Rep. Lee Zeldin (Republican nominee for the Republican gubernatorial election) was attacked as he spoke to supporters on Thursday night while on the Perinton campaign trail. He was outside a VFW Post.
Video footage showed David G. Jakubonis (43), walking toward Zeldin as he was sitting on the stage, and then grabbing his hand. Unconfirmed media reports said Jakubonis had some kind of brass knuckles in one hand, before being wrestled to the ground by Joe Chenelly (a candidate for NY State Assembly).
Ironically, Zeldin was attacked right after he had spoken about how people are leaving New York to go to safer places. This is partly due to the Democrat-led bail reform legislation that was signed into law by the then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democratic senator, was elected to the legislature in January 2020.
Zeldin, fortunately, was not hurt and continued his speech. In the hours that followed the incident, many turned their attention to Zeldin’s Democratic rival NY Governor. Kathy Hochul, who has repeatedly called Zeldin “dangerous…far-right extremist” and whose campaign also asked their supporters to RSVP via email to Zeldin’s upcoming campaign stops, including the one that took place on Thursday.
Governor, you seemed to dog-whistle support for vigilante direct action by repeatedly calling your political opponent a “dangerous” “far-right extremist.” Now a man tried to stab @leezeldin at a campaign event with a bladed knuckles device. https://t.co/g8rlXISl8R pic.twitter.com/qZHhCVGeuD
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2022
Hours before the attempted stabbing of @leezeldin, her office sent out a mass email with locations he would be at & a call that her supporters RSVP for each event. pic.twitter.com/zYYtcDhFk4
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 22, 2022
While it is not unusual for political opponents to call one another “dangerous” or “extremist”, and it’s not uncommon for supporters to attend opponents’ events to heckle, the question is: How would The Usual Suspects treat this if the roles were reversed?
I won’t join the accusations that Kathy Hochul is responsible for the recent attempted assault on Lee Zeldin. Not at all, people are responsible for their actions.
I will call into question how the press might be treating this if it was Zeldin’s rhetoric and Hochul’s life. https://t.co/aRCaHABy9B
— Acumetic (@acumetic) July 22, 2022
We know exactly what the media would say if Hochul were attacked by Zeldin supporters (again, for the record, we do not yet know the motives of the attacker to Zeldin). They would be digging into his social media accounts, public statements, and those of any other person who might be associated with him, such as the local barber to see if they could find anything that could be construed remotely as “incitement.”
However, because the Republican attack was Republican, this story will probably be forgotten by most of the media quickly, as it doesn’t align with their preferred narratives about Republicans’ Bad and Democrats’ Good.
They are, as I have said before, nothing if they are not a predictable bunch.
