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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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An unknown assassin has attempted to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight. One person is dead. President Trump is unharmed. The disposition of the assassin is unknown.

Naturally, they are celebrating the assassination attempt on Reddit. The leftists completely lost me once they started celebrating the deaths of people they don’t like; they obviously want society to break down completely.

The majority of everyone from the political center rightward was celebrating the repeated assassinations of Iranian leadership a month ago too, so I don't think the other camp gets to claim the moral high ground here.

(...and either way, denouncing assassination attempts against anyone whose job significantly involves dealing out death seems rather comical, in the "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!" way.)

edit: Please stop with the arguments-as-soldiers responses. I shot down a bad argument; just because you agree with the thesis (that leftists are uniquely bad for celebrating assassination attempts on Trump), this is not sufficient grounds to stake your disagreement, unless you can specifically defend the argument (that it is so because they started celebrating the deaths of "people they don't like").

Are you taking as a given that Democrats think of the opposition party the same way that right-wingers think of a hostile foreign nation that has been calling for Death to America for 50 years?

That would be a very concerning level of radicalization and extremism, if it were true. Perhaps Trump should close shipping to California and NYC in retaliation, just like heroic Iran-kun.

And to stop the cute Mottely bush-beating and speak plainly, for a meaningful subsection of the left that might even be a majority, it obviously is true. It was just this week that the venerable NYT sat down with leftist thought leader Hasan Piker and platformed his calls for leftist political assassinations.

Are you taking as a given that Democrats think of the opposition party the same way that right-wingers think of a hostile foreign nation that has been calling for Death to America for 50 years?

The Republicans (or Democrats, if the table were reversed) and the leading clique of Iran are different in that Iran is completely incapable of causing significant and lasting harm upon the US.