Three days after an assassination attempt was carried out on Donald Trump during an election rally in Pennsylvania, ‘The Hindu’ newspaper on Tuesday (16th July) blamed the former US President for the tragedy that befell him.
In a disturbing editorial titled ‘Dodging bullets: On an assassination bid and U.S. politics’, the Indian daily suggested that the attack on Donald Trump was somehow due to his own political rhetorics.
‘The Hindu‘ alleged that the former US President supposedly condoned and sympathised with the use of violence in the political sphere. To substantiate its claims, the leftist newspaper cited the example of the 2021 Capitol Hill siege by Trump supporters.
Blaming the victim
“Ironically, the attack comes after months of Mr. Trump and his supporters periodically indulging in rhetoric that condoned or sympathised with violence or violent intentions in the political sphere,” it claimed.
‘The Hindu’ shrewdly invoked a 3-year-old incident to lay the foundation for its vicious claim that Donald Trump was somehow responsible for the assassination attempt, which took one life and injured three others including the ex-US President.
The leftist newspaper also ensured that the incumbent US President Joe Biden is projected in a positive light. As part of this narrative-building exercise, ‘The Hindu’ emphasised Biden’ promptness in condemning the attack that nearly claimed the life of Donald Trump.
Thanks to its lack of objective reporting, the Indian daily ignored mentioning how Joe Biden and Democrats had been dog-whistling against Donald Trump for a long. The Hindu chose to highlights the 3-year-old Capitol Hill siege but not the recent provocative tweet by Joe Biden.
In June this year, the incumbent US President dubbed Donald Trump as a ‘threat to freedom and democracy.’ Joe Biden even went on to label Trump as antithesis to American values.
Even a day before the assassination attempt, the incumbent US President continued his diatribe against Donald Trump. However, none of these remarks constituted as ‘violent or inciteful’ political rhetoric to ‘The Hindu’ Editor.
"Most importantly, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, Trump is a threat to this nation." – Joe Biden yesterday pic.twitter.com/31lNO7bk3p
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 14, 2024
Intellectual dishonesty ft. The Hindu
The editorial by the Indian newspaper read, “President Joe Biden unequivocally and immediately condemned the attack on Mr. Trump, saying that there was no place in America for this. “We must unite as one nation to condemn it. It’s sick.” Similar sentiments were expressed by other political figures.”
Not just Joe Biden, prominent Democrats and their loyalists in the media had time and again used violent language to rebuke Donald Trump and rally Americans against him.
Thanks to the ‘left-liberal’ privilege, these provocateurs are not held responsible for their vile rhetorics and complete lack of civility. Instead, all attempts are made to silence those who dare to question them.
Every single one of these Democrats should be impeached/jailed for inciting the assassination attempt of Donald Trump.
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) July 13, 2024
It's time for us to use their own January 6th logic against them… pic.twitter.com/o8yNv4bDkX
As expected, ‘The Hindu’ did its best to shield Democrats from criticism. The Indian daily went on to imply that pointing out the dangerous discourse of Joe Biden and his party members in the run-up to the assassination attempt was somehow “vicious commentary” and false equivalence.
“The more complex and troubling question is the extent to which the Trump campaign, in its bid to capitalise on the near martyrdom of its candidate, will adopt the language of hate politics, building on vicious comments that have already been circulating on social media since the attack, many of them blaming Democrats for the violence and deliberately conflating political opposition with personal animus,” the newspaper attempted to give a clean chit to the real provocateurs.
Complete lack of empathy towards Donald Trump
Another concerning element of the editorial is also its defeating lack of empathy. The fact that the assassination claimed the life of an innocent spectator, critically injured two others and almost killed Donald Trump has little to no mention.
He is only mentioned in the context of elections, polarisation in the political discourse and the possible outcome of the 2024 Presidential race. This becomes evident from the following excerpts of the editorial –
- “The dramatic events have unfolded at a fraught time in American politics — not only is the 2024 presidential election a little over three months away”
- “So far as the impact on the election is concerned, Mr. Trump was already projected to be leading Mr. Biden narrowly in swing States — critical to the election result — in a range of polls. Now, that lead may widen, although whether it will be unassailable by election day remains to be seen.”
- “If the two presidential candidates, their campaign teams, and their party leaders abandon common civility in what should ideally be a structured partisan contest and allow baser populist instincts to dominate their speeches in the months ahead, it will inevitably exacerbate the already bitter state of polarisation in the public discourse.”
In its desperate attempt to villainise Donald Trump, ‘The Hindu’ failed to showcase empathy for the primary subject of its editorial piece who braved the assassination ploy with his indomitable spirit to “fight.”
The Hindu follows footsteps of its global leftist counterparts
The Left ecosystem, particularly in the US, had left no stone unturned to downplay the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. We have seen everything from labelling the attack as ‘staged’ to suggesting that nothing of any significance had occurred.
OpIndia had reported in detail how legacy media houses such as the Associate Press, CNN, ABC News, USA Today, MSNBC and The Washington Post wrote outrageous headlines to pass off gunfire as ‘loud noise.’
Though a late entrant in this game of whitewashing, The Hindu made it clear that it will not fall far behind its global counterparts in peddling agenda in the name of news editorial.
