RUTHFULLY YOURS

Like Robert Redford’s character in “The Candidate” — who unexpectedly won a U.S. Senate race and then bewilderedly asked “What do we do now?” — the Democrats, the media, the Hollywood-celebrity industrial complex, and the leftist-dominated professoriate are in a similar position. They have to wonder what to do next after their wish that someone would take out Donald Trump was attempted and failed.

In the hours after Trump was shot in a botched, but only by millimeters, assassination bid, the media scolds began to insist that we must “take down the temperature.” President Joe Biden followed that with a national address Sunday in which he said “we must stand together” as Americans. Trump is reportedly revising his convention speech to focus on unity, believing that he has now been given “a chance to bring the country together,” rather than Biden’s failings.

While Biden struck the right tone in his Oval Office speech, let’s not pretend that the political left hadn’t been looking for any way possible to “stop Trump,” even if that meant in the minds of some on that side that he had to die. And they almost got what they wanted.

Trump is still alive, though, leaving the Democrats in a thorny “now what?” situation.

We don’t doubt that many of the left who fantasized about Trump taking a fatal bullet, such as John McWhorter, are now feeling some remorse. But for every one of those there are too many who were frustrated that the would-be assassin missed his shot by the smallest of margins.

At the institutional level, the Democrats and their political machine have to now rethink how they will campaign for the next 16 weeks. Will they eventually ratchet up their rhetoric to the frenzied level they had reached just last week? How about the constant claims from the party and the media that Trump is “literally” Hitler, an authentic fascist, a dictator in waiting, a grave threat to the United States – will we see and hear those again? This is particularly interesting, because, as others have said before us, if Trump is truly the monster he’s been portrayed to be, then cutting down the American fuhrer is the only proper response.

Yet many who have been making those wild and perpetually toxic remonstrations are now praying for Trump, wishing him well, and calling for civility and brotherhood. This means everything they said before was all part of the big lie – and they knew it.

It’s also reasonable to ask: Will the Democrats back off their efforts to break and imprison Trump? (A sizable crack has already formed in that wall with federal Judge Aileen Cannon dismissing the classified documents case against him because naming Jack Smith as special counsel to prosecute the former president “violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.”)

And what of the 2024 edition of the “well-funded cabal of powerful people” that “fortified” (rigged?) the 2020 election? Will it be disbanded, because there is every reason to believe another plan was being hatched?

We further wonder if the Democrats will challenge the election if Trump wins, because they have a history of doing that, and not just with Trump. It’s the nature of the modern Democratic Party to play dirty, to cross the line if that’s what’s needed to win.

There are two reasons for this: One, the party and its supporters believe so deeply in their ideas that they think they are justified to cheat and lie. And two, the party is also power mad – its leaders and soldiers have no inhibitions about breaking the rules in service of their ambition.

The old proverb that starts “be careful what you wish for” should have been considered over the past eight years by the political left. The “our democracy” crowd should have remembered what happened to the dog who caught the car before it started chasing it. Now the political left is trapped in a mess of its own making.