In the aftermath of Wednesday’s shooting at a Dallas immigration facility, the propaganda press is more upset that Republicans are noticing the left-wing motives behind recent political violence than about the violence itself.
In Wednesday’s shooting an individual identified by authorities as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn opened fire on an ICE transportation vehicle in Dallas. Jahn fatally shot one detainee, while injuring two others. Jahn died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, with authorities announcing additional rounds found near Jahn were inscribed with “ANTI-ICE.”
Yet members of the propaganda press were quick to question the significance of the evidence to suggest that the real problem was not the violence itself, but Republicans acknowledging who and what is behind such violence.
In a recent example of this, The New York Times’ Jesse McKinley asserted that the motive of the gunman is unclear while critiquing President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance for pointing out the left-wing ideology of the shooter.
“[The shooter], who had an extensive online profile, had voted in a Democratic primary in 2020 in Texas, but showed little obvious interest in politics,” McKinley wrote. Despite a clip of ammunition left behind by the gunman that read “ANTI-ICE,” McKinley said such an inscription doesn’t give much information about the motive.
The “messages written on bullets found at the scene of the crime led to a great deal of conjecture after the fact, with numerous assumptions being made about what could be derived about the shooter’s motivation,” McKinley wrote. Noting that Charlie Kirk’s assassin also put inscriptions (which were clearly far left in nature) on several rounds, McKinley suggested there’s still no clear motive in either case.
“The actual motivation behind the messages written on the bullets in both Mr. Kirk’s assassination and Wednesday’s killing are still not known, and The Times has not confirmed details shedding light on the ammunition casing in Dallas.”
McKinley lamented, however, that Trump and Vance were “clash[ing]” with left-wing figures and “suggest[ing] liberals were to blame for the violence.”
Axios’ Josephine Walker took a similar approach, asserting that Republicans who point out the string of left-wing violence are participating in a “partisan blame game before facts confirmed.”
“Trump administration officials and MAGA world personalities quickly blamed Wednesday’s shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on anti-law enforcement rhetoric,” Walker wrote. “The rush to point fingers before local police confirmed a motive or the identity of the victims mirrors the rush to assign blame following Charlie Kirk’s death.”
Despite the obvious leftist ideology behind both Wednesday’s shooting and Kirk’s assassination, The New York Times and Axios are upset that Republicans are noticing such motives. Instead, they’re framing this acknowledgment as premature or opportunistic rather than a legitimate observation of a growing threat.
By portraying the act of noticing as the real problem, the propaganda press is deflecting away from the ideology and rhetoric that has fueled these attacks and that has come from the left.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2