October 30, 2025

THE ASSASSINATION FAN BASE:

The wounded Reagan quipped to the lead doctor on his trauma team, “I hope you’re all Republican.” What made the quip amusing is that both Reagan and the team knew it mattered not in the least whether its members were Republican. The doctor, a Democrat, amusingly but perhaps a bit solemnly replied, “Today, we’re all Republicans.”

I think most Americans would like to live in a world where such an exchange is still possible. I’m not sure it is.

A significant number of Americans took to Bluesky, TikTok, Reddit, and the streets to express their regret that Trump’s would-be assassins had been unsuccessful and to praise the assassins of Charlie Kirk and UnitedHealthcare’s Thompson. In the case of the latter two, many asked or offered their opinion on who should be next. (I won’t cite any examples. If you are at all online, you have seen them in abundance, and if not, you may want to spare yourself.)

At present, the assassination fan base is pretty much a left-wing subculture. So far, it has applauded attempts on the lives of a former president, a conservative activist, a corporate CEO, and a conservative Supreme Court justice. The closest thing on the right is the online coterie claiming that Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, did nothing wrong, either because they were let in or were duped into entering by a government plot. But to speak up on behalf of J6 defendants, even to the point of alleging conspiracies, is not the same as celebrating the assassinations of Kirk and Thompson and lamenting the misses on Trump. I hope no comparable figure on the left becomes a target that thereby allows us to ascertain whether there is a comparable fan base for assassination on the right.

We should also note that even “lone gunmen, acting alone” have to get their ideas about whom to target from somewhere. They, too, have social networks, which likely traffic in in-group suggestions about who in the out-group are the worst of the worst. So we are now living in a political culture in which a potential would-be assassin can count on a social network for inspiration and an outpouring of public support after the fact. This is fertile ground for evil, perhaps because assassins always believe they are doing good. And we may be cultivating more and more of them.

As Elon Musk tells Joe Rogan, “after years of attacks from mainstream media, I know exactly what they’re doing — They’re making it sound like if you kill me, you’re a hero. That’s not journalism. That’s evil.”

Earlier:

Posted at 10:22 am by Ed Driscoll