R&R: A menacing background noise

Recap and recommendations from the week that was.

Good morning! It’s Sunday, September 22, 2024. Election Day is 44 days away.

Welcome to R&R, my weekly email for paid subscribers offering a recap of the previous week and recommendations of my favorite reads from across the internet. But first, a bit about what’s on my mind this morning…

Exactly one week ago, a man lay in wait for 12 hours right outside the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, his rifle poking through the fence as he prepared to shoot former President Donald Trump, who was golfing at the course.

The story has already largely floated out of the news cycle, disappearing from the headlines even faster than the first assassination attempt against Trump (just two months ago), which dominated the news for a brief period before quickly being overtaken by events.

Putting together R&R this morning, I was struck by how many stories of political violence (or more accurately, near-violence) were lurking under the radar this week, relegated to minor news stories.

There was the Alaska man who was arrested after “threatening to kill, drown, torture and lynch six Supreme Court justices and two of their family members,” as the New York Times reported. He sent more than 465 threatening messages using the court’s website.