ROGER KIMBALL: Who’s the real threat to democracy? I can help those claiming to be in the dark about the shooter’s motive. His motive was to kill Donald Trump.

In some ways, the surprising thing is that it has taken until July 2024, four months before the election, for someone to try to assassinate the once and probably future president. After all, since before Trump was elected in 2016, the Democrats and their poodles in the media, Hollywood and fetid corners of celebrity sweepstakes have been baying for Trump’s blood. Remember Kathy Griffin holding up a fake bloodied head of Trump in 2017? Remember the staging of Julius Caesar in which the title character, cut down by Brutus and the other assassins, is clearly a stand-in for Trump?

Perhaps the most pathetic element in the regime response to the attempt on Trump’s life has been the declaration, repeated ad nauseam, that the authorities were still searching for a motive. An FBI field agent in Pennsylvania parroted that stupidity. “We do not currently have a motive,” he said. Ditto the housebroken media. The shooter’s “motivations remain unknown,” bleated a characteristically malicious column in MSNBC.

I can help those claiming to be in the dark about the shooter’s motive. His motive was to kill Donald Trump. And why not? Leviathan has been waging war against Trump since before he was elected in 2016. Remember the Russian Collusion Hoax? That $40 million entertainment was fabricated by Hillary Clinton and her pals in the FBI and the intelligence services.

Remember the fake impeachments of Trump towards the end of his first term? They too were groundless. So are the multiple indictments that have been brought by the odiferous Merrick Garland and minions like Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg, not to mention swivel-eyed judges like Juan Merchan, Arthur Engoron and Tanya Chutkan.

That violent and ongoing tsunami of lawfare against Trump was meant to destroy him. Possibly it would bankrupt him — remember Engoron’s preposterous fine of nearly half a billion dollars? Maybe it would simply put him away in jail for a few decades. Or possibly the judges’ machinations and gag orders would simply prevent Trump from campaigning.

Is it any wonder that that the “woke” forces arrayed against Trump have moved on to something more kinetic?

I doubt we’ll hear the term “stochastic terrorism” from the left for a while.

The funny thing is that Republicans want Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to stay alive and running.