"Words Are Weapons"
Also sprach the Resistance—until they were called on their own words
The time has come to call out the anti-Trump Resistance and its media enablers for creating a safe space for political violence in America. Third time’s the charm, and last weekend’s third attempt to assassinate President Trump banished from my mind any lingering doubts that the American Left, broadly defined, has developed a taste for blood.
This observation will of course enrage the comrades. Too bad. A direct line may be traced from the master narratives of the Resistance to Cole Allen’s unsuccessful attempt on the lives of Trump and members of his cabinet. Trump the fascist, Trump the destroyer of “our democracy,” Trump the Russian puppet, Trump the rapist, Trump the pedophile—all patent nonsense. But given the comrades’ embrace of this nonsense, it’s no wonder that Trump has been the target of three assassination attempts. They’ll never admit it—denial of responsibility is reflexive in them—but the warriors of the Resistance own those three assassination attempts, and a good deal more besides.
Among the dogmas of the postmodern Left is the claim that “words are weapons.” It will be recalled how an op-ed in The New York Times by Senator Tom Cotton triggered a meltdown among the paper’s snowflake staffers, who claimed that the Senator’s words were violent. “Running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger,” they whined. And the pressure they brought to bear forced James Bennet, the paper’s opinion page editor, to resign. But now, it seems, the comrades have changed their tune. How dare anybody suggest that their unhinged, nay lunatic, hate-Trump rhetoric constitutes incitement to violence? Words aren’t weapons when the words are theirs!
Oh, really? In his “manifesto,” would-be assassin Cole Allen wrote: “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” Gee, I wonder where he got that idea from?
Well, he got it from the American Left, which really has no problem with political violence and, indeed, valorizes it. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, many on the Left could scarcely contain their glee:
But characteristically, the comrades refused personally to own the murder that gave them such satisfaction. Instead, they went out of their way to deflect the blame in other directions, portraying Kirk’s assassin as a “trumper,” even though it was clear that he was motivated by left-wing ideology, especially as regards gay and transgender rights. In fact, the shooter had no connection with MAGA and in recent years he’d become alienated from his family’s conservative politics.
Kirk’s assassination (September 10, 2025) was no isolated incident. It came on the heels of the murder of two Democratic Minnesota legislators and their spouses (June), the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. (May), an arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro (April), the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York (December 2024), and two assassination attempts on Donald Trump (July and September 2024). With the exception of the Minnesota murders, all of these outrages were inspired by leftist politics. (Given its fervent embrace of “anti-Zionism,” the Washington DC murders and the attack on Governor Shapiro’s home are obviously down to the Left).
Particularly noteworthy was the killing of Brian Thompson, who was gunned down on a New York City street by Luigi Mangione, a leftie child of privilege who claimed to be outraged by the malfeasance of the health insurance industry. Mangione had no personal beef with UnitedHealthcare or Thompson; his crime was purely political. And, of course, he was fêted by the Left and its media enablers as a Hero of the Resistance—the distaff side of which swooned over his good looks. The New Yorker was in the forefront of this project to transform a common murderer into an outlaw-hero.
Even those on the Left who affected to deplore Mangione’s sanguinary exercise in “direct action” adopted a “yes, but…” It might be wrong, kind of, to shoot someone in the back and kill him, but didn’t Brian Thompson kind of deserve it…?
It must be said, however, that another glamorous Resistance poster boy, social media superstar Hasan Piker, did not equivocate. This hater of America and Israel, enemy of the Jews and apologist for genocidal terrorism, advocate for “restorative justice” via deadly force, was blunt in his approval of Mangione’s evil deed. During a New York Times podcast with the paper’s Nadja Spiegelman and—surprise!—The New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino, Piker made out that Brian Thompson’s assassination morally justified, given that he was guilty of something called “social murder.” The trio then went on to tout the wonderfulness of shoplifting from Whole Foods, stealing art from the Louvre, etc. “I think it’s cool,” Piker enthused. “We’ve got to get back to cool crimes like that: bank robberies, stealing priceless artifacts, things of that nature.”
Piker is, of course a monster: In addition to his “social murder” theory and support of Islamofascist terrorism, he’s also tight with various progressive Democrats who share his views, including Comrade Congresspersons Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, NYC Gauleiter Zohran Mamdani, and Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. The latter is a particularly unsavory antisemite; Piker has appeared with him at several campaign events. And why not? They’re so totally sympatico.
The case of Hasam Piker is particularly revealing. He’s an out-and-proud antisemite who doesn’t trouble to conceal his vile opinions. As I wrote just recently:
Piker thinks the world of Hezbollah and Hamas. He seems not to have made up his mind whether the orgy of rape that occurred during the latter group’s pogrom of 10/7/2023 was a “hallucination” or just didn’t matter all that much. You can understand why. Piker insists that “Hamas is a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state of Israel.” That being the case, of what significance are a few rapes here, a few dead babies there, if they further the cause of “Palestine”?
Piker personifies a perfect storm of every disgusting and moronic orthodoxy of the progressive Left. In 2019, he opined that America got what was coming on 9/11/2001. He never apologized for what he said, so I offer no apology for quoting this monster of evil, word for word: “America deserved 9/11, dude. Fuck it, I’m saying it. We fucking totally brought this upon ourselves, dude. Holy shit. We did. We fucking did.”
But who on the Left has spoken up in opposition to Piker? Have supposedly mainstream Democrats demanded that Abdul El-Sayed and other progressive Democrats cut ties with this rat? Of course not. But how could they? Mainstream Democrats—if such they can be called—have come to embrace the narratives that fuel the violence of the Left. Perhaps they do so for reasons of expedience. Perhaps they simply live in terror of their party’s progressive base. Whatever the explanation, they’ve become enablers of some of the very worst people in America.
As for the Left’s media accomplices, a recent example will suffice to illustrate their complicity in the promotion of violence. In a 60 Minutes interview with President Trump, CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell covered herself with shame and ignominy by asking the following question:
The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this, quote, “Administration officials, they are targets.” And he also wrote this, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.” What's your reaction to that?
My reaction to O’Donnell’s question is that she’s a garbage human being for reading from the “manifesto" of a would-be presidential assassin and asking the assassin’s target how he feels about it. She seems to think that the assassin maybe had a point. Trump reacted as, I think, anybody would: with indignation. And to his credit, after chastising O’Donnell for her execrable behavior, he moved on with the interview.
These days, you can’t hate the media enough. Honestly, you can’t.
There is, to be sure, a discussion to be had on the subject of words as weapons. To me it seems that the issue is not black and white. Sometimes words are weapons. As I put it in a recent Substack Note:
[T]here are historical examples of language as violence, e.g. Nazi Germany. The space between the National Socialist regime’s antisemitic propaganda and actual violence against Jews was so narrow as to be nonexistent. That language was violence. When the SA was marching through the streets of German cities, calling for the extirpation of the Jews, the Brownshirts weren’t merely engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric. The word and the deed were one.
But even when things don’t go that far, intemperate words, if they’re loud enough, and repeated often enough, can incite violence. As mentioned above, Cory Allen’s manifesto was pure Resistance agitprop—which convinced him to make an attempt on President Trump’s life. Respect for the principle of freedom of expression does not preclude holding people morally responsible for the consequences of the things they say and broadcast, nor does it immunize them against condemnation when, as in this case, it’s well merited.
The Left has always justified and, indeed, romanticized political violence. Dostoevsky saw this clearly and shared his vision in Devils, one of the most prophetic novels ever written. All too soon, his prophecy was borne out by the Russian Revolution and its results: the orgy of mass murder, terror and oppression that accompanied the building of socialism in the form of the USSR. In the Sixties and Seventies occurred another spasm of revolutionary violence in Europe in America—which, incidentally, the contemporary Left remembers fondly. No wonder the comrades adore Mangione and Piker. It’s in their DNA.
So yes, the warriors of the Resistance, the monsters they valorize, those cowardly mainstream Democrats, and the journalists who run interference for them deserve to be shamed and reviled. More than anybody else, they’re responsible for the current climate of rage, hate and violence that grips America.
The left has a tremendous "enthusiasm advantage" because they are willing to say and do almost anything - certainly more than civilized people are willing to do.
When you read the editorials of the Nazi papers (Völkischer Beobachter etc), you see the same mindless venom.
And civilized Germans looked away while the Nazis led them into the abyss.
Thanks for speaking up, because the left is determined to debase our society.
We have to stop this trend.
Thank you for a brilliant dissection of the ‘progressive’ left which is doing so much damage in America and Europe.