Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on July 16, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission.
The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a 20-year-old man from suburban Pittsburgh has riveted the nation’s attention. I have no wish to clutter the commentary with surplus verbiage. The National Association of Scholars is appalled by the murder of former fire chief Corey Comperatore and the attempted murder of Mr. Trump. We are on alert for news of whether the assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had been enrolled in any college program, and we are likewise watching to see how faculty and students on campuses around the country respond to this grievous event.
I will add this personal note. I grew up in suburban Pittsburgh and attended a high school in a township adjacent to Bethel Park, where Mr. Crooks attended school and still lived. I also had family who lived not far from Butler, and my uncle worked there. I still have friends who live nearby. I feel kinship with the people who attended the rally and admire how they handled themselves amid the horror. Pittsburgh is a heavily Democratic city, but its suburbs are purple, and the exurbs are famously Trumpian red. I am sure that no matter their political coloration, everyone in the region is appalled.
I head an organization that steers clear of partisan politics, but NAS is very much engaged in the great cultural debates of our time. Among those debates are how best to restore civility and the rule of law to a nation divided. The increasing resort to violent rhetoric and imagery gin up fear and intensify hostilities that undermine the republic. NAS stands as a proponent of the self-possession and restraint that have always been the noblest elements in American character.
Photo by Gage Skidmore of Donald Trump — Flickr
Whether he was enrolled in any college program is completely irrelevant to his crime. As far as how faculty and students will react, I believe most will probably express dismay and disappointment about this attempted assassination, but in the unlikely event that some do respond in ways that we find contrary to civil discourse, we should contribute to civility and rationality by avoiding broad generalizations based on the behavior of some individuals.
Sadly, I think this was a case of a young loner who saw no future and wanted to go out with a bang.
Two years attending a Community College with “A Commitment to Identify & Dismantle Campus Structures that Breed Disparities & then Redesign the College for Equity” had nothing to do with it?
Notwithstanding that, why do we HAVE young [White, male] loners who see no future?
Why is higher education now nearly 60% female?
The British press (Daily Mail) is reporting that “[h]e graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County in May with an associate degree in engineering science…”
See: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13642155/Trump-crook-cellphone-transmitter-shooter-rally-assassin.html
The other issue here is the glaring incompetence of the US Secret Service, starting with letting someone get on that roof where one would have a direct shot at a relatively close distance. (Every US soldier has to qualify at a greater distance.)
The woman running the USSS may check all the DEI boxes, but how many people have to DIE before competence becomes the only criteria that matters???
I couldn’t resist…
https://www.ccac.edu/about/diversity/our-commitment.php
Not that it is an excuse — I survived Planet UMass without shooting anyone — but I’d love to see his student file. If there were a scintilla of politically-neutral competence in either the top levels of the USSS or FBI, they’d be going down there and finding out if he tangled with CCAC’s Behavioral Intervention Team or any of the related Kangaroo Kort Lynch Mobs.
And the other thing I’d love to know is if his car bomb didn’t go “bang” because he didn’t trigger it, or because the radio frequencies were being jammed to prevent this possibility, which is common at events like this. We know that an electronic trigger was found on the roof with him, and at least one bomb was in his car — was his wiring as incompetent as his marksmanship, or was something far worse prevented by a scintilla of USSS competence?
We know that (a) the three other people hit were White males over the age of 50 and (b) weren’t exactly close to where Trump was. The perp’s poor marksmanship is a wild card, and this isn’t a statistically significant sample, but was this merely an assassination attempt, or was it also an act of terrorism? And to what extent was the community college’s clearly stated diversity agenda possibly involved?
I think these are fair questions to ask…