The Ice Queen of Palm Beach has melted.
Following the extraordinary events of Saturday night, the attempted assassination of a former president, Melania Trump shared a particularly emotional message of support for her wounded husband.
Swapping her six-inch stilettos for a feather-soft pen, Melania addressed her “fellow Americans” in an open letter that paints a rarely considered picture of Donald J. Trump as a generous family man.
“As I watched that vicious bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s, were about to change dramatically,” she wrote.
“A monster that my husband recognized as an inhuman political machine tried to convey Donald’s passion – his laughter, his ingenuity, his love of music and his inspiration.”
(Love music? I’m guessing ‘God Bless the USA’ by Lee Greenwood.)
The former first lady closed her letter with an elegant yet heartfelt plea: “Rise above the hatred, the vitriol, and the naïve ideas that fuel violence.”
Following the extraordinary events of Saturday night, the attempted assassination of a former president, Melania Trump shared a particularly emotional message of support for her wounded husband.
Swapping her six-inch stilettos for a feather-soft pen, Melania addressed her “fellow Americans” in an open letter that paints a rarely considered picture of Donald J. Trump as a generous family man.
Yes, good luck with that.
Trump hadn’t even finished wiping the blood from his mutilated ear before the non-binary, unemployed Gen Z began crying foul over their would-be assassin’s poor aim.
“Oh my f****** God why couldn’t it have been 2 inches in so we would never have heard of him again!” posted one TikToker who was on the verge of losing his job. Either way, that video had nearly 200,000 likes as of Sunday morning.
From that point on, the insane bloodlust spread through social media, into popular culture, and even into Congress.
Less than 12 hours after the shooting, horror author Stephen King saw fit to blame the victim.
“An AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle was used in the Butler shooting,” he tweeted. “These are the weapons the Republican Party – and Trump – want to protect.”
King believes that anyone who tries to defend Second Amendment rights should be shot.
Who is the dangerous one now?
A congressional aide for Rep. Bennie Johnson, the top Democrat in the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the Secret Service, posted on Facebook: “I don’t condone violence, but make sure you get some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time. Oops, that wasn’t me talking.”
Johnson wisely terminated his associate’s employment on the murder case immediately, but that was not guaranteed.
A congressional aide for Rep. Bennie Johnson, the top Democrat in the House Homeland Security Committee, which oversees the Secret Service, posted on Facebook: “I don’t condone violence, but make sure you get some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time. Oops, that wasn’t me talking.”
It was Johnson who tried to strip Trump of all Secret Service protection in the weeks leading up to the attack. (Man, that didn’t preserve well.)
Within 48 hours of the attack, any sense of sympathy for Trump and any sense of what an assassination of a presumptive party candidate during the election would have done to the national fabric had completely evaporated.
On Monday, CNN contributor and former White House communications director for Biden Kate Bedingfield called on Democrats to “focus their fire” on Trump.
And then the conspiracy theories come in!
On the second night of the Republican Party Convention, MSNBC analyst Michael Steele wondered whether Trump was even hurt.
“It’s been three, almost four days since this horrific event occurred,” Steele said, “… and yet we still have not received a medical report from the hospital, from the campaign, from the Trump Organization as to the extent of the damage to his ear.”
It’s Ear-Gate.
If I were Trump, I would repair my earlobe and surgically enlarge it with a middle finger, as a reminder to anyone who has forgotten basic human decency.
Almost everyone has lost their minds – everyone except Melania Trump.
As first lady, she deliberately stayed out of the political fray – she kept a low profile during the campaign and in the White House. According to her husband, she “hates” political life – and what ordinary person wouldn’t.
It’s a stark contrast to Dr. Jill Biden, who seems to enjoy the daily, dirty fights.
We will lose all our rights [if Trump is elected]’ she said on ABC News’ The View in May. ‘You have to believe him when he uses words like dictator, bloodbath, third term, violence,’ she ranted hysterically.
How incredibly inflammatory of you, Jill.
Of course, Melania’s reluctance to get into the mud of the partisans did not protect her from unruly partisans.
They still took every opportunity to criticize her—whether it was Christmas decorations or perceived rifts in her marriage. And the most despicable of her critics even spread false smears about her son, Barron.
But that’s the reality of life in America today—and only the naive would even consider flipping a switch to turn off the hyperbolic political rhetoric that’s fueling the crazies and upending Thanksgiving dinner tables everywhere.
That eye-bulging, vein-bulging, mind-expanding party spirit may never be bottled again.
But if there is anyone in the audience today who has the right to say that this is so, it is our Slovenian-born, former supermodel and former first lady.
In any case, I’m looking forward to Melania appearing at the RNC on Thursday night, because when she speaks, it will be one of the few sober voices I’ve heard in a while.