WaPo Gets All Hand-Wringy Because People Are Suggesting Trump Needs To Be Assassinated

submitted by Powderhorn to politics 23 points | 2 comments https://www.techdirt.com/2026/05/12/wapo-gets-all-hand-wringy-because-people-are-suggesting-trump-needs-to-be-assassinated/ > Let’s make one thing clear before I start digging into the Washington Post firing up its teapot-based Tempest Generator: I do not support the assassination of Donald Trump. I am understandably impatient with the “let nature take its course” progression we’ve observed so far, but I would not encourage anyone to expedite this process in bullet form. > > That being said, what the fuck is the Washington Post even doing here? > >> Peyton Vanest was fuming about President Donald Trump when he grabbed his phone and hit record. “Somebody should,” he declared, pausing for dramatic effect. “Somebody should, you know?” >> >> “If somebody knew what needed to be done, that person should probably just do it …” the 27-year-old progressive influencer continued, conspicuously not defining “it.” >> >> […] >> >> Vanest’s vague plea — posted 18 days before the third apparent attempt on Trump’s life in less than two years — is part of a social media trend that has twisted the idea of a presidential assassination into a morbid joke. > > The “vague plea” that opens this (is it an op-ed or what is it exactly?) article by the Washington Post gathered “3.2 million views.” The way these paragraphs flow together invite an inference that cannot plausibly be made: that people fucking around on the internet somehow led to the shooting (mostly of the shooter) at the White House Correspondents Dinner.