"But Trump," the Pro-Assassination Party Screams

Jay Jones is the Democrats’ Attorney General candidate in Virginia. If you watch CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, or read the New York Times, USA Today, Politico, Axios, or most other news outlets, you’d be forgiven for not knowing the man called for the assassination of the Republican Speaker of the House in Virginia and the murder of the Speaker’s children.

He actually fantasized about assassinating the former Speaker and killing his children because the former Republican Speaker, Todd Gilbert, dared to say nice things about a deceased Democratic member of the Virginia House of Delegates at the man’s funeral.

“But look at all these things Trump has done,” the Democrats respond.

“And January 6th,” they add on.

Jay Jones also got arrested for driving 116 mph in a 65 mph interstate zone. The law in Virginia requires jail or community service. A judge sentenced Jones to 1000 hours of community service. He spent 500 of those hours working for his own political campaign and did not tell the judge that was how he spent his community service time. He fundraised for himself.

If Jones were a Republican, every major news outlet in America would demand to know what the congressional Republicans think. A few years ago, a local public official who happened to be a Republican made a racist remark, and national reporters were on Capitol Hill demanding that Republican Senators and Congressmen denounce the man none of them had heard of.

Here, we have the Democrats’ Attorney General candidate in Virginia wishing a politician’s children were murdered and the politician killed, and Manu Raju of CNN is nowhere to be seen shoving microphones in Democrats’ faces.

“But January 6,” say the Democrats. It has become their get-out-of-accountability card. “Trump and the GOP behave in awful ways, so we do not have to hold ourselves to the standard we demand he live up to,” cry the Democrats.

“You Republicans have moral authority to say anything,” they insist as they say nothing.

When evangelicals embraced Trump, my friend David French, along with the hand-wringers at The Bulwark and elsewhere, all lamented the Christian evangelicals’ willingness to overlook Donald Trump’s sins and bad behavior. Here’s the current Speaker of the House in Virginia, Don Scott, in a church pulpit, urging his congregation to ignore Jay Jones’s text messages calling for the assassination of the previous Speaker and the murder of his children.

“So we need to understand something. We have to be mature in our thinking and how we vote. We can’t get distracted because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else. Stay focused,” he says from the pulpit.

David French, who is consistent on these issues, is calling for Jay Jones to withdraw from the race. In fact, David is crystal clear on this issue.

Will Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark speak up?

Will S.E. Cupp speak up?

Will any of the people who call themselves former Republicans because of Trump’s behavior speak up?

Bill Kristol? Anybody? Geoff Duncan? Hello? Anybody home?

When Marc Short, Vice President Pence’s former Chief of Staff, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, he was the first person on that network to bring up the issue. The reaction speaks for itself.

I guess that Neera Tanden is so willing to excuse Jay Jones’s private conversations because so many Democrats are having private conversations much like those. Are Neera and her friends wishing death on their opponents? The party that favors assassination is having a real moment.

In the 1990’s, Republicans believed character counted and watched as Democrats stood by Bill Clinton. Republicans believed character counted and stood by George W. Bush as Democrats assailed him as a Nazi. Democrats attacked, attacked, and attacked.

Now, Democrats are appalled that Republicans have decided to overlook character and insist the GOP do so. But Democrats still refuse to look at character and cannot understand why Republicans have started playing by the Democrats’ rules.

“But January 6,” gets you no further when, after two assassination attempts on Donald Trump, a progressive killed Charlie Kirk for his political views, and a Democrat Attorney General candidate called for the assassination of a politician and the murder of his children, Democrats and the Bulwark crowd stay silent.

And, ironically, the bigger scandal is that the same candidate dedicated 500 hours of community service to his own political operation and obfuscated that fact to the court so he could get away with it. But in a culture where the Democrats are increasingly violent and calling for violence, that will get overshadowed by this.

Ironically, Jay Jones, the Democrat, is a nepo-baby raised in privilege running against the incumbent Virginia Attorney General, who was raised in a working-class neighborhood by a single mother. And Jay Jones will rely on Trump haters in the press and in the public to keep quiet so the nepo-baby can win.

Jay Jones, in a private text message — so not public hyperbole, but a private conversation expressing candid thoughts — said he hoped the former Speaker, Todd Gilbert, would have have wife watch their child die in her arms so that Todd Gilbert might reconsider his political views.

And the people who hate Trump will find lots of excuses to deflect, scream “both sides,” and do everything possible to avoid condemning the man whom Democrats think is fit for Attorney General of Virginia.

Now, I go back to Don Scott, the current Speaker of the Virginia House. Here is his full speech in the pulpit. He begins with announcing the death of Candis King, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Virginia Delegate Candi Mundon King (D–23rd District). Candis King died in her father’s arms as he tried to resuscitate her.

Speaker Scott ended his speech by asking the Christian congregants to ignore the Democrats’ Attorney General candidate, Jay Jones, hoping a different parent would have to watch their child die in the parent’s arms.

And all the Democrats in the comments said, “But Trump,” and remained silent on Jay Jones. I’m sure Struggle Session with Abby Phillip will cover it tonight on CNN with “But Scott!”