Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, Steven Kenneth Bonnell, a popular streamer and left-wing political commentator known online as “Destiny,” has been scrutinized for his appalling comments about the shooting. As the news was spreading through...
The post Destiny’s Comments on Trump’s Attempted Assassination Reveal Liberalism’s Underlying Justifications of Violence appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
Following the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, Steven Kenneth Bonnell, a popular streamer and left-wing political commentator known online as “Destiny,” has been scrutinized for his appalling comments about the shooting. As the news was spreading through social media on Saturday evening, the influencer admitted to being “honestly conflicted” on how he felt. Unsurprisingly, this drew condemnation from people on X, which apparently resolved the conflict for Destiny, prompting him to unapologetically side with those defending the assassination attempt.
“If we learned anything today,” he wrote, “I hope it’s realizing the importance of principles I’ve stressed many times on stream before: having a firearm means absolutely nothing if you don’t spend time at the range practicing with it.” Then, commenting on a picture of the blood-stained bleachers where Corey Comperatore may have been standing, Destiny said: “All I see is Biden up +1 in Pennsylvania?”
This post was met with such revulsion, only hours after the horrific and preventable death of an innocent man, that even some of Destiny’s admirers stepped in to condemn him. One such user commented: “Dude, come on, man. I watch hours of your videos and think you are the best debater out there and one of the most intelligent people I have ever listened to. Can you just have a second of respect for somebody’s loved one they just lost?”
Yet, Destiny’s remarks did not stop there. Rather, in response to the way some conservatives reacted to former president Obama’s statement, he continued: “The replies to this tweet are all you need to know for why conservatives don’t deserve your respect as humans in this country.” Later in the night, at 3:56 a.m., Destiny defended his previous comments by arguing that, “[Y]ou have no obligation to support anti-democratic dictators in a democratic country. We didn’t vote for Independence.”
His public endorsements of political violence have continued since, to the surprise and disappointment of many of his own followers and fellow Democrats. The Young Turks’ Ana Kasparian, for instance, responded to Destiny by saying, “your behavior has been manic on here lately: I think you need to log off. You’re spiraling.” Destiny was also banned on Kick due to his inflammatory rhetoric.
Although Destiny is one of the few prominent voices who has unabashedly endorsed the attempted assassination of the former president and Republican nominee, as well as the killing of Comperatore, his views are representative of a broader trend that logically follows from the Left’s outlook on Trump and his supporters. As The American Spectator’s Nate Hochman wrote in a recent piece:
If Trump really was an existential, unprecedented threat to democracy, why wouldn’t any and all means of preventing his rise be justified? If Trump really was on the cusp of a thousand-year Reich, why shouldn’t Americans stop at nothing to stop him? If Trump really was going to end America as we know it if given the chance to win an election, what reason is there to give him that chance in the first place?
Indeed, Destiny is less of an outlier than he might seem. In many ways, he is merely articulating the implications of liberalism’s existential battle against the growing potential of a postliberal consensus. People on both the Left and the Right have grown more and more dissatisfied with the liberal status quo of unrestrained “freedom” in the market, paired with unrestrained “freedom” in the social sphere. For example, during their coverage of the Republican National Convention, The Young Turks — a progressive news and commentary program — praised the “surprising” pro-labor speech given by International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien on Monday night.
Destiny has been publicly endorsing political violence, but the precepts for doing so are ones he shares with most Democrat elected officials. From Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to President Joe Biden, an overwhelming majority of the party has rallied behind the idea that Trump is an “existential threat to democracy.”
This is humorous, of course, for there is nothing undemocratic about Trump. Quite the opposite — his populist rhetoric and agenda appeal to “the many,” in the words of Aristotle, or those whom Trump himself has described as “the forgotten men and women of our country.” But the Trump movement is increasingly illiberal, especially with Sen. JD Vance as his presidential running mate. In this sense, he is a threat to liberalism, not democracy.
The assumption that democracy must always align with liberalism, and vice versa, is merely that: an assumption (and a false one at that). Liberalism’s staunch defenders, however, will always equate the two. And, in fairness, it is a pretty smart strategy that has worked for centuries. Yet the tide seems to be turning, and liberalism’s troops in both parties are noticing. Destiny is just saying the quiet part out loud.
The post Destiny’s Comments on Trump’s Attempted Assassination Reveal Liberalism’s Underlying Justifications of Violence appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.
