Where is the Robust Investigative Journalism Around Both Assassination Attempts of a Former President? The Establishment Media Goes Eerily Silent.

by Michael Rectenwald, Special to The Kennedy Beacon

With the second apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump in just over two months, one would think that an uproar over the prospect of political violence in the U.S. would have reached a crescendo by now, if not a deafening din. 

But nothing of the sort has happened. 

The Washington Post’s recent “article” on the assassination attempt is just a paragraph in length and merely notes that Ryan Wesley Routh, the man arrested on suspicion of an attempted assassination, has, to date, been charged with two gun-related crimes.

Coverage by The New York Times is more detailed, noting that Routh has been charged with two gun-related crimes, including possession of a firearm as a felon, and possession of a firearm with the serial number obliterated. The Times has also noted that cellphone data indicates that Routh was in the vicinity of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course for more than 12 hours before his weapon was spotted by a Secret Service agent, who immediately opened fire upon noticing it. The “paper of record” also notes Routh’s pro-Ukraine war stance and his attempts to supply Afghan fighters to the front lines, suggesting that the Times reporter who covered the story knew at the time that Routh was “out of his depth,” although he suggested nothing of the sort in his reporting.

Newsweek has noted that Routh’s rather lengthy arrest record includes a 2002 felony conviction for possessing a weapon of mass destruction and a 2010 felony for stolen goods.

NBC News host Lester Holt, meanwhile, appeared to blame the Trump campaign for the latest assassination attempt. He began by stating that “today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump [and] his running mate J.D. Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio…” Holt implied that Trump and Vance have themselves to blame for Trump being shot at once and nearly shot at a second time, completely memory-holing the incendiary and patently violent rhetoric directed at Trump by the Democrats and their media and celebrity proxies for over eight straight years.

Vice President Kamala Harris, for her part, made a single terse remark about the second assassination attempt on Trump: “I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe,” she said. “Violence has no place in America…” President Biden, for his part, stated that the Secret Service “needs more help and I think the Congress should respond to their needs, if in fact they need more servicemen.”

That is, neither the media nor the political establishment can be bothered with lengthy self-reflection pieces, or a serious discussion about how the political temperature has reached a fevered pitch in the U.S., despite, or likely because of, their own roles in fanning the flames and heightening the tensions around Donald Trump and his supporters.

If the situation was reversed and Harris had been the intended target of two assassination attempts, op-eds and denunciations would have immediately graced the pages and filled the airtime of the establishment media. They would have blamed Trump. No doubt references to Charlottesville and “tiki torches” would proliferate, once again citing Trump without his initial framing remarks, and calling on Trump to apologize for his “racist” rhetoric and worse.

The responses or lack thereof to the assassination attempts on Trump not only indicate a double standard and hypocrisy. The veritable silence shows the extent to which the establishment clearly does not believe in parity where its political opposition is concerned, and that “our democracy” means a nation run for and by an “elite” that regards any opposition to their rule as “anti-democratic” and beyond the pale. 

The irony is so rich as to be incredible. “Our democracy” for the Democratic-run “uniparty” means the opposite of democracy.

Speculation about the second potential assassin’s connections to the deep state has swirled in the vacuum of coverage by the mainstream press. In the absence of significant investigative interest in the backgrounds and motivations of the two alleged would-be assassins, this is to be expected.

We need and deserve a thorough examination of the state’s role in not only failing to protect political figures but also in respect to any possible involvement in assassination attempts. 

Trump promised Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that, if elected, he will convene a presidential commission for this very purpose. It’s the right thing to do. America needs answers.

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., is a Former Distinguished Fellow at Hillsdale College and Former Professor of Liberal Studies and Global Studies at New York University. At the 2024 Libertarian Party convention, Rectenwald came in second behind Chase Oliver for the Libertarian nomination for U.S. president.