Bullseye
Conservatives are saying President Biden’s use of the word ‘bullseye’ sparked the assassination attempt on Donald Trump this past weekend.
Some on the right are being completely disingenuous with this framing. Some folks are claiming that Biden said ‘bullseye’ in a public comment, when in fact it was spoken on a private call.
“We need to move forward. Look, we have roughly 40 days til the convention, 120 days til the election. We can’t waste any more time being distracted,” Biden said in a private call with donors Monday, according to a recording obtained by POLITICO.
“I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump. I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,” Biden said.1
Some, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, complain that Biden’s words are violent in and of themselves. “The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today. For years and years, they’ve demonized him and his supporters.”2 House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, “For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America . . . This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”3 Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia said, “Joe Biden sent the orders. The Republican District Attorney in Butler County, Pa., should immediately file charges against Joe Biden for inciting an assassination.”4
NBC’s Lester Holt asked Biden about this controversy in their interview that aired Monday, and Biden (rightly) made — or attempted to make — a distinction between ‘crosshairs’ and ‘bullseye’.5 His right-wing critics are construing his meaning to be the former, which is always associated with firearms. The latter, however, is a symbol used far more broadly.
bulls-eye, n. also bullseye, 1833 as "center of a target," from bull (n.1) + eye (n.). So called for size and color. Meaning "shot that hits the mark" is from 1857. Bulls-eye also was used from 1680s of various sorts of circular holes or objects.6
By this definition, the concentric rings of Skeeball is a bulls-eye, and we all can visualize that. But the right-wing argument is to assert that Biden clearly means weaponry, as related to harming his political opponent physically.
Mountain out of molehill? Check. Attempt to create a double standard that constricts one’s opponent? Check.
Conservatives seem to be settling on this theme because the Republican background of the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, has scrambled their unified but premature battle cry that Democrats were behind the shooting. Crooks no longer “fits the profile” of an antifa bogeyman, but surely blame can be placed on Biden for saying that Trump’s return to the Oval Office represents an existential danger to the Republic.
Yet one must contrast Biden’s word choice with the words of Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson of Pennsylvania, who just in the last month roared from a pulpit, “Some folks need killin’!”
If ever there was an example of violent rhetoric, that was it.
Part of what needs to be stressed is the difference between descriptive sentences and calls for violence. These are not the same, except in the most extreme of circumstances.7
Another part that equally needs to be emphasized is the need for the ability to glean meaning from context and for the use of critical thinking. Few in good faith could hear Biden’s use of ‘bullseye’ and think he was calling for an assassination.
But we also must look at how we are assigning responsibility. Biden is not guilty of inciting violence or stochastic terrorism.8
More to the point, Crooks himself was not an automaton. Even had he heard someone say, “Some folks need killin’,” it’s on Crooks himself that he made the decision and put into motion a plan. Crooks took many steps and had many occasions to say to himself, “What am I doing?” He had time to rethink at each interval. That he went ahead with his plan after 1) not being directly ordered to commit the act9 and 2) having time to reconsider means that all of the responsibility falls on Crooks.
This effort to retroactively pin blame on Biden is really a campaign to limit Biden’s accurate descriptions of Trump and Trump’s intentions — speech that cannot and should not be limited. Biden’s words are neither defamatory nor inciteful. Rather, they critically highlight the danger Trump poses, should he reprise his role as enactor of extremist policies. Indeed, were Biden to neglect to warn the country, he would be remiss in his duties.
But it’s interesting to see Biden struggle against Holt’s characterization. For Biden, his use of ‘bullseye’ was clearly metaphorical and had no link to weapons or anything of that sort. He was exasperated that people other than himself were defining what his own words meant.
As a point of explicit contrast, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a chant and slogan said by many advocates for peace in the Middle East. Those advocates state clearly that by their words they mean they want Palestinians to be able to live freely and fully as human beings, not subject to cruel and oppressive treatment. Yet political opponents redefine those words for them, saying that instead they call for the elimination of Israelis. (Then ‘Israeli’ is often conflated with ‘Jewish people’, suddenly transforming a statement of liberation into one of anti-Semitism and extermination.)
It’s ironic that Biden has been himself one of those people who have recast “from the river to the sea" for those verbalizing that sentiment, usurping their own intent. Now he’s frustrated that his political opponents are redefining his words to make those words say what they want them to say. (“So endeth the lesson,” one might utter in this situation; but, chances are, this similarity will pass over Biden’s head — it will have missed the target.)
Sarah Ferris and Elena Schneider, “Defiant Biden Tells Donors: ‘We’re done talking about the debate.’” Politico, July 8, 2024.
Michael Scherer, “Trump allies immediately blame Biden, Democrats for their rhetoric.” Washington Post, July 13, 2024.
Alex Woodward, “MTG and Trump allies turn to conspiracy theories to blame assassination attempt on Democrats.” The Independent, July 15, 2024.
Scherer, “Trump allies immediately blame Biden,” Washington Post.
Recall that Sarah Palin in 2010 had designated then-Rep. Gabby Giffords among 20 representatives of districts as needing to be in the crosshairs. Following Palin’s remarks, Giffords was shot in the head by a right-wing assailant. Palin, for her part, said it was “grotesque” to suggest that her words had anything to do with the attack.
For example, see Lynne Tirrell’s description of linguistic practices that undergirded the Rwandan genocide, specifically her account of Simon Bikindi, propagandist, whose inquiries led directly to the deaths of ten people. She quotes the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: “By reading out from a list of Tutsi prisoners, by asking why they had not yet been killed, Simon BIKINDI instigated, and aided and abetted the immediate killings of two of the prisoners, namely Matabaro and Kayibanda. In respect of the other eight Tutsi prisoners who were killed immediately afterwards by Simon BIKINDI’s bodyguards, by his initial question as to why all the Tutsi prisoners had been not been killed before his arrival at the prison, he instigated, and aided and abetted their subsequent killings by his bodyguards.” Tirrell, “Genocidal Language Games,” in Ishani Maitra & Mary Kate McGowan (eds.), Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech (2012), pp. 214-215. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Emphasis added.
“Stochastic terrorism has been defined as the incitement of a violent act through public demonization of a group or individual. [...] [O]ne class of unprotected speech is ‘incitement to imminent lawless action.’ In 1969, the US Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, holding that speech has no such protection when it is (1) intended to incite or produce imminent lawless action and (2) is likely, in fact, to do so. This differs from stochastic terrorism in that actual violence is not required, but intent to incite is.” Molly Amman and J. Reid Meloy, “Stochastic Terrorism: A Linguistic and Psychological Analysis,” Perspectives on Terrorism (2021), Vol. 15, Issue 5, pp. 3, 4.
Direct orders, while not an excuse for heinous crimes, have been shown to influence a person’s decision to take extreme action, especially when that command is accompanied by institutional pressure and a sense of compressed time.