Дональд Трамп - Triggered

It was in those few hours, right after the networks finally called the presidential election, that the liberal press and the Clinton camp first started groping around for anything that would explain their loss. For them, my father’s victory was the worst possible thing that could have happened. The postmortem that immediately followed the election read as if the world had come to an end. “The world’s shining light of democracy has gone dark,” one journalist said. Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times , wrote that markets were plunging, and that they would probably never recover (How’d that work out?). A few weeks later, Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN—who, by the way, has my father to thank for his job—blamed himself, saying that the network probably shouldn’t have aired so many of DJT’s campaign rallies. Yeah, right, Jeff. You could have filled the airspace with New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper reruns, and my dad still would have won. I guess these days CNN is paying reparations by choosing to be the anti-Trump network at all costs—especially in the ratings. All the experts proved what we’ve all known all along. That they are full of shit. They all got it so wrong they needed cover and when they saw something, no matter how asinine, it became gospel to cover their abject failure.

Still, the left wouldn’t feel sorry for itself for long.

First it picked up the Russian spy story and started pushing it to every devastated reporter who would listen.

Then it did everything it had told us the Trump supporters would do if Hillary won. Think about it. For weeks leading up to the election, we had been hearing about all the horrible things Donald Trump would force his supporters to do if he lost. DJT wouldn’t accept the defeat they were all so sure was coming. The editorial boards at the New York Times and the Washington Post both ran many articles warning us about the chaos that was about to ensue. According to popular opinion, Trump supporters were going to riot in the streets, refuse to accept the results of the election, and begin some kind of underground coup against the duly elected president, Hillary Clinton. They would start a second civil war. The streets would become absolute anarchy.

And when things didn’t go the way the Democrats had wanted them to go, what happened?

Let’s see. They held riots in the streets. (Check.) They refused to accept the results of the election, cooking up one of the strangest spy-movie stories I’ve ever heard in order to maintain their collective delusion. (Check.) Then they formed an underground group of online keyboard warriors called “the Resistance,” dedicated to taking down my father one stupid hashtag at a time. Prominent journalists, liberal activists, and actors have all identified themselves as proud members of “the Resistance” on Twitter. When I’m attacked by an outraged mob online, their voices are usually among the loudest. (And Check.)

The hatred that fomented online and in protests became hand-to-hand combat—and I mean real violence, the kind you usually see only in Third World countries. I’m not kidding. The same party that used to preach peace, tolerance, and inclusivity (mostly platitudes when you look at its history, which I will) has now become the party of hate, violence, and suppression of free speech.

So-called activists on the extreme left have moved from their safe spaces and the basements of their parents’ houses out into the streets, usually clad in black hockey pads and carrying weapons. Sometimes they call themselves antifascists, or Antifa, but most of the time, they don’t know why they’re there or what they even believe. All they know is hate and anger. Time and again, these people try to shut down speakers with whom they don’t agree. They attack journalists in the streets and threaten anyone who doesn’t go along with their twisted sense of social justice and equality.

They’re not exactly the most physically imposing people in the world (that’s what happens when you live on nothing but soy lattes and veggie burgers), but the sheer force of their numbers is shocking. They have allowed hate to spread at a rate we haven’t seen since the era of civil rights, when Democrats—the party that founded the KKK, in case you’ve forgotten—would organize lynch mobs and counterprotests all across the South, most of which ended in horrific violence.

These people are irrational, hysterical, upset, and out looking for enemies.

I should know. As of November 16, 2016, I became one of their top targets. Before the election, I was just a guy who appeared on television every once in a while, went to work, and went home at the end of the day and played with my kids. There were probably a few people who thought I was an asshole because I was blessed to have been born into a wealthy family. But no one was mailing suspicious powder to my home or screaming at me in a restaurant where I was celebrating my brother’s birthday. No one was threatening my life. After the election, I became the guy who receives the second highest number of death threats in the country (according to the Secret Service, second only to my father). And that’s a list that includes senators, former presidents, and ambassadors to several war-torn countries. Here’s what the exploding letter filled with powder that sent my then wife and a member of my Secret Service detail to the hospital said: “You are an awful person. This is why people hate you. You are getting what you deserve. So shut the f—k up.”

Keep in mind that I hadn’t done anything to that person, who, by the way, turned out to be a liberal activist and an Elizabeth Warren donor. I’ve never had an actual physical confrontation with any of those lunatics in my life. All I do is give speeches, have opinions, run a business, and support the president of the United States, who also happens to be my father. For that, I get the second highest number of death threats in the country.

It gets worse. Much worse.

In June 2017, a left-wing activist, armed with a rifle and a 9 mm handgun, walked up to a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game and started shooting at Republicans. Sometime before, he’d tweeted: “It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” My friend Republican Whip Steve Scalise was so badly injured he almost died. Matt Mikaf, a lobbyist and former legislative assistant, was critically wounded and underwent surgery. Another legislative aide, Zack Barth, was shot in the calf. Two Capitol Police officers, David Bailey and Crystal Griner, were injured just before they took down the shooter.

These days, anyone who supports my father is a target. Just as the anti-Trump revolution was beginning, Senator Rand Paul, one of my father’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, was brutally attacked by his neighbor, an avowed lefty. The man ran down a steep hill to gain momentum and then blindsided Senator Paul, who had headphones on and his back turned. He never knew the man was coming. The senator had six broken ribs and blood in his lungs. Doctors who examined him said that the injuries sustained were more consistent with a car accident than a sucker punch. As he was recovering, the left celebrated. The celebration continues among some of the most callous and idiotic people on the left. Just a few months ago, the comedian Tom Arnold tweeted: “Imagine being Rand Paul’s neighbor and having to deal with @RandPaul lying cowardly circular whiny bullcrap about lawn clippings. No wonder he ripped his toupee off.” Within seconds, Representative Ilhan Omar had retweeted it, obviously gleeful that the attack had taken place. Nice, right? And they say Donald Trump is the one who’s vulgar, but they won’t say anything about Omar allegedly marrying her brother to enter the country illegally. Or, having an affair with a married paid staffer, or as someone hilariously commented on my Instagram feed, “She puts the infidel in infidelity.” Whether it’s true or not, she’s not exactly the moral authority the media makes her out to be.