MEGA THREAD - Trump shot but safe, 2 others killed at PA rally
WHAT
Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump was shot at a rally in PA.
TRUMPS STATEMENT
“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
Do not advocate or celebrate violence, please. Comments advocating violence will be deleted and bans will be issued.
Also, please avoid promoting conspiracies. Discussing current events is fine but suggesting things like “it’s a false flag” without evidence is spreading a conspiracy.
That's not a justification for more violence, two wrongs don't make a right. He was wrong for doing what he did and this is wrong as well. This is because political violence in it's entirety is wrong. Jesus, do people not have principles anymore? Seeing all the supposedly moral people turn into Q anon level conspiracy theorists who condone violence is depressing.
I know you have to say this, but holy shit do I disagree.
This person advocated significant violence and contributed to the deaths and loss of human rights of thousands. A good whack of the world would turn up hungover to work tomorrow after celebrating only a few inches over.
Communism, not Fascism, or to protect workers' rights if you go back far enough. We only got involved in fighting fascism because we were drawn into the war, otherwise it's never been that big of an issue to Americans and many schools aren't even allowed to teach about it anymore because "kids shouldn't have to feel bad about something like that" or whatever excuses the far right is currently using to prevent their schools from teaching about Anne Frank, concentration camps, slavery, anything else they want to implement themselves.
Advocating for violence to prevent a fascist from abolishing the democracy is the only acceptable violence. Sometimes a democracy has to be protected violently if it is too weak to protect itself. Trump allies always say its why they have the second amendment. Now that it is used against them they cry about it.
I know this is off-topic, but can we please go back to saying "conspiracy theory"? Conspiracy and conspiracy theories are not the same. There are actual conspiracies (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful) , and there are theories of conspiracies. They should not be confused.
Surprised you're not already banned just for the c-word. I mean, if someone crashes their car through a storefront, I could speculate without evidence that the driver was excessively old, young, drunk, or just plain stupid and it's left up to the reader to take my comment with a grain of salt, but if I so much as entertain the possibility of this shooting being anything besides what is being reported by official channels, I must be silenced.
How do the people get justice for a convicted criminal that's above the law? Is there a reason why the constitution has an amendment for guns? Why are so many platforms against the constitution and against the need for correct course when apt?
Seems like he was convicted, thus not above the law.
You keep him from being president by getting enough people to vote against him, or you accept the will of the people.
The 2nd Amendment was originally to make sure militias weren't disarmed, in a time when militias were more relevant. Has nothing to do with political assassination.
Alright, let's get it out ahead of time, since I'm already seeing this:
It's probably not staged. Trump reacts quickly - the fuck kind of timing you think that bloated potato has? To lift his hand to his ear just as the gunshot rings out? And the idea that the shooter grazed him on purpose is, likewise, absurd. The kind of risk that would entail, to just nick his ear?
Whether the shooter was insane or politically motivated, this is a real event.
Do we know yet whether the would-be assassin or Secret Service hit the bystander? I was driving when it happened and am still getting up to speed
Edit/update: It seems the gunman was on a rooftop, not in the crowd, so, no idea what happened. I have a few theories, but I'm not gonna risk starting rumors.
I said this in another one of these threads- it is not at all outlandish to think that someone unhinged with a gun would see the threat of a fascist dictator and decide to do something about it.
Yeah, I remember my grandfather telling the story of how Hitler held a speech at a Stadium that was visible from his attic window, and his biggest regret was, that he did not have a machinegun to take him and the other Nazi officials with him out. The US has enough guns and desperation for someone to attempt this, definitely.
The right has been agitating for stochastic terrorism for about sixteen god damn years. Well, they got it.
It's likely a good thing the guy missed. Trump being assassinated might just kick off the open violence that has been brewing. Still might, but it'll depend on the next couple of days. If that dude turns out to be a left-winger, and Trump makes no attempt to stop it, I could see things getting very, very ugly.
it happens a lot more than you would think throughout american history, sometimes with guns, sometimes without. Obama had 8 attempts throughout his terms in office. Biden has had one so far, trump has had a few, nothing more significant than obama though, except for maybe being shot, just barely.
I don’t doubt the shooter was genuinely trying to kill him. But I also think there are an unprecedented number of Republicans and Democrats who would be secretly relieved if their own party’s candidate were assassinated.
It's a very common gut reaction to assume something like this has to be "staged", I said it in the other thread in some discussions: It's understandable to have it as this feeling. But everyone who feels that way: take a breath, remember the world is much more chaotic and much less controlled than you think, you don't have to think of yourself as stupid for thinking it, but wait for more information to come out and be ready to give it up then.
Reacting properly to this new reality is much more important, than trying to adjust reality to fit an emotion. It's human to do that, react instinctively in a first gut reaction, but it is also human to be able to let go of that.
In the spirit of not promoting violence, I'd like to promote the alternative of the Alex Jones treatment. Gaslight the fucker and set a conspiracy in motion to hound him the rest of his days.
I agree. We're all just processing this and should probably take a break and come back when there is more info and we can think critically. That said, this is very scary, like, I feel like my physical safety is at risk because of this. So, not knowing what others are going through, I'm going to have some compassion for any initial reactions. People are having these same discussions face to face right now but not everyone can do that and may need to.
the way i like to look at it, is that it doesn't matter whether it was staged or not, it still happened. People still died, people still evacuated, trump still got shot, none of that changes.
If it does, you're doing a conspiracy theory, and you should stop.
People are obviously on high alert, considering how far Trump is willing to go given Jan 6th. From the Reichstag fire to the Russian apartment bombings, such events manufactured or actual have profound impact on public perception and action. Naomi Klein's (not to be confused with the nut job Naomi Wolf) The Shock Doctrine details this well.
No sign this was a false flag, but holy fuck does it have terrible implications.
i mean honestly, it's scary, but it's also not a good time to be an american right now, from the immunity rulling to the jan 6th delays, and all the other bullshit going on, things seem to be getting vastly more interesting now than they were just a few months ago.
Yeah, a 120 meter shot to graze does not exist. One inch to the right and he's dead. With wind variables and stuff, the shooter who can reliably pull that off in one shot or volley does not exist.
Everyone keeps saying it can't be staged because it was so close.
I just wanted to point out it can be both staged and a successful assassination if the end goal is to point the finger at the left and martyr a polarizing figure.
It’s probably not staged. Trump reacts quickly - the fuck kind of timing you think that bloated potato has?
it's absolutely what you would expect the reaction to be. Much like burning your hand on a stove where your brain deals with the situation a lot quicker than you can logically process it, these kinds of injuries can do the same thing. It's more than likely the people surrounding him that clued him in on it quicker than anything. That's the one thing you would be prepared to expect.
Yeah, if you’re going to stage a fake assassination, you don’t fire a bullet a couple inches away from a kill shot. It’s crazy how close this was to a successful attempt.
If it was staged, the only feasible way would be that he wasn't shot at all and all we saw was fake blood. Regardless, I don't think it was actually staged
It seems far more likely that Trump has some sort of quantum immortality than this being staged. Truly an insane shot to miss so narrowly while still grazing. I get why it makes people scratch their head. It will be interesting to see what happens.
If it was staged then they are playing a very risky game. It doesn’t take much error to make a bullet that grazes your ear dome you. It’s basically certain that this wasn’t staged.
What peeves me is that the right are all clutching their pearls about anyone who says anything other than blind Trump sympathy. Don't get me wrong, political violence is wrong. But, remember this:
When Paul Pelosi got his face bashed in with a hammer, the right made fun of it. Mocked him. Idk, man.
Conservatives call for violence; Call for rising up; Literally calling themselves DOMESTIC TERRORISTS: Absolutely a nothing burger. Just a bunch of locker room talk. Relax that's normal conservative speech.
Liberals blinking aggressively: WHY ARENT YOU MORE TOLERANT BE BETTER.
That shit was amazingly disgusting. And yeah, Trump gets no sympathy from me. But I won't call for his death, either. I want him to live a very long time. In prison.
There are people on the right, that would call you out on even that. They're gaslighting anyone left of Mussolini on what are the rules they should be following.
Agreed. It's going to further inflame chaos and tensions in the country, it's going to further radicalize Trump himself into an even nastier man, and it's going to motivate his base. Even if Trump were to pass away, that base still remains, and we have the risk of a much more intelligent and gifted speaker taking up its leadership.
If it were anyone else, almost getting shot should be a wake-up call. "What have I become that this happens? Maybe I need to change how I act, and what I do." But , no.
True, it was always never going to lead to good things. But this will keep it on track to not changing.
I just hope Trump pusses out when he realizes he and a bunch of supreme court justices are foing to get this for nearly every public appearance for four years if he manages to eek out a win lol. It was said above already.
Violence demands self defense. Today was an act to try and save everyone.
I don't think your advocating for or celebrating violence, but this comment is probably going to be taken that way and deleted. I totally agree with your point though, a failed assassination attempt is probably the worst thing you can do to a guy who wants to destroy democracy.
All things being equal, I am glad that the assassin failed. I am no fan of Trump by any measure. I wish, every day, that Trump would just go away and stay out of politics.
I feel that assassinating someone like Trump would only intensify the right-wing’s rhetoric and make things worse in the long run. I also feel that whomever would replace Trump would be far much worse than Trump himself. It’s a lose-lose either way.
No, the appropriate thing to do is to vote these bastards out of office. I fear the worst, that maybe we’re going to fail doing that; we’re what, 4 months away from the election and we’re talking about replacing Biden, but NOBODY has said with whom? Yeah that’s confidence inspiring.
My doomer mentality aside, I do still hope I’m wrong, and that democracy and justice will prevail. But dammit if the “good guys” aren’t bending over backwards to make that hard to believe.
Guy tries to overthrow the country, and people are worried that someone tried to kill him. What is wrong with this world. If people aren't trying to kill him we have something to worried about.
The justice system failed to arrest and detain the suspect and keep him imprisoned until charged properly. This isn't a failure of the people, it is a failure of the government.
I'm sure he will spin it into some grand conspiracy with very little evidence behind it. But his lunatic supporters don't really need evidence of conspiracies so I'm not sure it'll change anything very much.
Now if the bullet had hit him that would be a very different thing.
Wouldn't be the first time. Conservatives are conservative up until the moment someone uses freedom from government oversight in a way that hurts or inconveniences them. Then they're all, "There oughta be a law against blah blah blah" without an iota of self-awareness.
I like it when they say it's not about guns, it's about mental health and then you say okay, let's have universal healthcare and they say, "no, not like that!"
Heads up, it's due process because it's the process you're due (the process you're entitled to or that's proper, expected, etc), not the process you're doing.
He's pro-Trump. He'll say anything if he thinks he'll get more money (and now, enough votes to escape his crimes). You won't find a single issue he hasn't flip-flopped on except "How can this make Trump richer?"
Man, I would love to watch his supporters work through the dissonance on that one. On one hand, they already chose Trump over their god... On the other hand, "come and take it" culture is right up there with evangelicalism as far as being really ingrained.
This event just shows that anything can happen at any moment. Nothing is a sure thing. Not a Trump win, not a Biden win, and not a win for any other candidate who may run.
You're being down voted but you're right. This is the absolute nail in the coffin to seal his win. his culties are going to be mobilised more than ever now.
Biden added: "Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it,"
Must the Democrats champion good manners ALL the time? Jesus Christ he's a fascist! Fuck good sportsmanship!
Who the fuck are you trying to impress? Who's going to consider this the moment they vote for Biden over Trump?
"Violence has no place in America."
Cops killing citizens. Native genocide. Genocide in Palestine. Protesters being beaten. People using their "rights" being arrested and killed. Slow socially accepted murder caused by poverty. Rights for Queer youth being taken away, which leads to self harm.
Why do they just give "thoughts and prayers" to Hitler 2.0? Trump isn't going to be kind with this, he'll start saying every Democrat is responsible for this. Fuck the "higher moral ground".
Because like it or not saying "Too bad you didn't die from that" will not only lose moral high ground but also already-can't-aford-to-lose votes?
Are you suddenly pro-violence because one is a someone you think is the Hitler 2.0? I get the sentiment but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what Jan 6 people would say to Joe.
Don't fuck the higher moral ground. Why be them to fight them? Celebrating public shooting is doing more than just losing moral highground...
Don't forget allowing abortion bans so teen and child rape victims are forced to give birth to their rapists' babies. And Tuskegee. And lack of healthcare access which kinda eugenics disabled people. And the CIA. Guantanamo. The government's response to the AIDs epidemic.
I mean this is the world he wants, you can't dog whistle people to take up arms against tyranny without a comfortable acceptance of the irony pool you are filling. Everyone will try to spin this to their political advantage but the truth is this is the level of political discourse the right has been driving towards.
Trump's rhetoric almost lead to Pelosi getting killed. Trump's rhetoric got people killed on Jan 6th. Republicans have been posting images with crosshairs of their opponents for years, and now they are surprised that shit is turning violent...
So, I am fearing this will not only rally all Trump supporters to really vote for and support him extra hard, and get some undecideds to his side for his martyr status, but it might also spark a wave of stochastic terrorism and shootings by some right-wingers acting out, who will want to deliver justice to whatever group they will blame.
There is definitely some danger of this potentially spiraling, not guaranteed, but that will depend on some more potentially chaotic weeks ahead. Stay safe, stay prepared, stay organised.
I bet Trump is perversely happy he got shot. He can be a Real Brave Man, now. How much attention it gets him. How much more clout he believes he will get because he will weasel some political capital out of it. Heaven help us if the shooter was liberal, this man is fine with dog whistling violence and more than a few of his followers are itching to engage in it. It won't matter one whit how many people have been killed or hurt by right wingers.
They even managed to get a triumphant picture out of it. The Secret Service is surrounding him, he's bloody but holding his fist high, and the American flag is perfectly framed in the background. This shit is going to pump his polling numbers. All he has to do is put whatever fake nationalist bullshit he wants over that picture for 30 seconds and it's an instant ad in battleground states.
I mean, the right is already committing violence against its enemies, the media just fails to report it as what it is. Instead it's "lone wolves" and "mental health problems". Rittenhouse literally shot people on camera and got away with it "because skateboard".
I doubt it. Something like this already happened before in 2017. A deranged Bernie supporter went to a congressional baseball game and tried to shoot as many Republicans as he could. He ended up killing 6 people. However, despite that, there were no reactionary shootings. It was an isolated incident. I think this will be the same, or at least I hope.
I was excited at first, then sad. Trump's death would be the only way american people get justice as he's clearly above the law. Can't believe all the news hasn't called him felon trump, instead calling him president trump, dropping the former.
Reddit's megathread on this is already broken. Just goes to show how terrible it is, you'd think after all this time they'd figure out how to run a website...
Gotta love how people are instantly pulling a QAnon deal of “ITS A FALSE FLAG, FAKE NEWS, NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT A GRAND CABAL!”
Somehow Trump is a mastermind of this. The dude who can’t hide stolen files properly, can’t lie on his taxes properly, and loses money on a casino, somehow has the ability to rig a false flag assassination attempt.
Are NeoLibs that so far into the Kool-Aid that Dipshit Trump is also a grandmaster 5D chess player of this, while not being able to string words together? It’s not like he’s ever been a good actor.
"Now Trump's gonna say Biden tried to kill him."
He already said that.
"Now Trump's gonna call for repression of the left."
He already did that.
"Now they're gonna say Trump is a martyr."
They already say that.
"Now the right is gonna get violent with their political opponents."
They already do that.
"Now the fash are gonna push for an enabling act."
They already are doing that.
It's equally frustrating and vindicating that people are waking up to the alarms minorities have been sounding for... decades? Even during 9/11, people were saying this is the start of the end for any form of freedom. Then we had economic crash after crash. Then more rights removed. More drone strikes. More illegal wars.
Then we tried to warn about Trump. No one cared. He won. The people who said he would hurt did get hurt. People acted shocked.
Biden came in. Ignored the people in jail cells, ignored COVID for better polling, refusing the new powers given to him to do anything better for the country at large, and slowly turning into a walking skeleton.
And every single time people have said "Hey this is bad for any form of democracy" people said it was overblown, nothing bad would happen. Then it got worse and worse. Voting didn't solve most of the issues. Protesting did. And then both parties clamped harder on protestors and increased funding to the militarized police.
Welcome to Weimar Germany, America. People have only warned you for decades. If this doesn't wake anyone up, then you'll sleepwalk as you claim ignorance on why you're "just following orders".
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out --- Because I was MLK's white moderate.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,
who is more devoted to "order" than to justice;
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;
who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action";
who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I've been armed 24/7 since 01/06. Women, POC and LGBT folks are the largest gun purchasing demographic. They too got the memo. So no, I'm not giving up my AR-15 or anything other gun.
It's like liberals skipped history class. We're months away from "red hats" grouping up and patrolling neighborhoods for "undesirables".
Like did anyone see what the cops did to us during the George floydd protests? Plus warren VS district of Columbia Supreme Court ruling says cops aren't there to protect us.
We're on our own. I wish we lived in a good place, but that's not where we are. Or ever will be. Because we are here, and we live LIKE THIS.
You realize Trump was already previously part of a conspiracy to overthrow the election and was convicted of this, right? It's not like he's new to this kind of organizational crime. No one thinks he's a mastermind; they think he's a con artist and they just don't trust him. And I'm not saying it was a false flag, I'm just pointing out that people are basing this on past evidence of his behaviors.
This is also not a qanon level of a conspiracy, it's quite mild.
Here's what right wing conspiracies have to say so far about the shooting (I highly recommend monitoring them to gauge how they will react the next few days):
Not advocating for the theory, but it's borderline unbelivable that the man gets shot in the ear, and is more concerned about his shoes than his life, then stops to do a fist pump. This is the same man who dodged the draft.
I’m so over politics in America. This shit is terrifying. People trying to overthrow elections, seniors that are too old to lead, voter suppression, people stuck in disinformation bubbles, and now assassins. Meanwhile, the rich just get richer, and “middle class” life just gets harder and harder.
I have dual citizenship with an EU nation from birth, and this week had made me start to dust off those childhood documents and look into the details of relocating.
Every time I've read someone shitting on America, and then they mention something like not being American, if you ask where, the question is always avoided.
Shooter appears to be a white male, aged 20s or early 30s by the look of it. The t-shirt he was wearing is allegedly marked with branding for a firearms-related YouTube channel.
Edit: Possible suspects are either Maxwell Yearick, previously arrested while demonstrating against Trump in Pittsburgh on a previous occasion, or a Thomas Matthew Crooks, according to the NY Post.
Hasn't been officially ID'd yet though, so still speculation.
I did some cyberstalking (someone actually built a whole ass family tree on Ancestry already, which was my source to look up the other info). Just a reminder, please don’t dox or post any publicly identifiable info on here.
The alleged shooter did donate to a liberal group in 2021, age 17, before he was registered to vote. Rumors of this being another person are likely inaccurate, as the donor has the correct name and zip code listed.
The alleged shooter is a registered Republican. Some have theorized he did this as a “stop Trump” sort of thing to vote in PA’s closed primaries. His father is a registered libertarian and his mother is a registered democrat. His sister is a registered libertarian.
I imagine we will have more info on his background and motivation in the coming days and weeks. It’s possible that he could have any kind of political alignment. A lot of young men can get radicalized between 17 and 20.
It makes him a martyr. Biden was already an extremely weak leader with a massive public perception problem. Trump surviving an assassination attempt while defiantly pumping his fist in the air is the clarion call for Amerikan Fascism.
Biden was already losing in every single swing state. I believe his existing chances before this event for winning reelection were somewhere around 10% at best. This obliterated those chances entirely. The average person is dumb as fuck, and they will vote for strong man leadership. It is a generational mind virus that rises up over and over again in the human psyche. This generation will be no different.
After thinking about this...offing him will do nothing to stop the creep of facism. You have an entire party now aligned with the idealogices that the 3rd Reich had. And it's the entire party. MAGA killed the GOP after they got rid of Cheney. You cut one head off and 3 more will pop up identical to him...with vindication. Its going to be a yearly struggle and I fear we won't be able to hold the line forever
All of the Trump rally photos that I have ever seen have an audience behind him. If they did the same here, then any missed shots would go into the audience.
Are there? He's made it clear he wants to do away with anything resembling democracy. What elections do you think are going to survive white christofascism
My thoughts on the assassination attempt on former President Trump:
The assassination of Trump would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan and denounced reality-based science and journalism long before Trump did. Cults are a product of social decay and despair, and our decay and despair are expanding, soon to explode in another financial crisis.
The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to discredit Trump, as if our problems are embodied in him, are futile. The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. This crusade attempts to reduce a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It is accompanied by a refusal to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression, which have impoverished the working class, fostered endless war, militarized our police, created the largest prison system in the world, licensed corporations to exploit the most vulnerable and transferred wealth upwards into the hands of a billionaire class, neuters the press, Trump's critics and the Democratic Party.
Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like resistance movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience, especially strikes, and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, rather than Trump, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a bankrupt Democratic Party -- whose presidential candidate is in clear cognitive decline -- that is a full partner in corporate oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.
Civil disobedience may not be the best way forward. A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
Remember: countries where the Nordic model is used for social welfare and economic development/growth are thriving, consistently voted high in the happiness index, and also have been rejecting the far right extremism seen else where in Europe
He’s super point on here
… The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics.
It is accompanied by a refusal to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy.
This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression, which have impoverished the working class, fostered endless war, militarized our police, created the largest prison system in the world, licensed corporations to exploit the most vulnerable and transferred wealth upwards into the hands of a billionaire class, neuters the press, Trump’s critics and the Democratic Party.
A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
It feels like a long con. The years of eroding the educational budget have finally paid off. It's going to be an upward battle to bring back logical thinking and media literacy.
A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
And as we have seen, true progressives have been repeatedly pushed from the ticket in favor of establishment-friendly centrists time and time again. The two-party duopoly won't allow it.
I could see someone saying "well I don't really agree with Trump's extremism but at least Trump supporters haven't tried to kill Biden so maybe the left is the problem". It's not as easy to wave his fearmongering ravings about the left off as conspiracy theories--someone on the left (I assume) actually tried to kill him. He's a martyr now.
I really truly want to hope that you're right but damn if this doesn't make me super pessimistic about Biden's already shaky support.
I have no reason to suspect this was staged but,I mean, it's a pretty compelling fit to the current narrative... Trump strong, Biden old and feeble. Plus, all that coverage of Project 2025, "Trump’s big weakness," just died with that first gunshot. Evangelicals will eat this up with their "he's Chosen" LARP. I can already imagine the "bulletproof" NFT trading card series...
As long as Trump doesn't die of a heart attack, this is only going to help him.
I look forward to finding out what the shooters motivations are. I don't personally expect it to be a left-wing partisan but something else, though I'll refrain from speculating here. Let's just say that there current Republican party tends to infight - to try and eat itself any time it senses weakness or deviance from the cult's marching orders.
Once law enforcement announced the shooter's identity and the world gets to dig into his social media and communications data... Well I guess we shall see.
It's a 20 year old white guy who was a registered Republican according to the NY Post. But he also gave $15 to The Progressive Turnout Project. According to reports, his dad bought him the rifle a few weeks ago.
There is something seriously wrong with American politics. Trump is evil - not a word I throw around lightly - but this shooting has all but guaranteed a win for him in November.
Nobody is changing their vote over this... Like, the Democrats have been entrenched in "Not Trump" since the word GO, blue out numbers red and they know what's at stake.
You say that as if all registered voters cast a vote for every election.
This will, at least, energize the R party to vote in numbers we have yet to see. Meanwhile, you’ve got apathetic D voters who really don’t want Biden to be president. It’s not about changing voters’ votes - our elections are never about that - t’s about the number of people who cast a vote.
Until now, I’ve been very much in the camp of promoting all the things Biden has done to convince voters he’s still worth supporting. Yesterday’s event changes that. The DNC needs to combat this pending influx of voters with an invigorating candidate.