Dem
47
GOP
53
We think you can make a pretty good argument, at least based on the information currently available, that Donald Trump's rhetoric played a considerable role in Charlie Kirk's death. And it's beyond argument that his rhetoric played a major role in the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman (DFL-MN).
We mention this because Trump is currently in (yet another) squabble with former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. She seems to be one of the few Republicans still interested in making sure the Trump-Epstein files see the light of day, and she says that if they don't, Trump and the GOP will lose a lot of votes from women. Trump's very profound counterargument to this is that Greene is "wacky" and all that she knows how to do is "COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN." That is what a statesman looks like, folks.
As part of her current crusade, Greene revealed that since she and Trump became enemies, she and her kids have received at least 773 death threats. The actual number is apparently much higher, but a certain bar has to be cleared to make the threat "official" and thus reportable to the Capitol Police. There are some folks who think it is instructive that Greene was despised by the left for years, but that she did not have to hire security until she crossed Donald Trump. We are among the folks who think that way.
Another person who has reason to be nervous is Trump's nemesis in Congress, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who decided there was wisdom in sending this message via eX-Twitter this weekend:
I am not suicidal. I eat healthy food. The brakes on my car and truck are in good shape. I practice good trigger discipline and never point a gun at anyone, including myself. There are no deep pools of water on my farm and I'm a pretty good swimmer.
In other words, for anyone who is not getting Massie's drift, the things that might be made to look like suicide don't pass the smell test if he is indeed suicided. If he was Russian, he'd be tweeting that he's not in the habit of hanging out right next to ninth-story windows, or drinking tea with a dash of polonium in it. After Massie sent that tweet, Greene responded: "These are not the type of public statements that any of us should have to make." She's right about that. Most readers of this site will not agree with most of Massie's ideas about policy. But even so, one cannot deny that the man has both integrity and courage. One can only imagine how many threats HE's getting, as someone who is still a member of Congress, and whose votes can (and have) actually hurt Trump.
Trump is now on the outs with at least one other prominent Republican. He is angry that, after he posted the racist video of the Obamas, not only did the Republicans not all line up behind him, some of them had the temerity to criticize him. For reasons we cannot ascertain, he has decided that the primary responsible party is... Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL). It's true that she was critical of him, but no more so than, say, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS). In any case, Trump apparently had many swear words for Britt, and said she was "dead" to him. Not the best choice of verbiage, since a wacky MAGA type could hear "dead" and "Britt" in the same sentence and think "sounds like a good idea." Politically, and undoubtedly out of concern for her own personal safety, Britt does not want to be at war with Trump. So, she is downplaying the feud. The problem here is that ignoring bullies tends to enrage them, and cause them to push harder.
It's really awful that today, if you get elected to Congress, you take your life into your hands. We certainly hope that Donald Trump's careless, hotheaded rhetoric does not get anyone else killed. But we are not optimistic, particularly as his popularity keeps heading further downhill (keep reading). (Z)