An armed man tried to attack Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor, at a campaign event on Sunday. He carried two pistols and a Taser in the shape of brass knuckles, which is hardly sane behavior. Fortunately, he was detained before he could harm Acton.
County Sheriff Jerry Greene, who’s endorsed Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, downplayed the incident: “I think it was to ask her a couple of questions. He was just, you know, pretty aggressive about it.”
The kook was reportedly screaming, ‘Dr. Acton! Dr. Acton!” while charging toward her, which is definitely “aggressive,” but that’s a potentially lethal combination when the “aggressor” is carrying weapons.
“We spoke to Dr. Acton this afternoon and she said to share with Ohioans that she is ok,” Gov. Mike DeWine posted on social media. “Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable.”
Ramaswamy released a tepid statement through his spokesperson that did not mention Acton directly: “Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence.” He did later publicly wish Acton well, even though the previous weekend, he claimed she’d be “the first socialist governor that Ohio has ever seen.” (She’s not a socialist.)
Obviously, Donald Trump had nothing to positive or reassuring to offer, even though he was on social media all weekend, manically posting unhinged nonsense and imperialistic threats.
Acton’s attacker was identified as Patric Havas, who last voted in 2024 as a Republican. His brother is reportedly Andrew Havas, U.S. Sen. Jon Husted’s former Franklin County campaign chair. Andrew Havas resigned in July when it was revealed he’d spent time in jail related to accusations of sexual misconduct with a minor. If the political parties involved were reversed, Republicans would frame this as further evidence that the “radical left” has an issue with political violence. Instead, MAGA has already unleashed the conspiracy theory brigade.
Known lunatic Laura Loomer called the attack against Acton “staged and pre-planned.” She posted on social media, “This Amy Acton story is the biggest hoax of the weekend. How exactly were people injured? Nobody pulled a gun. This is a nothing burger story meant to distract from the fact that she was accused of being drunk on camera at her event yesterday where she was screaming like a lunatic.”
This is social media, so she posted this drivel without evidence or fear of any real consequence.
Smearing Democratic victims of political violence (both actual and attempted) is standard operating procedure among MAGA. Last year, a right-wing extremist named Vance Boelter assassinated Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. Barely a day after the horrific shooting, Republican Sen. Mike Lee posted two hateful, cruel messages on social media, both of them featuring security camera photos of a mask-wearing Boelter just before he opened fire.
The first post falsely blamed Democrats for the assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark: “This is what happens When Marxists don't get their way,” Lee wrote.
Lee also shared images of the killer — a staunch Trump supporter — with the caption, “Nightmare on Waltz street.” (Yes, Lee misspelled the governor’s name.) Lee would only delete the vile posts after grieving Minnesota Sen. Tina Baldwin confronted him.
Shortly before the 2022 midterms, a deranged man broke into the San Francisco home Nancy Pelosi shares with her husband, Paul, and almost bludgeoned him to death with a hammer. (She fortunately was in Washington, D.C. at the time.) Republicans, including Donald Trump’s first failed attempt at reproduction, used the almost fatal attack on an elderly man as an easy punch line. Donald Trump Jr. posted a photo on social media of a pair of men’s underwear and a hammer with the caption, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”
Charlie Kirk, who Paul Pelosi would outlive, suggested that one of his fans should post bail for Pelosi’s attacker: “If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out ... Bail him out and then go ask him some questions.”
Loomer’s lies about Sunday’s incident are consistent with how MAGA responds to blatant politically motivated violence from the right. They just reshape reality to fit their twisted world view.
It wasn’t long after the vicious attack on Paul Pelosi that right-wing activists, politicians, and media outlets started spreading even more vicious rumors — most of them absurd yet sickeningly homophobic — about what happened.
Hours after the Minnesota shootings, Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno posted on social media, “The degree to which the extreme left has become radical, violent, and intolerant is both stunning and terrifying.” Billionaire propagandist Elon Musk — far more dangerous than Hasan Piker — declared in a June 2025 social media post, “The far left is murderously violent.”
In January, yet another deranged man (they’ll never run out) sprayed apple cider vinegar from a syringe at Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar during a town hall meeting in Minneapolis. She easily could have been killed or maimed, but Trump predictably expressed zero sympathy or remorse for his hateful rhetoric against her. In fact, like Loomer, he suggested without evidence that the whole thing was staged: “I don’t think about her.” Trump told reporters. “I think she’s a fraud. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.”
MAGA has no shame or remorse and eagerly weaponizes those traits within the left. That’s what happened after Trump’s attempted assassination last year at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Although the shooter was reportedly a registered Republican, Trump and Republicans still blamed Democrats and the “radical left.” Their goal was to chill legitimate political criticism of Trump during the 2024 election, and it quite possibly contributed to his victory. The mainstream media immediately put President Joe Biden on the offensive about his “rhetoric” during the campaign.
Auditioning for his eventual spot on the presidential ticket, JD Vance declared on social media that the “central premise of the Biden campaign” had directly led to Trump’s attempted assassination. Republicans embraced this argument without any acknowledgement of their own blatant hypocrisy: Trump himself had called Biden a “threat to democracy” and repeatedly said “this country is finished if we don’t win this election.”
You’ll notice that the GOP’s most useless idiot, Sen. John Fetterman, will often lecture liberals to “turn down the temperature” if anyone so much as sneezes near a Republican or ICE agent, but he’s so far remained silent about what very well could have been an attempt on Dr. Amy Acton’s life. Meanwhile, Republicans will continue their smear campaigns.
I guess this is one of those "shocked but not surprised" moments. The fact is that political violence has always been a tactic mostly of the right in this country, and it now has been overtly encouraged by MAGA adherents (especially the clown at the top) for over a decade now. They don't condemn it because they're fine with it, and frankly Americans grew numb to gun violence a long, long time ago. It's just another sad legacy we are going to have to live with long after Trump is gone.
"The mainstream media immediately put President Joe Biden on the offensive about his “rhetoric” during the campaign."
Yet the MSM either fails to confront cons when one of them engaged in hateful, and deceitful rhetoric, or when they do, all the con to deflect, and fail to follow up. In short, the MSM holds Dems to a high standard, and doesn't hold cons to any standard at all. No wonder the cons keep doing what they are doing. It works, because they aren't held accountable for it.
The real story is how the MSM has failed us, ever since trump came down that golden escalator 11 years ago.