Within a few hours of the shooting that winged Donald Trump, killed one rally-goer and injured two others, professional scold Bill Maher began his show Saturday by delivering one of his trademark shoot-from-the-lip remarks. Following his de rigueur denunciation of political violence, he declared to the audience:
“Whoever was the shooter has done so much damage to the left. Lost a lot of moral high ground in the ‘You’re the violent people.’ You know, ‘Liberals don’t shoot people, liberals don’t solve it that way.’”
Remind me again of who said “stand back and stand by.”
The malicious hair-trigger stupidity of Maher’s assertion was spouted before anybody—including authorities on the ground—had a clue about the shooter. Maher had plenty of company among Republicans eager to shrug off their years of hate and incitement with yet another false theme. Indeed, it was hard to tell the difference between Maher’s pronouncement and the sputtering of JD Vance. At the time the Ohio Senator was still wondering whether he had yet been lickspittle enough for Trump to select him to carry on the MAGA tradition. He tweeted that Biden campaign rhetoric calling Trump a fascist had “led directly” to the unsuccessful assassination.
Rather than my going on and on about this—which would only be an extended version of #%$!¡*&¶@+—I’m posting a video by Brian Tyler Cohen. He doesn’t mention Maher at all, but he presents an antidote to the kind of damage that Mr. Lost-the-moral-high-ground has chucked into our midst. The big takeaways: It’s not just bogus but obscene to claim the left is responsible for the attempted assassination, and it’s not a luxury but our duty to call a fascist a fascist.
Ignore the headline, which only describes the very beginning of Cohen’s take. (If you’re short of time, scroll to the 5:50 minute mark.)
