The Race to Be Wrong First about Annapolis

The shooter’s identity had not even been released when many prominent voices on the left began blaming Trump for the attack.

If you’re at all normal, which is to say not hysterically progressive, your reaction to initial reports of a horrific newsroom shooting in Annapolis, Md., was probably to assume it was the act of a disgruntled ex-employee. That is, after all, the usual back story to workplace massacres. Or your mind might have turned to other common motivators for such acts — psychosis, unrequited male affection. If you’re conversant with local newspapering specifically, you might have considered the special worry that accompanies this job: the danger of one of your readers being enraged by your coverage of a micro-feud involving zoning permits or construction detours or school-board composition or some other niche matter in which passions run inversely proportional to historical importance.

On the #Resist left, though, a faction increasingly prone to put emotions before reason, indeed to mistake the former for the latter, the immediate response was: This is on President Trump. Trump is up to his wrists in blood. Hasn’t Trump been railing at the press this week and for three solid years since he first announced his presidential candidacy? Did he not dub the media the “enemy of the people” on Monday night in South Carolina?

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