Republished with permission from John Pavlovitz

These are moments when absolute clarity matters, and this is one of unthinkable consequence so let’s not bullshit one another here, America: the attempted assassination of Donald Trump reminds us why he cannot be the president again.

If a deranged registered Democrat had tried to kill Joe Biden with an AR-15, not only would the Right not decry the violence but they would have celebrated it (as they did with the horrific attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi).

Donald Trump, whose entire presidency and candidacies have reveled in calls for brutality, would never have gone before the nation to immediately condemn the attack, to urge calm, and to steadfastly steer his base away from violence. Trump surely wouldn’t have reached out to Biden personally as Biden has done to Trump, promising his protection at his party’s upcoming convention.

Republican politicians and pundits would have done nothing but incite the bloodshed they have already built their platform on. As always, his surrogates in Congress like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert would simply be escalating the incendiary rhetoric, igniting rather than deescalating the acrimony.

Just last week, one of the architects of Project 2025 threatened bloodshed against the Left, as did GOP candidate for NC Governor Mark Robinson, who said in a church meeting that “some folks need killing.” It was also revealed that Trump’s aspiring Secretary of Retribution has prepared an enemies list of politicians and media members they deem adversarial to Trump who they are targeting for prison, or worse.

The attempt by Conservative pundits, Fox News analysts, and MAGA TikTokers to frame Trump’s frankly bizarre and fully unpresidential tough guy posturing in the seconds following the shooting, as supposed evidence of Donald Trump’s courage or strength is ludicrous. If anything, it reminds us just how emotionally untethered he is and why he has no business helming our nation; acting like a b-movie mobster, not a wise and level-headed statesman. Trump is the king of cowards. He has never had a noble or decent or selfless impulse in his life. He has been figuratively killing people on the altar of his ego for decades.

Do you know who is heroic?

• The school children who have to brave mass shootings without Secret Service protection.
• Law enforcement officers whose lives are placed in greater peril by civilian cowboys with guns.
• Hundreds of millions of people in America who study and work and shop and live while realizing they could be victims at any time.

The GOP has fought any reasonable gun control, they made it easier for mentally ill people to get guns, they’ve cut mental healthcare, and they have protected gun makers and gun owners over children at every turn.

The Republican Party (that has been trafficking in and actively, repeatedly inciting its base to violence) has zero grounds to pretend that they have any interest in a more peaceful nation or that they are outraged by gun violence or that this is somehow an indictment of the party who has them fought tooth-and-nail in their adoration of weapons of mass carnage.

Republicans are the only political entity who have made violence part of their platform.

There is only one party decrying violence against the other party, only one legislatively fighting gun violence, only one not wearing AR-15s in the halls of Congress, and only one whose candidate has a legacy of decency and kindness in moments of national consequence—and it is the Democratic Party.

This shooting and the aftermath have crystalized the stark differences between these candidates and parties and that should be the story here.

Decent, intelligent, insightful Americans know that President Biden is the human being and the leader America needs. He has been proving that since his first day in office, one in spent in the shadow of partisan insurrection and Republican treason, and he has demonstrated his compassion and goodness this week, choosing the occasion not to fan the flames of vitriol but to squelch them.

Americans not already fully indoctrinated into the MAGA death cult will not be distracted or gaslit in the wake of the shooting in Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump cannot be given power or immunity again.

No one will be safer or more cared for or defended.

No part of our Constitution will be binding.

No national healing or unity will be possible.

Donald Trump and his cadre of bullies and thugs are the greatest single threat to democracy in our nation’s history and the hatred, violence, and dehumanization they traffic in are tearing our nation apart. He and his historically traitorous party need to be defeated in the coming election. That remains the nonfictional narrative, one ever more obvious in the wake of the terrifying scene in Pennsylvania.

To paraphrase Jesus, “He who lives by the AR-15 nearly died from one.” Tens of thousands of Americans each year are not so fortunate.

Trump is a predator and parasite, and while his life will continue his political career cannot, for the sake of everything good about this nation.

Let’s quit both-siding this or anything as the election approaches.

The choice has never been more clear in our history.

We just need people courageous and clear-headed enough to make it.