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On July 13, 2024, an American political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, turned into a scene of blood and chaos when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop, grazing former President Trump and killing a bystander who had been standing behind him. The shooter, identified in reports as Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired multiple rounds before being stopped by sharp-shooters on the scene, leaving the country reeling and asking how a political event became a death sentence for an innocent American. This was not a sideshow — it was an attempted political murder on American soil, and hardworking citizens deserve straight answers about how it was allowed to happen.
What followed should have been a sober national reckoning, but instead too much of the establishment media slid right back into performative moralizing and partisan finger-pointing. As Ben Shapiro rightly said on his show, the way the left and much of the media have painted political opponents as existential monsters creates a climate where unhinged people feel licensed to act. When television hosts and pundits scream that opponents are “literally Hitler” and the only remaining remedy is obliteration, someone somewhere will believe them — and then tragedy happens.
Shapiro’s bluntness about rhetoric being a catalyst for violence is not a defense of the shooter; he made clear the shooter alone bears blame — but he also highlighted the real responsibility of elites who stoke hatred for clicks and ratings. Conservatives have watched for years as double standards flourish: identical rhetoric from the left is excused as “passion,” while any fiery speech from the right is held up as proof of hatred. That hypocrisy is dangerous, and it’s time the media be held to the same standard they pretend to enforce.
Federal law enforcement has warned of the volatile fallout from the assassination attempt, with the FBI and DHS issuing bulletins about possible retaliatory or follow-on violence nationwide — a predictable consequence of a heated, demonizing political atmosphere. If officials and journalists refuse to dial down the incendiary language while simultaneously refusing accountability, the risk grows that more Americans will be hurt or killed. Leaders who care about the country must stop treating violence as an abstract talking point and start acting like it.
We should also tip our hats to the first responders and secret-service members who leapt into danger and saved lives that night, but praise should not be a substitute for reform. Serious questions remain about security lapses that allowed a shooter to set up on a rooftop within firing range, and taxpayers deserve full, transparent answers and institutional changes so this never happens again. Conservatives believe in both law enforcement and accountability; insisting on both isn’t being anti-police — it’s being pro-American.
Now is the hour for steady leadership from those who value freedom and order, not for cowardly virtue signaling or reflexive cries of “both sides” to paper over responsibility. The media and the left must stop using dehumanizing rhetoric as a political tool; elected officials must demand real reforms to protect citizens at rallies and public events; and everyday Americans should refuse to normalize political hatred. We owe it to the dead, to the wounded, and to the millions of Americans who just want to go to a speech without fearing for their lives to turn anger into action and to reclaim decency in our public square.
