Thread by @SethAbramson

Do people realize that, per CNN, Trump said today in Michigan that "maybe it wasn't a problem" that pro-Trump domestic terrorists wanted to kidnap and murder Michigan's governor?

And that this was the same speech in which he ambiguously spoke of Biden being "shot" in early 2021?

Since when does a U.S. president "both sides" domestic terrorism? Since when does a U.S. president who spoke of his 2016 Democratic opponent being shot by "Second Amendment people" ambiguously use the word "shot" with respect to his 2020 opponent? And why is the GOP still silent?

I love people thinking a president who talked about his 2016 opponent being shot can't find *any other word* for Biden's alleged decline than saying the word "shot" at every rally, sometimes pointing his finger at his head and talking about Biden having "only half his head left."

I mean it seems *so plausible* that a man who says he has the "best words" wouldn't be able to find *any other English word* to describe mental decline than a violent image, in the context of a political career in which he *always* uses violent images to talk about his opponents.

Be glad I called Trump's use of the word "shot" *ambiguous* rather than a more richly deserved analysis: that it's yet another deliberate dog-whistle to violent radicals in a speech in which he *explicitly allowed that violent men who wanted to kill Democrats might be justified*.

If you don't think Trump gets a frisson of pleasure every goddamn time he talks about Joe Biden being "shot" you literally haven't watched a single speech by this man in the last four years, let alone been his biographer since 2017—as I've had the misfortune of being. He is sick.

So you can quibble with me saying that Trump used the word "ambiguously"—and insist that I *should* have said it was an *explicit dog-whistle*—but if you're on this feed telling me that that was an innocuous use of the word "shot" by Donald Trump you must on some level be joking.