Remember how quickly local MAGAs went after people who had posted online about the murder of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk?
People lost their jobs – some, who seemed to celebrate the gruesome shooting death, maybe deservedly so; the bulk, who simply questioned the outpouring for Kirk, a bit player, at best, on the political scene, not so much.
We wrote in the aftermath of the Kirk murder about an online mob led by an elected Augusta County official – a career politician named Steve Landes, who is paid six figures to merely oversee a records office – that forced a couple operating a local bed and breakfast out of business.
Landes never did face any repercussions from being behind that effort.
And, shocker, Landes – career pol, loyal MAGA – has been noticeably quiet on his socials today in the aftermath of Donald Trump doing with respect to the murder of director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, what Landes and other MAGAs fever-dreamed themselves into thinking Democrats and progressives did after the death of Kirk.
“Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” the president wrote on his Truth Social website Monday.
I have to admit, when I first saw this circulating online, I thought it had to be a parody – though I also have to admit, when I first heard the news about the tragic double-murder, I put a bullet point on my story ideas sticky note to remind myself to pay attention to Trump today, because this kind of thing seemed to be in the offing.
Trump, waste of carbon and oxygen that he is, doubled down on the pissing-on-the-dead-man’s grave sentiment expressed in the Truth Social note today when asked about it in a news gaggle at the Oval Office.
“Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person, as far as Trump is concerned,” Trump said, blissfully unaware of the meaning of the word deranged, and its applicability to himself.
“He said, he likely knew it was false, in fact, it’s the exact opposite, that I was a friend of Russia, controlled by Russia, you know, the Russia hoax. He was one of the people behind it,” Trump said, revealing a lot about himself – that the first thing that comes to mind when a critic is murdered in cold blood is, Russia.
“I think he hurt himself career-wise,” said Trump, whose only TV show, “The Apprentice,” was canceled in 2015 due to its low ratings.
“He became like a deranged person, with the Trump Derangement Syndrome. So, I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country,” Trump said.
Given the opportunity to, just once, concede that, yeah, I shouldn’t have said that, I apologize, I wasn’t a fan, but he didn’t deserve to go that way, Trump couldn’t pull the trigger.
Pathetic, worthless – a tiny man, masquerading as substance.
I’m not seeing anybody who commented on the Steve Landes Facebook post that led to the closure of the bed and breakfast – any of the folks who wanted the business closed down, who wanted them banished from the community – comment on Trump doing a victory dance on the stabbing death of a critic.
Nothing on this either from Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline, who said in the aftermath of the Kirk murder:
“It was a tragedy that I think will actually light a fire under a lot of people to continue to express themselves freely on campus, to start new chapters of Turning Point or other groups that are going to encourage debate and discussion, and reject a culture of violence that all too often comes from the left.”
That “culture of violence,” it starts at the top, with Trump.
Seriously, it doesn’t take much to read into Trump’s Truth Social comment on the Reiner murder to understand that he was unaware when he made that comment that police had charged the Reiners’ son, Nick, in their murder – and that Trump, instead, assumed that the person responsible was a Trump fan, who, we have to presume, based on Trump’s words, would have been justified, to Trump, in slitting the Reiners’ throats, because of “the anger he (Reiner) caused others.”
What about that, Ben?
What about that, Steve?
Steve Landes. Photo: Augusta County Clerk of Circuit Court office
Steve Landes, in particular: dude, you went after a private citizen because he posted a comment online wondering aloud why people should pray for a little-known MAGA activist against a backdrop of what we know about Donald Trump’s involvement with serial child pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
That guy didn’t say Charlie Kirk deserved to die, just suggested that he didn’t deserve being lionized.
The president said directly that Rob Reiner was murdered “due to the anger he caused others.”
Do you hold a private citizen to a higher standard than the President of the United States of America, and if so, why?
Landes, and the commenters on his post – which included a litany of local business elites, and one home builder currently facing felony fraud charges – advocated for a person to lose his livelihood for saying a lot less about the death of one man than the POTUS has been saying the past few hours about the death of another.
You pushed the one guy out of business; now it’s time for you to push the other guy out of the White House.
I don’t actually expect a single one of you to do anything other than fall in line.
I’m only writing this to let you know: that we know.
Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, TikTok, BlueSky, or subscribe to Substack or his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].
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