It’s fine to call the US president a fascist or a despot – but this one line really rattled the White House

Washington: One thing that struck but did not shock me about the response to Saturday night’s shooting incident at the Washington Hilton is how many people vehemently believe it was staged by the Trump administration.

Neighbours of mine were adamant that’s what happened. Whether it was to justify Donald Trump’s ballroom, or to generate sympathy, or some other reason, they did not much care. All sorts of similar claims were promoted into my social media feed.

Of course, there’s a lot of rubbish on social media. But my neighbours are not lunatics. They’re normal people who are part of the large population of liberal, progressive voters – and Trump haters – in Washington.

The fact is, the US is so politically divided that there is hardly an ounce of goodwill left for the other “side”, even in the face of a horrific act like the one that unfolded at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The accused, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen, now faces potential life imprisonment after being charged with attempting to assassinate the US president.

It is the third time Trump has faced a serious assassination attempt after a bullet grazed his ear during an outdoor rally in Pennsylvania in 2024. Two months later, a would-be assassin was found hiding in the bushes on a Florida golf course.

Plainly, this level of politically motivated violence is not acceptable. And while it has always happened in the US – a country that staunchly refuses to do anything to restrict the availability of guns – the level of violence directed towards this president is clearly surplus to even American standards.

So, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says that “debating, peaceful protesting and voting are how we need to settle disagreements, not bullets”, she is absolutely right.

“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at President Trump day after day after day for 11 years has helped legitimise this violence and bring us to this dark moment,” she went on.

It’s getting harder to dispute that there might be some truth to that statement, too. But then it gets tricky. What level of criticism of the president does the administration deem acceptable – or unacceptable?

Leavitt gave some examples. “Those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist – as a threat to democracy – and compare him to Hitler to score political points are fuelling this kind of violence,” she said.

And yet, it was Trump himself who memorably said he didn’t mind if New York’s democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani called him a fascist. Nor did he object to being labelled a despot: “I’ve been called much worse.”

The White House’s latest leading example of dangerous anti-Trump rhetoric is a roast delivered by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on his show on Thursday night – two days before the dinner – that skewered the president and first lady.

Kimmel went hard, with references to Trump’s anatomy and his relationship with his wife. He also insinuated Trump had travelled on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane multiple times, when there is no evidence that ever took place.

But the part that really rattled the White House was when Kimmel referred to Melania having the “glow of an expectant widow”. Again, this aired well before Saturday’s dinner – and clearly was a reference to Trump’s age, not, as Leavitt claimed, the president being murdered.

At a time when there should be sympathy for Trump and the White House, they make it so much harder by overplaying their hand.

Even some of the harshest claims or insinuations that are sometimes made about the president have at least some grounding in fact.

In 2023, a civil jury awarded E. Jean Carroll millions in damages when it found Trump liable for sexually abusing her at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s, and for defaming her by denying the claim. Trump still denies it and is trying to have the decisions overturned.

Does any of that excuse an attempted assassination? No. It just makes it difficult for Trump to insist people shouldn’t condemn him in forceful terms or make fun of him on late-night television.

The real problem here is a country where so many people automatically assume the worst of one another, and can’t even agree on basic facts, and are increasingly superstitious about all matters involving politics. And, of course, the guns.

Trump has done more than most to contribute to this state of affairs and to devaluing integrity in public life. Who could forget his observation that actor Rob Reiner was killed (allegedly by his own son) because he “drove people CRAZY” by hating Trump?

The interlude of goodwill we saw from the president after Saturday’s incident did not last long. The next day, he was back to labelling 60 Minutes journalist Norah O’Donnell “horrible” and “a disgrace” for daring to quote from Allen’s alleged manifesto during an interview.

Saturday’s alleged assassination attempt was clearly real. So are the complex factors contributing to the rise in political violence. It doesn’t seem like they’re going to be addressed any time soon.

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