What's Driving the Left's Culture of Assassination

Plus: the debate about "gatekeeping," and reflections on the alt-right.

Another week has brought another assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. Why is this still happening? How have we become so habituated to left-wing violence that such an incident only dominates the news cycle for two or three days?

A grim feature of assassination attempts against President Trump is that you have to measure them on a scale of proximity to success. So, the Butler assassination attempt—in which Trump was shot in the ear—is, in that sense, more serious than the other botched attempts, including the most recent at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. But even these comparatively less serious attempts still carry grave implications and are symbolic of a real problem. And if you stack up enough of them, it’s only a matter of time before more people get hurt.