I am cross posting. I am following up on how this was the plot of the interpreter. That was the first thing I thought. Now looking at the sloppiness of the shooter and how he is now dead so can't tell us anything. Then the witness comments on the sloppiness of security? I mean who stops for a photo op while being shot at unless you don't believe it's for you. Plus the last time secret service has to rush the stage, he looked like little soft cock!! It just makes too much sense!
I am a “decline to state” voter in California. The Dems let me vote in their presidential primary, the Republicans don’t. In 2020 my plan was to reregister as a Republican to vote against Trump. In the end it was obvious it was going to be a waste of time so I didn’t bother.
And so it begins. This will become weaved throughout their narrative IMO. Trump as the "chosen one" https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/trump-shooting-gods-hand-protection-rev-franklin-graham-others
The gaslighting coming from the right this morning is quite something. Essentially, it amounts to blaming democrats in raising the rhetoric for saying "democracy will end" if Trump were elected. Meanwhile, ignoring that Trump yells on a daily basis the country will end or be destroyed if he's not re-elected. Oh, and ignoring he literally tried to steal an election and start an insurrection.
Yes, the people who wildly cheer a candidate who uses the word vermin to describe people he doesn't like are now upset about inflammatory rhetoric. I'd call them hypocrites but that would require them to have had any principles in the first place.
Depends a little on the actual rounds and how good a shot the guy was-- it should have been, or seemed, possible to shoot a couple of bystanders and then shoot a birdshot round near Trump to scratch him at worst. Or bounce a fragmentation round off the machine for the same purpose. (Donald Hamilton wrote a novel-- I think titled "Line Of Fire"-- about a phony assassination where the "victim" did not obey the shooter's instructions to stand still at a certain point for a few seconds, instead waving his arms around and picking an intended "miss" out of the air and getting seriously hurt.)
If it weren't for Ukraine I would give less than 2 shits about US politics but .... after hearing how this means Trump wins because it make made the undecided vote for Trump .... I have no idea how people can still be undecided in USA. Personally I saw people who were going to vote Trump saying this made them vote Trump... sure thing skippy Apparently the moderates (who know that Trump wants to make abortion illegal as an example) and undecided have now decided Trump is their guy My prediction is that Trump will be so insufferable regarding this it will put off many many people
Someone will absolutely set an O/U on Trump mentioning "my third term" (even in sarcasm) and the MAGA party will swallow it up.
After sleeping on it, I want to say that not only Trump somehow dodged a bullet but America also dodged a bullet. Can you imagine what the nation would be like this morning if Trump had been killed? Can you imagine the evil forces snd the hateful narrative we’d be dealing with today? I fear that Trump the martyr would have been even more dangerous than Trump the survivor. And, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was in the shooter’s calculations. The murder of Trump would have played into the extremist narrative beautifully. We need to understand that the battle is not against just Trump, but against the forces that are behind his rise and are destroying America. For those who wish that the shooter hadn’t missed, my message is, we must do whatever it takes to defeat Trump, but with ballots, not with bullets. That’s how battle for the soul of America must be won.
The true danger is indeed that MAGA-ism has devoured most of the GOP but I think in the scenario you describe, the real danger would probably be a J.D. Vance type candidacy as Jitty alluded to earlier. I don't really believe this would have ignited large scale violence. And I say this as someone who believes that there will be isolated instances of dangerous idiots now trying to do harm to Democrats or progressive figureheads.
David Frum with a good article in The Atlantic called "The Gunman and the Would-Be Dictator" (I read it in Apple News). The following quotes are not in the order presented in the article.