Nearly every prominent voice across the country, including many of former President Donald Trump’s most fervent opponents, unanimously condemned the attempted assassination of him over the weekend.
Shortly after the bullet grazed President Trump’s ear, putting his life in danger, The New York Times published an editorial with the headline “Attack on President Donald Trump Is Un-American.”
“Any attempt to settle an election through violence is abhorrent. Violence is antithetical to democracy. The ballot, not the bullet, should always be the means by which Americans resolve their differences,” the Gray Lady editorial board declared.
But the laudable sentiments expressed by Times management should be accompanied by some self-reflection: Just six years ago, the paper was promoting Trump assassination fantasies in its book review sections.
The short story, “How It Ends,” was published along with several other fictional stories that aimed to “imagine Trump’s next chapter.”
The collection was described by The Times as follows:
Our focus is
Book Reviews isn’t just about books and stories, it’s also about how the books being written and read reflect the world outside of them. And, of course, one of the biggest topics is the Mueller investigation and Trump’s ties to Putin. It’s hard not to speculate about what’s going to happen next. So, we thought: Who better to imagine possible outcomes than some of today’s most talented spy and crime novelists: Joseph Finder, Laura Lippman, Jason Matthews, Zoe Sharpe, and Scott Turow?
Sharp, the author of “How It Ends,” imagines a world in which Russian assassins arrive in Washington, DC, to kill Trump and cover up their country’s role in his presidency. Here is the story’s conclusion:
The Russian waited until they had passed a few steps, then drew his gun. He aimed it at the center of the President’s back and pulled the trigger. The Makarov misfired. The Secret Service agent on the President’s shoulder heard a click and crouched down. He understood the situation instantly, and with sharp reflexes he drew his own gun. The Russian tasted failure. He closed his eyes and waited for the price to be paid. It never came. He opened his eyes. The Secret Service agent stood before him, holding out his Glock, butt first. “Go ahead,” the agent said politely. “Use mine…”
The message behind this piece of prose is not difficult to understand.
Donald Trump deserves to die, and any sane, patriotic American will work to that end.
To be disgusted by Sharp’s message and the Times’s reporting on it is not to express retroactive indignation. It was repulsive and barbaric at the time, and reflects as much of the degradation of American political culture as Trump’s own worst rhetoric.
If the Times is serious about lamenting its deterioration, it should start with the beam in its own eye.