The fallout from the failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania continues. Speculation abounds that it was an “inside job,” the head of the Secret Service became “embattled” and resigned, and the assassin’s bullet that just missed the mark killed Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.
Reaction to the assassination attempt has also revealed just how deeply, how fanatically, and how pathologically the Establishment and its minions harbor contempt and hatred for anyone who deviates from their ideological commitments.
Trump survived the assassin’s attack, but rally attendee Corey Comperatore did not. Comperatore, a U.S. Army Reserves veteran and volunteer firefighter, was seated with his wife and two daughters in the bleachers behind Trump. He died shielding his family from the bullets. Where I come from, that makes the man a hero. But to popular Twitch streamer and hyper-liberal Steven Bonnell (stage name “Destiny”), not only is Comperatore not a hero, the guy deserved to die. Bonnell said:
“Fuck it. Fuck the dude…the fire fighter guy. Fuck Trump. Fuck the people that support him. I just want you to know okay just in case you’re confused or it seems like I’m…you don’t whatever…if one of you were in the crowd and you’re a conservative fan of mine and you end up you know getting blown away or whatever the fuck, I’m making fun of you the next day on Twitter. I am, 100 percent.”
Bonnell specifically mocked Comperatore on Twitter, posting:
“I’m sure Corey and Babbit are both having fun with each other in hell right now”
He is referencing Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed by U.S. Capitol Police during the January 6, 2021 protest and riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Air Force veteran and Trump supporter has been demonized by the Establishment and now Bonnell has condemned her to hell in his own divine liberal comedy.
I would suggest that we view Bonnell’s perspective and comments as emblematic of the Establishment’s deep hatred for Trump as a symbol of all those who deviate from their lockstep ideological march and (more importantly) their hold on power.
Obviously, there is Trump himself and MAGA. For years, the Establishment has relentlessly portrayed Trump as a neo–Hitler. Which makes MAGA a bunch of Nazis. And not the “good” kind of Nazis who are “seen by many in Ukraine as national heroes” for killing Russians. No, the bad ones.
But it’s not just MAGA the Establishment hates. Following the January 6 protest and riot (or the “insurrection” as the Establishment calls it) state-media NPR said:
“When it comes to domestic extremists such as those who stormed the Capitol, a longtime CIA officer [Robert Grenier] argues that the U.S. should treat them as an insurgency.
That means using counterinsurgency tactics—similar in some ways to those used in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
In Grenier’s analogy, MAGA is Al Qaeda and the entirety of conservative America is the Taliban. Yes, the foundation of the analogy is flawed. The Taliban were doing the Western imperial powers a favor by allowing Osama bin Laden and the boys to be exiled to Afghanistan for one thing. But the point is that the U.S. government killed members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in large numbers. Bonnell would probably make fun of conservatives if the state itself blew them away.
But it’s not just half the country the Establishment hates. Anyone who dares question a sacred Establishment narrative gets the enemy treatment. Max Blumenthal isn’t a MAGA Republican or a conservative. But he and his fellow journalists at The Grayzone have ripped apart important Establishment lies. Recently, the Establishment unleashed one of its biggest information warfare instruments on them, The Washington Post. Blumenthal wrote:
“On January 21, The Washington Post published an article purporting to expose a terrifying and ‘spreading’ phenomenon: so-called ‘Oct. 7 truther’ groups’ who ‘say [the] Hamas massacre was a false flag.’ Unable to name those ‘truther groups,’ the piece’s author, Elizabeth ‘Lizza’ Dwoskin, cobbled together a random assortment of comments by 4chan and Reddit users to create the sense that antisemitic conspiracism was not only sweeping the internet, but taking over city councils across the country.
The piece took direct aim at The Grayzone, maliciously associating our factual reporting on friendly fire orders which led to many Israeli deaths on October 7 with Holocaust denial.
The Post’s Dwoskin went on to falsely claim that ‘articles on…Grayzone [sic] exaggerated’ reports that Israelis were killed by the Israeli army ‘to suggest that most Israeli deaths were caused by friendly fire, not Hamas.’ Yet no one associated with The Grayzone has ever claimed that ‘most’ Israelis who died on October 7 were killed by the Israeli army, nor has it published any material suggesting October 7 was a ‘false flag.’
The author of the Post’s shoddily sourced smear job, Elizabeth Dwoskin, is an ideologically committed Zionist who once referred to Palestinians as ‘desert Bedouins without a sense of national identity as we know it today.’”
Blumenthal and his colleague, Aaron Maté, defended themselves against Dwoskin’s malicious lies during a hilarious phone call with her, but the Establishment’s hatred of anyone who steps out of line is no laughing matter.
The fate of our nation and the fate of humanity are at stake.