies about any number of topics, most egregiously ones about how the last election was stolen. He does not have a track record of telling the truth, but instead saying things to fan the fears of his supporters.
Another meme is wordless and shows Trump’s face with a bullet heading to him but being pushed by a hand, implying that God saved him from death or serious injury. I’m troubled by this one and others, including images of Trump being protected and hugged by Jesus. Not to get into a religious discussion, but it is hard for me to accept that the creator of the universe and his only son endorse someone who routinely uses hate speech. Was Jesus about hate?
And by the way, I also object to memes in which Jesus is paired with Harris. Keep religion out of this race.
Here is the last one for this discussion: a headline reads, “How much of a conspiracy theorist are you? Me.” What follows is a photo of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Cambridge) next to the young man who attempted to kill Trump. The implication is that Warren looks like the shooter and therefore perhaps had something to do with the shooting.
I get it. You don’t like Warren, so you come up with some remarkably stupid meme to express your dislike.
If you’re undecided, do some real research. Look at what the Biden-Harris has done in this term and look at what Trump did. The proof is in their accomplishments. And by the way, no one is perfect.
I must add a tip of the summer Panama hat for the local MAGA follower whose Facebook feed provided me with the material for these comments.
Ah, Massachusetts
Ask almost anyone in the legal cannabis business in the commonwealth and they might tell you the chaos at the Cannabis Control Commission has not been good for their business.
You might recall that Treasurer Deborah Goldberg suspended Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien in September 2023 and the two have been involved in a public legal/administrative struggle since then.
According to a story published by the CommonWealth Beacon, O’Brien was suspended with pay as this legal drama pans out. The report noted that O’Brien has received “nearly $170,000” while suspended.
O’Brien’s spokesperson, Joe Baerlein, is quoted in the story saying getting paid is not unusual in this kind of situation. He said collecting her salary is not unusual. “As far as being paid while suspended, that is normal human resources procedure while matters like this are being adjudicated. Chair O’Brien has had to spend a considerable amount of her personal funds to defend her good name.”
There have been calls that the Legislature need to get involved with this issue. Perhaps it should. It will be a year soon enough that the commission has been without permanent leadership, and that is not acceptable.
G. Michael Dobbs has worked for Reminder Publishing for 23 years of his nearly 50-year-career in the Western Mass. media scene, and previously served as the executive editor. He has spent his time with the publisher covering local politics, interesting people and events. The opinions expressed within the article are that of the author’s and do not represent the opinions and beliefs of the paper.
