Nothing’s Changed, Only Clarified
By J. Jeff Toler for Shenandoah Christian Alliance j.toler@sca4christ.org
- The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. (James 33:6)
One Saturday afternoon, at a campaign in rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, shots were fired, and a bullet grazed Donald Trump as he was speaking. Within seconds, pandemonium erupted as everyone began to realize there was an active shooter. Trump reached for his ear and dropped behind the podium.
By now, the videos and the images have become iconic. Within seconds the last four-plus years of increasingly outrageous attempts to characterize him as Hitler—to declare him an existential threat to democracy, found a new trajectory, and crystalized into what will become the defining moment when the decades-long war on America’s civil sensibilities crystalized.
One day, many years ago I happened to hear the late Rush Limbaugh say, “Words have meaning” during one of his daily broadcasts. While he wouldn’t have claimed he originated the expression, it did, at the time, puzzle me. First, that he said it, second, that it needed saying, and finally, the realization that he said it as a warning.
From a 1944 article about him in “The New Yorker” magazine, the great Duke Ellington was quoted as saying, “You can say anything you want on the trombone, but you gotta be careful with words.” Words have meaning when they express the most tender emotions of the human soul. It’s been said that people judge us by the words we use.
I wonder, what were the words Gavrilo Princip heard after he joined Black Hand—the Serbian nationalists seeking to unite territories of ethnic Serbs under Serbia’s control? Meaningful enough, evidently, to inspire him to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie on June 28, 1914, and triggering the First World War. What was the Trump shooter hearing during his brief and pitiable life?
Words do matter and they always have. But lately, there has been a lot of dangerous words said that could reasonably inspire someone—anyone—to potentially change the course of history.
While trombonists and musical legends are not noted for their philosophical insights, when they do make them, we should listen.
From the rhetoric to which we should have been paying closer attention, we could make the case that more than a few words were reckless before this attempt on Trump’s life. I am in no way saying that they were instrumental with inspiring that sorry soul to climb up a nearby roof and start shooting at Trump and into the crowd in the bleachers behind him. I’m saying they were extraordinarily reckless… but were they calculated?
Baily Shulz, in USA Today tells us, “…a number of Republicans are pointing fingers at President Joe Biden after the shooting of former President Donald Trump at a political rally on Saturday, with some citing Biden’s recent statement that ‘it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.’”
Yes, he actually did say that, but it’s not enough to claim Biden called on someone to assassinate Trump, as Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., asserts when sharing part of the Biden quote on X and claiming without evidence… that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” That, admittedly, seems a little heavy-handed even for Biden. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Trump’s new running mate, also took to X to blame the shooting on the Biden campaign, writing that his rhetoric, “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Agree or not, do you wonder why did Biden say that? What did he actually mean to happen after he said it? Was it just hyperbole?
Others, as expected, like some media commentators of the leftist persuasion, are saying that Trump brought this on himself. CNN’s Jamie Gangel, immediately following Trump’s close call, said, “…after he was hit, former President Trump got up and said, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’.” Then she complained, “I think what we’re hearing people [say is] that’s not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down.” Not one to make excuses, but I think he may have said that because he’d just been shot.
Underneath it all, the constant dissipation of old-fashioned patriotism following decades of unchecked globalization, the loss of a classical education, and the constant racial rhetoric continues to sacrifice men—especially the white versions—on the alter of political correctness.
Political correctness! If only we could go back to those days. Political Correctness has morphed into something altogether nasty and treacherous. For some, people—people who operate on blind, emotional ideology—become energized by the rhetoric they ingest, like Robert De Niro (pictured) spewing it back in this YouTube clip from May 28, 2024: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB6W_YarH04]
My nagging concern is this: the situation only might become much worse… emotions might be running high right now. But candidly, I’m just not that sure anymore. The reason is, that the ad nauseam repetition of leftist rhetoric has dulled too many people into a form of insouciance—a resignation really—from the very people who ought most to care the most: those who might be the true victims.
Trump’s close call would seem, from the perspective of the faithful to be divinely providential. But, according to at least one religion writer, Shane Claiborne for Religion News Service, observed, “I’m glad Donald Trump is alive, and I’m quite confident God is, too. But my understanding of Christian theology makes me certain that God did not save the former president from assassination.” To believe her take on this, she wants us to believe that God could not intervene, while allowing allowing another to die. But, if God is God and we are not, how is she, or anyone else to know, really, what His purposes are? I completely disagree with her, but read her link, and see what she and other Christians believe is true of God: [https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/07/15/commentary-god-did-not-save-donald/]
This much I will say, most people have been greatly affected by the shooting. They seem tremendously grateful and thankful, expressing something akin to a softening of their own hearts. Others, we must sadly admit, are only allowing their hearts to remain hardened, and they will not give up easily.
In any event, I believe we have recovered from the ennui—that beautiful French word for listlessness and lack of enthusiasm—that many of us were feeling about the November elections.
The photo by Evan Vucci for AP showing Trump, surrounded by Secret Service, fist raised high, ferociously yelling “Fight. fight. Fight” has already become iconic, and is certainly worthy of the Pulitzer Prize. For the foreseeable future, it will appear in everything from campaign commercials to history books, and is already drowning out the rhetoric of political pundits who must be seeing the game is over—for now. Whatever happens, we as believers must, as the Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy, respond to the admonition: “Fight the good fight for the true faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12)
That’s no empty rhetoric.
Cover photo: Evan Vucci / AP
