Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?! 

-attributed to King Henry II of England

Whether the first Angevin monarch of England actually said these famous words about Thomas Becket is uncertain.

However there’s no doubt that the king had voiced his displeasure about the Archbishop of Canterbury and that knights familiar with the king’s frustration set off to deal with the meddlesome priest, murdering the cleric with drawn swords in front of an altar.

Though King Henry didn’t order the assassination of the bishop, he was held accountable for what transpired.

Jump 840 years later and American political and cultural leaders never learned the lessons of Henry II.

Since Donald Trump won the presidency, the country has been subjected to unprecedented ugliness and political hyperbole courtesy of the media, entertainment complex, and leftist politicians.

Every absurd and baseless accusation under the sun has been hurled at the president and his allies by the Left in this country. Every slander and libel imaginable has been circulated.

Trump is a pawn of Moscow!

Trump stole the election!

Trump is a fascist!

Trump is mentally unstable!

Trump’s working with the KKK!

Trump wants to starve poor people and kill sick people!

Trump is a racist, homophobic, Muslim-hating misogynist!

All justifications for an impeachment campaign initiated before the man has passed six months in office.

These were accompanied by protest after protest, with the participants largely being the same but the cause celebre and profane placards changed up.

That was followed up by a blitzkrieg by television comedians who have gone far beyond lampooning the president but have turned their programs into propaganda outlets.

And just when you didn’t think the Left could push the envelope any further, the New York theater scene and an obnoxious comedian went to new lows.

A play was produced about a future United States where President Trump established death camps for minorities while in Central Park a Trump edition of Julius Caesar featured the president being hacked to death.

And in the most pathetic attempt to grab attention, Kathy Griffin posed with a fake though realistic-looking blood-soaked decapitated head of Trump.

Fortunately the demarcation line was discovered: Griffin was canned from CNN and her career perhaps beyond salvage, the American Holocaust fantasy production shut down early, and corporate sponsors for the Central Park plays walked out, with American Express trying to weasel around the matter.

But the damage had already been done by society’s leading influencers.

The Hard Left Democrats and Vichy GOP were not content being the opposition. No, they needed something more grandiose, more striking – so they deemed themselves the Resistance.

That practically every self-described resistance movement engaged in acts of violence was either lost on them or discreetly appreciated as an intimidating and powerful image.

But the Left’s mixing political militancy with false yet powerful indictments can create problems.

The most impressionable wing of the left assumes the hyper-partisan rhetoric is gospel; the less-stable corners of that niche want to do something more than use that blinding fury and rage on inner-city voter registration drives.

And that is how we arrive at the scene of the crime in northern Virginia as a man I’ve known personally for 22 years was wheeled out on a stretcher, his baseball jersey torn open, his leg covered in his own blood.

The Resistance just got real.

And while Democrats attempt to flee from any responsibility in creating the toxic atmosphere that led to the attempt at a massacre or pathetically make a pitch for gun control, they not only own this tragedy but the ones that will follow.

Henry II wasn’t lamenting into a vacuum about Becket and neither were leftist politicians and thespians about Trump and the GOP.

It was merely a matter of time before someone on their side merely took them at their word and took action to advance their cause.