Writing or saying something that imagines a real-world public figure coming to harm should not be done lightly – even when it serves some legitimate purpose, there is a risk of poor taste or, worse, that one’s words will be taken out of context by enemies looking for a “gotcha”. In such cases, a comment may falsely be cited as evidence of malice, or even as a threat or as incitement to bring about such harm.
This is what happened when the commentator David Aaronovitch recently reacted to news about a recent US Supreme Court ruling that appears to give US presidents extraordinary latitude beyound the reach of the law. Aaronovitch’s response on X/Twitter was sarcastic and satirical, opining “If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security #SCOTUS”. A number of individuals pretended to believe that he meant this in earnest, and the story was picked up by some newspapers: Aaronvitch presents a programme for BBC Radio 4, and so the incident was useful grist to the anti-BBC mill.
The controversy died down, as these things do, but of course it flared up again when a couple of weeks later a young embittered nobody who in a non-election year would likely have massacred some schoolchilden or shoppers decided instead to grasp at posthumous significance by attempting to assassinate Trump.
David has written about his experience on Substack. The first round, he explains, was initially set off by Laurence Fox. After that,
the pugilistic owner of two pubs in Essex [Adam Brooks] – a regular contributor to GBNEWS – was on my case alongside his 300,000 followers. The disgraced former Sun employee and GBNEWS presenter, Dan Wootton was there too. A ludicrous Trump supporting survivor of Piers Morgan’s departure from NewsUK’s failing Talk TV station, Mike Graham, was fulminating. Several Reform party candidates weighed in…
The story then got picked by Christian Calgie of the Daily Express, from where it jumped to the Daily Mail, the New York Post and even his former employer The Times. The headlines suggested that David had actually “called for” Biden to murder Trump, although The Times later modified their initial version. GB News meanwhile described him as “woke BBC presenter” – an adjective that served so explanatory purpose and would probably surprise a lot of people more likely to be described as “woke”.
Then, following the attempt on Trump’s life:
On the Laura Kuenssberg programme on BBC1 last Sunday Nigel Farage cited my tweet as an example of BBC-linked liberals wishing physical harm to their enemies… New online characters… such as a handsome but vacuous YouTuber called Mahyar Tousi were running whole discussions about it. Dim old luminaries like Henry Bolton.., renewed the demand for me to be fired… Katie Hopkins (remember her?) tweeted the head of Radio 4 wanting to know what he was going to do about me – an intervention. unlikely to damage my cause, I felt. Tommy Robinson added his pen’orth.
There was also, of course, a great deal of general abuse from lesser-known or anonymous individuals, some of it sinister. Even now, David’s Tweets on other subjects receive irrelevant and goading replies, sometimes featuring a screenshot of the long-deleted offending Tweet.
David doesn’t mention all of his higher-profile accusers and attackers, perhaps to keep his piece to managable length but also perhaps to avoid giving an impression of responding personally to certain individuals rather than offering public commentary of general public interest. However, there are two further instances that I think are worth noting.
First, Covid “lab-leak” exponent Matt Ridley waded in with a gratuitous goad after David reasonably suggested that being accused on inciting the attempted murder of a politician might be endangering.
Second, right-wing populist academic Matt Goodwin denied outright David’s explanation that the Tweet had been satirical, although he declined to be drawn on why he believes it was meant as a serious proposition. Last year, it may be recalled, Goodwin complained bitterly and Partridge-like that after debating David in London, David and the convener, Alan Rusbridger, had gone off to dinner without inviting him. After the shooting, Goodwin decided again to amplify a screenshot of the Tweet, as provided by the dubious Visegrád 24 outfit.
Goodwin also expanded on his theme with his own Substack post, in which he opined more generally about how the shooting had occurred because Trump has been the victim of unfair vilification. There’s currently no evidence that the shooter was inspired by any anti-Trump polemics, but either way this was ludicrous cant and opportunism. Sky News ran a piece pointing out Trump’s actual violent rhetoric, although it was forced to amend its headline after being accused of “victim blaming”. In the US, Rolling Stone showed a bit more gumption with the headline “Trump Allies Try to Bully Dems, Media to Shut Up About His Fascist Plans”, followed by the observation that “Republicans are seeking to capitalize on Trump’s assassination attempt — using it to demand everyone stop talking about his threats to democracy”.
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