When a man threw two Molotov cocktails into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion April 13, torching several rooms as Gov. Josh Shapiro and family slept upstairs, it set off a nonstop parade of national media appearances where Shapiro admonished the general public about political violence.
“This type of violence has no place in our society,” Shapiro said in a piece for The New York Times this week. He has repeated that sentiment almost verbatim in interviews and press conferences.
He called for “this type of violence” to be “universally condemned,” during a sit-down interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos filmed in the charred mansion’s dining room. “I think every single leader has a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and condemn this kind of violence,” Shapiro told Stephanopoulos.
But moral clarity gets fuzzy for Shapiro and the left when victims are on the right, or the criminals are loved by the left.
Who on the left has condemned the attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships? Not Shapiro, even as protest rhetoric gets more fervent and participation curtails business operations. The left has either participated in such events or cheered it on.
Where is the condemnation of the February incident at Pennsylvania state Rep. Alec Ryncavage’s office? A man was caught on a surveillance camera throwing two “firebomb-like devices,” at the Republican’s legislative district office. A spokeswoman for Ryncavage’s office confirmed Shapiro never reached out to him over the incident.
Shapiro likes to remind everyone that he condemned violence when President Donald Trump was shot in the head while on the campaign trail in Butler. And he did.
But that news cycle was abandoned in days. Democrats and the compliant press had an election to win, and the Butler story didn’t help their cause. And you hear next to nothing about would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh, who is accused of waiting for Trump, with a gun, on the edge of his Florida golf course. All quickly forgotten by the same propaganda press that still fawns over Shapiro after the mansion fire.
The cooperative media has dutifully asked sympathetic questions and made many requests for the retelling of what it was like for the Shapiro family that night.
Shapiro is happy to discuss it with reporters, in “never let a crisis go to waste,” fashion.
He can’t stop talking about the fire because this kind of violence — with compelling photos and a sympathetic storyteller — is catnip to reporters, and the best kind of political currency for whatever aspirations Shapiro has. This is the failed Democratic playbook.
As violence goes, no one got physically hurt in Shapiro’s mansion fire. Taxpayers are footing the bill for cleanup since it is publicly owned.
This is not to disregard the terror of waking to a burning home and the knowledge that someone wants to harm you. That is truly awful and will stay with them a long time. But we live in a world that has forgotten people who lost everything and are still rebuilding homes from the California fires and the Carolina floods.
It is impossible to ignore the selective concern over “this type of violence” from a Democratic Party leader when Democrats are not only silent about crime committed by illegal aliens, but they actively work to keep criminals in the United States.
Silent on Tesla attacks. Silent when former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice overreached against Americans in ways we had not seen before. Silent when Biden abruptly pulled the U.S. out of Afghanistan, leaving 13 Americans to be killed by an ISIS suicide bomber. But not silent on babies murdered through abortion; they celebrate that.
The truth is, the left loves violence. It causes fear and anger. These are tools of intimidation for shaping public opinion and behavior.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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