Have you ever watched a tragedy unfold on the news and, before the blood is even dry, someone is already standing in front of a camera telling you exactly who to hate for it?
I have. Too many times. But last week felt different. It felt like we finally broke something that can’t easily be put back together.
When Blame Becomes the First Reflex
A 29-year-old Afghan national flies across the country, pulls out a handgun near the Capitol, shoots two National Guard members—one fatally, one critically—and within hours a sitting congresswoman is on national television suggesting the real culprit is… Donald Trump.
Not the shooter. Not whatever twisted ideology or mental fracture pushed him to murder. No, the president’s decision to put soldiers on D.C. streets is apparently what pulled the trigger.
Let that sink in for a second.
“Would an individual have flown across the country to target law enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.? … The answer is likely no. So why wasn’t the president’s first thought, ‘Wow, maybe I should reconsider deploying military troops in the nation’s capital’?”
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz on CNN
That quote didn’t age well. Actually, it didn’t even survive the afternoon.
A Quick Reality Check
Let’s go through the facts most news chyrons seemed to miss while they were looping the congresswoman’s soundbite.
- The shooter entered the United States in September 2021 under a program created after the Afghanistan withdrawal.
- He reportedly received asylum approval during the previous administration (yes, that one).
- Washington, D.C. already has some of the strictest gun laws in America.
- The weapon was brought from Washington State—another jurisdiction with heavy gun-control measures.
- Crime in the district has actually dropped since the Guard deployment began in coordination with the mayor.
None of those details made it into the congresswoman’s calculus. Funny how that works.
The “If They Weren’t Here” Fallacy
The core argument seems to be: if National Guard members weren’t patrolling D.C. streets, they wouldn’t have been convenient targets.
By that same logic:
- If Jewish students hadn’t shown up to synagogue, the Tree of Life shooter wouldn’t have found victims.
- If Republican congressmen hadn’t held that 2017 baseball practice, the Bernie-bro gunman wouldn’t have opened fire.
- If those cops hadn’t been eating lunch in Dallas that day in 2016, Micah Johnson wouldn’t have ambushed someone else.
We don’t blame the victims for being where they were legally entitled—even obligated—to be. We blame the person who decided murder was the answer.
Anything else is moral surrender dressed up as sophistication.
Timing Matters—Or It Used To
Investigators still haven’t released a motive. They’re combing through phones, interviews, manifests—doing the slow, boring work that doesn’t fit in a 7-second TV hit.
Yet somehow, hours after the shooting, one side of the aisle already knew exactly why it happened. That’s not insight. That’s opportunism wearing a mourning mask.
I’ve covered enough of these stories to know the pattern:
- Tragedy strikes.
- Cameras find the most partisan voice available.
- A narrative is born before the crime scene tape comes down.
- Facts arrive later, if at all.
We’re stuck on step three, and it’s exhausting.
The Father of a Fallen Marine Weighs In
While politicians were pointing fingers in one direction, Darin Hoover Sr.—father of Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, killed during the Kabul airport bombing—pointed in another.
He called the Afghanistan withdrawal “feckless” and laid his son’s death, along with the continued presence of certain evacuees, at the feet of the previous administration.
No one on the Sunday shows asked him to clarify. His pain didn’t fit the script.
When “Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste” Becomes Reflex
Look, I get it. Politics is blood sport, and tragedies are the biggest arena we’ve got. But there used to be an unspoken pause—a day, maybe two—where we let the families breathe before we started strip-mining their grief for talking points.
That pause is gone. And I’m not sure it’s coming back.
We now have congresspeople diagnosing motive faster than forensic psychologists, assigning collective guilt to entire voter bases before the autopsy report is typed.
It’s not leadership. It’s parasite behavior.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Maybe we start by demanding better of the people we send to Washington.
Demand they wait for facts.
Demand they speak as if the victims’ families are in the room.
Demand they remember that words have weight—especially when cameras are rolling and bodies are still warm.
Because if we don’t, the next time this happens (and it will), the script is already written. The only variable is whose name gets inserted into the blank.
And that’s not democracy. That’s just performance art with casualties.
One soldier is dead. Another is fighting for his life. Their families deserve answers, not scapegoats.
Anything less dishonors the uniform—and the country—that uniform represents.
