Butler, Pennsylvania, was a wake-up call.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting Saturday night was what happens when leaders hit the snooze button.

Our country can’t afford to sleep in any longer.

Pols on the left labeled President Donald Trump a threat to democracy in the runup to the 2024 election, despite the July assassination attempt that year. Since then, the rhetoric has only gained in vitriol.

Nazis, fascists, Gestapo, etc. — these are the labels ascribed to the Trump administration by public figures who should know that words have an impact.

They planted the seeds, which have sprouted robustly: check out the signs at any “No Kings rally.” Pols speak at these rallies, but they don’t call for dialing down the rhetoric.

It’s all about the base and the votes.

Alleged shooter Cole Allen, who was charged Monday with trying to assassinate Trump, got the memo.

As the New York Times reported, shortly before the attack, Allen sent messages to his relatives denouncing Trump administration policies and suggesting that he intended to take violent action, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Feeling justified in taking violent action against policies one doesn’t agree with is a sad hallmark of our times — just ask Luigi Mangione and his fans.

In his anti-Trump manifesto, Allen called himself the “Friendly Federal Assassin” and revealed he was hell-bent on killing Trump administration officials, according to the New York Post.

Allen wrote that his “targets” were “Administration officials (not including FBI Director Kash Patel)… prioritized from highest-ranking to lowest.”

“In order to minimize casualties, I will also be using buckshot rather than slugs (less penetration through walls),” he wrote before admitting he was willing to kill everyone in the room if it meant getting to his targets.

“Everyone in the room” includes the journalists attending the dinner held to highlight the First Amendment. How would mowing down reporters and editors be a strike against a perceived “threat to democracy?”

That Trump nor Vice President JD Vance nor other Cabinet officials nor journalists were hit is due to the actions of the Secret Service, one of whom was shot during the incident. It’s a demanding, tough job, and one under fiscal pressure due to the Congressional funding standoff over the Department of Homeland Security.

As Fox News reported, Secret Service Director Sean Curran warned lawmakers last week that the agency is not adequately staffed to handle the demands of the upcoming FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Olympics and the 2028 presidential cycle.

Enough talk. If Capitol Hill leaders are sincere in wanting to keep Americans safe, funding the DHS should be Job #1. But that would require compromise and consensus, another casualty of our polarized country.

It’s not just our political leaders who have failed us in fanning the flames of political venom. Entertainers have a sizeable share of the blame.

Jimmy Kimmel is feeling the backlash for a parody skit in which he called First Lady Melania Trump an “expectant widow” just days before the shooting.

It wasn’t funny then, and it’s not funny now.

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