The Wages of Fear

"There's no place in America for this kind of violence [...] It's sick. It's one of the reasons we have to unite this country."

So said Joe Biden in his surprisingly coherent reaction to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump while the latter was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

No one can say they didn't see this coming. Oh, they can pretend - as I'm sure many liberal media outlets will in the days to come, especially now we know Trump's safe and well - but you have to be approaching Tommy-levels of deaf, dumb and blind to miss where all the post-2016 toxicity of the American political landscape has been heading. What's more, you need to be a bloody good actor to make trite statements about uniting a divided country sound remotely convincing or sincere when you've spent the last four years smearing half the population as bigots and potential insurrectionists. And for what: finding your opponent's policy positions fairer and more sensible than yours?

But then, honesty requires reflection - and I somehow doubt in the aftermath of today's events there'll be much of that from Biden, the Democrats or their sock puppets in the media, heartily cheering on every anti-Trump calumny their masters have put their way while casually inventing several of their own for good measure.

Regardless of who was behind this (and I'm keeping an open mind on that), for many this will be the last straw: conclusive proof of Trump's near-martyrdom at the hands of Permanent Washington and their backers.

And who can blame them?