Steve Scalise following assassination attempt on Trump: 'This incendiary rhetoric must stop'

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and several other Republican lawmakers were practicing for a charity baseball game in 2017 when a leftist terrorist took aim at them and opened fire. Scalise, among the wounded, took a bullet to the hip. He suffered fractured bones, damaged organs, and severe bleeding.

Following the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump Saturday, Scalise noted, "For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America. Clearly we've seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past."

"This incendiary rhetoric must stop," added Scalise.

While a handful of Democrats condemned the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, many in their party have spent years and untold sums of money vilifying Trump and his tens of millions of supporters.

"This MAGA threat is a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions," President Joe Biden stressed in a speech last September. "It's also a threat to the character of our nation that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans, a common cause."

In December, Biden wrote, "Trump poses many threats to our country: The right to choose, civil rights, voting rights, and America's standing in the world. But the greatest threat he poses is to our democracy."

'He will destroy this country, our democracy.'

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) noted after the Trump rally shooting, "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination."

Plenty of Democrats besides Biden have worked ardently to push this narrative despite knowing all along it was bogus.

Years after calling Trump and his fellow Republicans "enemies of the state," Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested in April that Trump is "a great threat to our democracy."

The Democratic National Committee has, for instance, has been running an ad campaign in multiple states labeling Trump not only a "fraud," a "liar," and a "denier" but also a "threat to our democracy," reported The Hill.

There have, of course, been variations on this theme.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Trump presents a "clear and present danger" both to the Congress and to the country. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), apparently reading from the same script, indicated that every moment Trump is in office is a "clear and present danger to the safety and security of the American people."

In May, California Rep. Maxine Waters (D), long a champion for street violence, attempted to paint Trump as a dictator in waiting.

Waters suggested to MSNBC talking head Jonathan Capehart that Trump would seek a third term and stated, "Donald Trump will do any and everything that he can possibly get away with. He does not at all support the Constitution of the United States of America. This is a man who we better be careful about."

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) chimed in, telling Capehart, "If Donald Trump gets re-elected, there is no doubt that he will try to stay in office beyond his four-year term. He will destroy this country, our democracy."

Biden — whose team lashed out at Trump for using the word "bloodbath" in reference to the economic fallout of continued offshoring of jobs under the current administration — suggested on a donors-only call last week that "it's time to put Trump in a bullseye."

The New York Sun noted that unlike Trump's "bloodbath" comment, Biden's "bullseye" remark "has no banal application."

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