Days Before National Guardsmen Shot, Dem Senator Said Troops Deployed in Cities May Soon Fire on Civilians

The horrifying ambush of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday should put an end to the polite fiction that Democrat rhetoric has no consequences. They may not openly call for violence — they rarely do — but their words consistently flirt with the kinds of narratives that unhinged actors inevitably seize upon.

This latest assault, which left two Guardsmen clinging to life after a “targeted” shooting near 17th and High streets NW by a man reportedly shouting “Allahu Akbar,” comes as the country is still grappling with another national-security failure inherited from the Biden era. As of Wednesday evening, authorities had released little information about the soldiers’ prognoses or the ultimate condition of the alleged attacker.

The accused gunman has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who — according to the Associated Press — may have entered the United States during former President Joe Biden’s chaotic evacuation following the fall of Kabul in 2021. Officials are still working to verify background details, but early reports indicate he overstayed his visa and remained in the country illegally.

And this brings us to Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin — a Democrat who once marketed herself as a “moderate” but has reliably embraced the activist left’s most theatrical narratives. Her recent viral comments about National Guard deployments, made just days before the attack, look dramatically worse in hindsight.

Slotkin remains infamous for her role in promoting the “Don’t Give Up the Ship” stunt — the same episode now being reviewed by the administration of President Donald Trump, which is investigating whether the Democratic lawmakers involved crossed into potential seditious conspiracy by encouraging troops to resist orders.

Yet it wasn’t that spectacle alone that raised eyebrows. During an interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Slotkin warned viewers that she feared the use of the National Guard in American cities — not because of the violence those troops are responding to, but because she believes they might, at any moment, start mowing down civilians.

“For me, my primary concern is the use of U.S. military on American shores, on our city — in our cities and in our streets. We’ve seen now the courts overturn the deployment of U.S. military into our streets, including here in Washington, D.C.

“When you look at these videos coming out of places like Chicago, it makes me incredibly nervous that we’re about ‘to see people in law enforcement, people in uniformed military get nervous, get stressed, shoot at American civilians,” she continued. “It is very — a very, very stressful situation for these law enforcement and for the communities on the ground.

“So, it was basically a warning to say, like, if you’re asked to do something particularly against American citizens, you have the ability to go to your JAG officer and push back.”

In other words, Slotkin painted an apocalyptic fantasy in which American soldiers were moments away from opening fire on innocent civilians. The comparison to a supercharged Kent State wasn’t merely implied — it was practically baked into the messaging.

And now, after a deranged individual carried out an attack on U.S. troops, we are expected to believe that the Democrats’ months-long obsession with stoking fear about the National Guard played no role in feeding the paranoia of someone unstable enough to act on it.

No serious Democrat will ever say, “Go shoot at the National Guard.” That is what the fringe is for — the same fringe that reliably absorbs the emotional cues and apocalyptic language tossed out by politicians who later hide behind layers of plausible deniability.

Slotkin’s comments were presented as mere “hypotheticals,” but that’s the problem. The left regularly deploys extreme hypotheticals about American troops — then shrugs when unbalanced individuals take those fever-dream scenarios literally.

She essentially told Americans: They’re coming for you. They might shoot you. Be ready to resist. And when you energize the fringe long enough, someone eventually listens.

Most of us hoped her rhetoric would stay in the realm of political theater. Instead, a deranged man acted — and now we’re forced to confront the very real consequences of a political movement that constantly predicts “violent chaos,” then feigns innocence when violent chaos actually erupts.