On Thursday night, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who is the Republican nominee in the upcoming gubernatorial race, was attacked on stage as he gave a speech to supporters while on the campaign trail in Perinton, New York outside a VFW post.

Videos showed his alleged attacker David G. Jakubonis, 43, walking toward Zeldin while he was on the stage and then grabbing him. Some unconfirmed media reports described Jakubonis as having some sort of brass knuckles in his hand before he was wrestled down to the ground and reportedly subdued by among others AMVETS Director Joe Chenelly, a candidate for NY State Assembly.

Ironically, Zeldin was attacked just after he’d talked about how people were leaving New York for states down south because they wanted to feel safer than they did in New York, which has seen a steep rise in violent crime – some of which has come from repeat offenders – thanks in part to Democrat-led bail reform legislation signed into law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and which went into effect in January 2020.

Thankfully Zeldin was unharmed and went on to finish his speech. But in the hours after the incident, some turned their attentions to Zeldin’s Democratic opponent NY Gov. Kathy Hochul, who not only has repeatedly called Zeldin a “dangerous … far-right extremist” but whose campaign also urged their supporters via email to RSVP to Zeldin’s upcoming campaign stops including the one from Thursday where the attack took place:

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

Now, while it’s not uncommon to hear political opponents call each other “dangerous” and “extremist,” and it’s also not unheard of to encourage supporters to go to opponents’ events in order to do some heckling, the question here is how would The Usual Suspects be treating this had the roles been 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

Oh, I think we know exactly what the media would be saying if Hochul was attacked by someone who was presumably a Zeldin supporter (for the record, we don’t yet know what the motivations of Zeldin’s attacker were ). They’d be doing deep dives into not just his social media accounts and public statements but also those of anyone who was remotely affiliated with him, including the local barber, in order to find anything they believe could be remotely construed as “incitement.”

But because it was a Republican who was attacked, this story will likely fall off the radars of most in press fairly quickly as it doesn’t line up with any of their preferred political (and election-year) narratives about Republicans Bad, Democrats Good.

As I’ve said before they are nothing if not a predictable lot.

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