Thanks to Trump and Trump supporters, the United States is not currently a strong Constitutional Democracy.
“After the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, many on the political right set out to punish anyone making light of the tragedy, or even simply being insufficiently upset. In one of the more brazen examples, a Tennessee man was arrested, accused of threatening a school shooting, and held on a $2 million bond, for posting a somewhat uncivil meme on Facebook.
Larry Bushart, a 61-year-old former police officer, posted the offending meme last month. In response to a Facebook post about an upcoming vigil for Kirk, Bushart shared an image of President Donald Trump with the quote, “We have to get over it,” which Trump said in January 2024 after a shooting at Iowa’s Perry High School. Text added to the image said, “This seems relevant today.”
Bushart did not elaborate, but the context seems clear: Why should I care about this shooting, when the sitting president said I should “get over” this other shooting?
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According to the Perry County Sheriff’s Office website, Bushart was arrested the following morning on a charge of Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities—a class E felony punishable by between one and six years in prison and up to a $3,000 fine. Worse, Bushart’s bail is set at an astonishing $2 million.
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In its entirety, the post consists of a direct quote of a statement by the then-former president about a newsworthy event, with text providing context, plus a four-word phrase added. Bushart didn’t even create the meme: The Tennesseean‘s Angele Latham noted it had been “posted numerous times across multiple social media platforms not connected to Bushart going back to 2024.”
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In context, it’s clear Bushart meant to suggest that since Trump previously said people should “get over” a school shooting, then they shouldn’t be expected to care about the murder of a conservative public figure. It’s quite a stretch to suggest this constituted a threat to shoot up a high school. Yes, a nearby high school happened to have a similar name, but that was clearly a coincidence, and there is nothing to suggest Bushart intended to carry out violence against the local school.
On social media, some have suggested the meme in question was part of a larger pattern indicating Bushart posed a threat. But in his statement to The Tennesseean, Weems specifically singled out the Trump meme as the offender, saying while the other posts were “hate memes,” they were “not against the law and would be recognized as free speech.”
Perhaps some teachers, parents, or students really did find Bushart’s post threatening—though since it was a reply on a Facebook page for local news, it’s not clear how many people even saw it. And even if people did see and interpret it as a threat of violence, that doesn’t mean it meets the standard for a “true threat,” in violation of the First Amendment.
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Bushart’s arrest would be humorous if it weren’t so serious. He now faces a potential years-long prison sentence for reposting a Facebook meme that doesn’t come anywhere close to qualifying as an exception to the First Amendment. Even if the case gets thrown out, he has already spent two weeks in jail and is set to spend two more months until his first hearing.”