On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing media coverage of Saturday’s deadly shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, violent rhetoric, and guns.
Shortly after the shooting, many Republicans blamed Democrats and minimized Trump's and the Republican Party's history of violent rhetoric.
On social media, JD Vance, Republican Senator from Ohio, said President Joe Biden’s rhetoric "led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” while Senator Tim Scott, Republican from South Carolina, said, "This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse."
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said, "when the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the republic would end, it heats up the environment."
How are the media covering this latest act of political violence and the public discourse around it? How has violent rhetoric from the Republican Party and Donald Trump contributed to the normalization of political violence? Why is critical context missing from so much coverage?
Guests:
David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, co-founder of DCReport, and author of many books, including "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America"
Jeff Sharlet, Professor in the Art of Writing and Director of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College, and author of several books, including "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War"
Resources:
Truthout: Republicans Immediately Seize on Trump Rally Shooting to Incite More Violence
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Republicans Immediately Seize on Trump Rally Shooting to Incite More Violence
The Lever: Pennsylvania GOP Fought A Ban On The Gun Used In Trump Shooting
Vox: How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump
Reuters: Political violence in polarized U.S. at its worst since 1970s
