Emoluments, Stormy Daniels, Russia collusion, the Mueller report, impeachment...  The Left has played damn near every card in the deck against Donald Trump to no result whatsoever.  Leftists are getting down to the bottom of the deck, and the final card: assassination.

This is not to say that the Democrats or even the denizens of the Deep State would directly involve themselves in an assassination attempt against the president.  (Though I would go so far as to say that they would welcome it.)  But let's consider the landscape:

• The vivacious and witty Kathy Griffith and her severed head prop.
• Robert De Niro, having taken too many blows to the head while prepping to play Jake LaMotta, skips no opportunity to call for violence against Donald Trump.  (Let's not forget that De Niro came to prominence through his chilling performance of a psychopathic would-be assassin who in turn inspired John Hinckley.)
• Washed up Massachusetts pol William Weld stating publicly that the president "deserves to be shot."
• The Black Lives Matters movement, which played a role in triggering an assassination campaign against police.
• Antifa, which is based on violence, threats, and intimidation, and has an ancillary organization, the John Brown Clubs, set up to train wannabe revos in gunplay.
• The Alexandria shooting, in which a Bernie Sanders campaign worker attempted to massacre a group of unarmed GOP congressmen.

There are, of course, many other incidents, but those will suffice: the opposition is no longer loyal or respectable.  It has gone functionally insane.  The Democrats have been transformed into the party of the fanatic, the messianic, the depraved, and the demented.  The Left is obsessed with stopping Donald Trump at all costs and, as its slogan goes, "by any means necessary."  If these people can't do it by legal or even the borderline means of the past three years, it is likely they will try to kill him.

The president is defended by agents of a Secret Service that has surely regained the level of professionalism eroded during the Obama years.  It is rumored that they are supplemented by top-of-the-line private security experts.  But these constitute the final line of defense.  Any attempt against this president must never get that far.

It's symptomatic of this odd era we're living in that the greatest and most effective force for security, whether against terrorism, crime, or misadventure, is generally ignored: the American citizenry.  In this republic, the people are the first line of defense.  This must be the case involving any threat to our president.

During the campaign next year, Donald Trump will be involved in endless rallies, parades, and public appearances, all of which will offer an opportunity to the black-clad anarchist, the embittered Bernie- or Beto-backer, or the demented Travis Bickle.  It is here that the citizenry is crucial.

Richard Jewell, the ordinary man whose sharp eye and quick reflexes saved hundreds at the Atlanta Olympics (the fact that the denizens of what we have learned to call the Deep State tried to destroy him afterward is neither here nor there), should be the model here.

• Keep an eye open.  If you notice something odd or threatening, alert those around you, and then report it.  (Alerting those around you is crucial — it's very possible that they will be the only ones who will respond.  Both the Parkland and Aurora shooters were reported to authorities before their killing sprees.  Both were ignored.  Law enforcement is not what it used to be.)
• Assassins tend to be distinctive in appearance.  Arthur Bremer resembled your friendly neighborhood Gestapo or KGB agent, Lee Oswald appeared to be channeling Norman Bates in appearance and behavior as the twitchy loner, and as for John Hinckley...enough said.  The same action is required here: alert those about you, and report it.
• The same goes for vehicles.  Car bombs have become popular.  Any strange or oddly parked vehicle, or any unusual activity around such a vehicle, demands a response.  The same goes for garbage cans, mailboxes, or anything else that can contain an IED.
• Above all, if it breaks wide open in your presence — if a gun appears, if someone begins fumbling with a knapsack as the presidential limo approaches — don't hesitate.  Act immediately.  Call on others, subdue the suspect, and turn him over to the authorities.

I hate to have to write this.  But the U.S. has been lucky in its politics.  Never has it deteriorated to the level of the last decades of the Russian imperium, Weimar Germany, or vast tracts of the Latin world.  The gun and bomb have not been the standard tools of politics here.  But that may be changing.

President Donald Trump has demanded that the United States remain in the hands of its citizens, and the elites hate him for it.  Let's prove that we're worthy of it.