Here in America, we continue to live in the most precedented unprecedented times, where decades of gun violence and horrifying political strategy have converged around the weekend’s shooting at a Trump rally, which left one spectator dead and three people injured, including Trump, who was hit in the ear. Some Republicans have spread conspiracies blaming the left (the shooter’s motives remain unclear, though officials are investigating it as an assassination attempt). Democrats have been quick to offer condolences and pull Biden’s campaign communications. And, in peak “one of these things is not like the other,” comedy band Tenacious D canceled their tour.
Tenacious D, a band fronted by actor Jack Black and Kyle Gass, was on tour in Sydney, Australia when Gass, as part of making a birthday wish on stage, said “Don’t miss Trump next time.” The backlash was swift. Some Australian wacko politician Luke had to teach me about demanded the duo’s deportation from Australia. And Black, the other half of the creative duo, said he was “blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday. I would never condone hate speech or political violence in any form. After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold.”
(Update, 5:20pm: Rolling Stone reports that Gass has since been dropped by his agent. Gass also made a statement on Instagram, writing in part, "The line I improvised on stage Sunday night in Sydney was highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake. I don't condone violence of any kind, in any form, against anyone.")
I haven’t thought about Tenacious D since 2006, so I don’t have any skin in the game on the canceled tour or the future of the band. But they’re a unique meeting point for the messy discourse following the assassination attempt. They’re famous enough to be scolded by those who believe in civility (or at least want to perform it), and famous enough to cave to the scolding and issue a generic Instagram statement. But they’re also minor enough to say, or feel they can say, what regular people might want to say as complicated humans living through intensely fucked-up times.
Black appeared to laugh at the joke on stage, suggesting the canceled tour is less a reflection of an earnest commitment to compassion or civility and more a PR move, especially in light of his career in voice acting. And while you could read Gass’ joke as an incitement to violence about which people should be concerned, there’s no denying it’s an expression of the way lots of regular people are feeling right now, which is one of the functions of art. Canceling their tour feels like the as-yet weirdest example of how much everyone—both public figures and regular folks like you and me—are struggling to figure out how to talk about what happened to Trump.
Let’s take a look at the field. In terms of people you would expect to be obligated to say something about all this, Democrats have long prioritized their vision of civility over actually achieving anything politically, so their responses, as well as their strategic silences, aren’t a surprise to me. It has not been lost on many that Nancy Pelosi sent Trump her love even though Republicans mercilessly mocked the attack on her husband in 2022. “Thoughts and prayers,” one of America’s leading exports, has taken on a new cast since Saturday. And while taking the high road might sometimes be laudable for everyday humans, we’ve seen, time and again, that Democrats’ “going high” has simply been met by more “going low” from their opponents. By retreating when so many eyes are on the national stage, they’re simply handing the conversation over to one side, and I don’t think it’s fatalist to say that doesn’t lead anywhere good.
So far, Republicans have largely filled the space with sympathy for Trump and the killed and injured attendees, though also with blame for Biden and the press. J. D. Vance, now Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee, said on Twitter, “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.”
Much hay has also been made over the widow of Saturday’s victim refusing to speak to Biden when he called her, as well as the fact that Trump hasn’t called her. Whatever this says about civility in politics or the rabid commitment of Trump’s base, I think it’s fair for someone grieving the death of their husband to talk to or not talk to whoever they want. She might find herself in the spotlight, but she’s not a public figure under any particular obligation.
Which brings us to all the rest of us. For us regular people, following the assassination attempt Saturday, social media was abuzz with jokes similar to Gass’, and then just as abuzz with people warning other people not to say stuff that could get them investigated by the feds. This is good advice, and many people are rightly worried about the consequences of being publicly anti-Trump if he wins in November.
But let’s remember that life does not take place solely on social media, which brings me to a question I—and maybe you—have been wrangling with since Saturday: how should you talk about all this?
In the privacy of your own life (and, if you’re really concerned about opsec, far away from your phone), you can believe and think and say whatever you want. Is it wrong to wish for the death of someone who has been very clear they wish for your death? Is the assassination attempt the Right’s violent rhetoric looping around to bite them in the ass? And should a comedy rock band play by regular person rules, or by public figure rules?
Despite the fact that I personally am religious, I don’t believe it’s my job, or the job of any regular people, to dispense a unique grace to Trump or his powerful allies in this instance. A bad thing happening to a bad person doesn’t make that person good, or mean that they are owed a pass on their harmful words and actions. You and I are not under the same obligation Democrat politicians and Tenacious D seem to think they are to pivot our priorities or press “pause” on our causes. We are under an obligation to make our world a place worth living in, whether we define that through our faith or our politics or our art or whatever values guide us. We can hold a lot of different ideas in our brains and hearts at once. Tenacious D might cancel the tour, but we don’t have to.
