SALT LAKE CITY – The Utah Democratic Party has changed its tune in the wake of an attempt on the life of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday, July 13.
“I am deeply disturbed by today’s news out of Pennsylvania,” said Utah Democratic Party chair Diane Lewis in an official statement issued just hours after the attack on Trump.
“Political violence is wrong, period,” Lewis added. “My thoughts are with those affected.”
Presumably, those thoughts include Trump.
As recently as July 1, however, the UDP reacted to the Supreme Court’s decision upholding Trump’s claims of presidential immunity for his “official actions” on Jan. 6, 2021 by repeating its often-cited refrain that the former president represents a threat to American democracy.
“If Donald Trump is allowed back into the oval office, he will use today’s ruling to establish the strongman dictatorship that he promised to create on day one of his presidency,” according to Lewis on July 1. “This election is no longer a contest between Joe Biden or Donald Trump. It is a contest between democracy and authoritarianism.”
Ironically, Lewis even accused the former president of planning to use the High Court ruling to plot the “the assassination of political rivals” with impunity.
After the Pennsylvania shooting — which left Trump slightly wounded, at least one audience member deceased and the would-be assassin dead – Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged cooler heads to prevail, calling the campaign rhetoric around alleged threats to democracy “way too hot.”
“We probably need to do some soul-searching as a nation,” Graham said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “You know, if (Trump) wins, democracy is not going to end. He’s not a fascist. He represents a point of view that millions share.”
The super-heated comments by Utah Democrats are by no means isolated. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) cited President Joe Biden for recently using similar rhetoric.
“President Biden himself said in recent days, ‘It’s time to put a bullseye on Trump’,” the speaker observed on the NBC’s “Today” show.
“I know he didn’t mean what is being implied there,” Johnson acknowledged. “But that kind of language on either side should be called out.”
On a recent call with nervous liberal donors, Biden urged them to focus on Trump rather than his own poor debate performance last month.
“We’re done talking about the debate,” the president argued. “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Federal authorities have identified the alleged gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service sniper at the scene after he opening fire on the rally crowd with what officials are calling “an AR-style rifle.”
The FBI said the alleged shooter was a resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania – about 35 miles south of Butler, where Trump was holding his rally.
Following the Saturday shooting, Trump issued a statement calling for resilience; thanking the Secret Service agents and first-responders; and asking for the nation to pray for the other victims of the assassination attempt.
Here in Utah, the state Republican Party urged residents of all political stripes to pray for the “health, safety and well-being of Donald Trump.”
“We condemn the evil displayed today,” GOP chair Robert Axson said in a public Facebook post late on July 13.