When the news broke that a gunman had shot-up the newsroom of a daily newspaper in Maryland, my first thought was something like … “It’s begun.” After all, scarcely a day passes without the Buffoon-in-Chief attacking the press as “enemies of the people,” and I’ve been anticipating exactly this sort of event for a long while.
As it happens, the shooter felt aggrieved by a 2011 news story about a charge of criminal harassment filed against him. He unsuccessfully sued the paper for defamation, and has ever since held a grudge against the paper. So this wasn’t the political attack of the sort that the rhetoric of Trump and others has been implicitly urging.
Or maybe it was. Journalists covering his rallies have been spit upon and otherwise threatened and, for someone with a gripe and already a bit unstable, the slaughter of a newsroom in an environment stoked by Trumpian malice probably seems like a small step forward and something to be applauded.
Will Trump tone down his language? No, he will not. “Enemy of the people” has a long totalitarian pedigree, and it has worked pretty well for Trump. He cares no more for the dead Maryland journos than he cares for the would-be immigrant children he has ordered put into cages.
Will Republican lawmakers finally show some backbone and disavow any association with Trump? Some may, but most will not; after all, it’s their base who is spitting on reporters at Trump’s rallies. Many of them, undoubtedly, were gratified to learn that the people have a few less “enemies.”