Factors Brewing for Years Brought Near-Miss to Trump, America

It’s a disheartening yet unsurprising reality we face today. The tragedy that unfolded Saturday has left a scar on our nation, and the blame is multifaceted. It’s not just the tragic result of one individual's actions; it’s a culmination of factors that have been brewing for years.

Our media, with its relentless pursuit of sensationalism, political opponents spewing divisive rhetoric, mental health issues left unaddressed and inadequate security measures have all played a role in leading us to this dark day.

The media has long been a double-edged sword in our society. It’s supposed to inform and educate, but increasingly, it has become a tool for spreading misinformation and inciting fear.

For the past 9 years, ever since then-Citizen Donald J. Trump took the escalator ride that would change the world, he has been victimized with countless instances of false news and conspiracy theories like the disproven “Russian collusion hoax” that dogged the former president in the first half of his term and the remnants of which still dog him in some delusional circles.

This phony narrative, that was even endorsed by supposedly trustworthy authority figures in goverrnment, the intelligence community and the media, was only debunked after being broadcast to billions of people around the world and repeated ad-nauseaum, and then not given the proper redactions or editorial corrections to update the official record in the court of public opinion.

In our current society, lies, half-truths, and outlandish theories are no longer the exceptions but the norms. This constant barrage of sensationalist headlines and misleading reports is constantly creating a fertile ground for radicalization, and we unfortunately saw the rotten fruits of this radicalization at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally Saturday night.

But it’s not only the media that either demonize or canonize; the rhetoric from Trump’s political opponents also exacerbates this situation. The horrifically divisive language used by the Biden campaign and other Democratic leaders like the volitile Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., has longed tranformed the political landscape into an active battlefield.

Mental health is another critical aspect that cannot be ignored. The individual responsible for Saturday’s events likely had underlying mental health issues that were never properly addressed, and those that remember the shooting during the practice for the Congressional Baseball Game know this is hardly the first time that a left-leaning “political activist” has gone off the rails.

But these now-deceased individuals are not the only people being reached by this kind of messaging, and that is the critical fact that remains in play here. In a nation of over 300 million individuals being constantly fed inflammatory rhetoric, when will the next assassination attempt occur?

As I sit here, reflecting on the state of our nation, I am filled with a profound sense of disappointment.

Disappointment that the media has forsaken its duty to truth and balance, disappointment in the so-called “adults in the room” in the Biden administration for perpetuating this explosive divisiveness, disapointment in the intelligence community for prioritizing monitoring parents at school board meetings while domestic threats that we will likely later learn were “on their radar” roam free, and disappointment in Secret Service security measures that look to be horrendously negligent based on intial reports and videos of the assassination attempt.

We are at a crossroads. We can either continue down this path of sensationalism, division and negligence, or we can learn from this tragedy and make meaningful changes.

Mainstream media must reclaim its role as a purveyor of truth, however unlikely or impossible a task that may seem. Our leaders must attempt to engage in constructive dialogue rather than the inflammatory rhetoric that is cycled through social media and the news nonstop.

We must prioritize mental health and investigating legitimate threats to the safety of our leaders, past and present, and ensure robust security measures are in place throughout this election season.

The events of Saturday night should serve as a wake-up call. This is not the country we want to be. We must come together, as a nation, and address these issues before another preventable tragedy strikes.

It’s time for a change. It’s time to hold media, the intelligence community, and the Secret Service accountable, and work toward making sure that all political candidates are protected.