Part 1: The cultural silver lining around the Trump assassination attempt appears large and sustaining
Trump defiant
The consequences of significant events can never be determined in their immediate aftermath. History takes time to play out, so to guess at this moment the real aftermath of the attempt to kill Donald Trump this weekend at a Pennsylvania rally is probably foolish and premature.
Nonetheless, I am going to try, because in the past two days I think I begin to see the clouds breaking and a trend appearing. And most amazingly, I think the trends are all positive, in a way that might save this country in ways no one expects.
I will begin today by taking a look at what appear to be the cultural impacts. Tomorrow I will look at the political consequences.
First some background. For the past seven years, since Trump was elected in 2016, the left and its propaganda press (what others label the mainstream press) have gone insane in their hatred of this man, to a point that they repeatedly claimed he was Hitler reborn and that it was perfectly justified to consider having him killed to get him out of the way.
Nor do I exaggerate. Watch:
Don’t be fooled folks.
This is what unity looks like from Democrat politicians and many of their supporter’s. pic.twitter.com/RXz7KbQbGT
— Allen Lively (@AllenLivelyLOF) July 14, 2024
Here’s 2 and a half minutes straight of Democrats explicitly calling for political violence.
Has Biden ever denounced this?
They have blood on their hands. pic.twitter.com/mbGYXTWAN7
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 14, 2024
I could past many more compliations, all showing different examples of Democratic Party politicians and journalists slandering Donald Trump absurdly, and then raving madly for his murder (see for example here, here, and here).
Nor has Trump been the left’s only target. Since Obama it has become their go-to debate tactic to slander and libel anyone who disagrees with them, calling them “racists” and “white supremacists” and “bigots” and “hate-mongers,” when the people who have put racism and hate first the most have been they themselves.
I am not trying to claim that the left is the only one doing such things, but in watching the political scene for fifty years it is clear that the left started this demagogery, and any comparable actions from the right have been a response and an effort to defend itself. Remember too, it is the left that since 2020 has had an aggressive blacklisting and censorship campaign against anyone who disagrees with them.
This weekend’s assassination attempt was then exactly what the left has demanded for years. Now that they have seen it almost happen however they are suddenly discovering it is sometimes dangerous to get what you wish for. For most on the left, including many politicians, their desire for blood is now quenched. Not only do they no longer want to associate themselves with such viciousness, they are under great pressure to recant publicly.
For example, immediately after the assassination attempt, Forbes published an article entitled “Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump’s Next Appeal To Black Voters?”, framed as if Trump wanted to get shot if only to use it as an election ploy, and that he would use it to pander to blacks in order to get their votes.
It was the same partisan hateful trash we’ve been seeing from the leftist propaganda press for years.
Except that Forbes deleted the article within hours. Apparently some at the magazine recognized how horrible the magazine looked for publishing it at that moment, and decided they needed to delete it quickly.
Similarly, the co-founder of LinkedIn and big Democrat donor Reid Hoffman found himself walking back earlier comments he had made, expressing his desire to kill Trump. “I wish I had made him an actual martyr.” were his exact words. The day after the shooting of Trump however he attempted to reframe what he said, to make believe he didn’t really mean he wanted Trump killed, even though these were his exact words.
I replied that I wished that Trump would martyr himself — meaning let himself be held accountable,” Hoffman wrote on X in reference to Trump’s legal problems, including his criminal conviction in Manhattan for falsifying business records and other pending cases against him. “Of course I meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence, which I categorically deplore,” Hoffman added.
Is Hoffman truly regretful wishing Trump would be killed? It is hard to say. Without doubt however he now realizes how utterly inhuman and ugly he sounded, and regrets that for sure.
Hoffman was not alone in walking back such ugliness. Many across the left (but sadly not all) have recognized how insane and vicious they have sounded, and are trying to make amends, if only to salvage some of their reputations. For example, the Biden administration has halted all advertising that had tried to make Trump nothing more than “literally Hitler,” and Biden himself claimed in a speech following the assassination attempt that “we are not enemies. … We are neighbors, we are friends, coworkers, citizens, and most importantly we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.”
Sadly, Biden could only cite the hateful attacks that have come from the right, but he knew that to continue his own attacks against Trump now would reveal his own hate most starkly.
All in all, the assaassination attempt has — at least for the short run — made such talk unacceptable. It has been revealed for what it is, slanders and libels intended only to incite hate and violence.
It has also had its impact on the right. Trump for example has said he has thrown out his original Republican Convention speech, which focused on attacking Biden, replacing it with a speech calling for national unity.
In George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan, there is a character called The Chaplain, who throughout her trial not only eagerly demands she be burned at the stake, he condemns her repeatedly as an agent of the devil who deserves no sympathy.
And then she is condemned and dragged out to be burned. The Chaplain goes to watch her execution, first with enthusiastic glee, and then with a horror that ends up driving him mad. He cries out:
I let them do it. If I had known, I would have torn her from their hands. You don’t know: you haven’t seen: it is so easy to talk when you don’t know. You madden yourself with words: you damn yourself because it feels grand to throw oil on the flaming hell of your own temper. But when it is brought home to you; when you see the thing you have done; when it is blinding your eyes, stifling your nostrils, tearing your heart, then — then — [falling on his knees] O God, take away this sight from me! She cried to Thee in the midst of it: Jesus! Jesus! She in Thy bosum; and I am in hell for evermore. [emphasis mine]
For seven years the left has been acting like The Chaplain during Joan of Arc’s trial. His highlighted words above describe their actions since 2017 quite perfectly. They have been screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it satisfied their base emotions.
For many on the left they are now The Chaplain after Joan had been burned at the stake. They have seen with Trump’s almost assassination the very horrible consequences of screaming “Fire!” in crowded theater, and wish such madness to stop before something even worse occurs.
Will this positive reconsideration hold? We will have to wait and see, but I am actually strongly optimistic, based on how I think the politics over the next year will play out. But then, that’s tomorrow’s column.
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Loved this
You are a great motivator for space, and liberty.
Your readers appreciate you greatly.
https://ryanmcbeth.substack.com/p/disinformation-from-the-trump-assassination
I do see a lot of good signs, as Mr. Zimmerman highlights. On the other hand, I don’t see them at the rank and file level yet. The “usual suspects” in my mostly liberal Facebook feed are either trying to focus on the fact that the assassin was registered republican, or that Trump somehow deserved it for being “literally Hitler”, or highlighting how awful he is for having gone golfing after he arrived in Milwaukie yesterday, instead of going to church or visiting the family of the “man who saved his life”.
Facts are not wanted and need not intrude.
On the other hand, it’s been reported that if you do a blank search on Amazon and let it auto-complete, the top 7 items are Trump hats, shirts, etc. And there have been lots of sightings of “I’m a disillusioned Democrat and I wasn’t going to bother to vote for Biden, and now I’m going to vote for Trump” tweets.
Lets hope the left doesn’t escalate further and we get a relatively normal end to the campaign season and a fair election.
GOOD TO BE LUCKY? OR PROVIDENCE?
“Luck or Providence? Maybe a little bit of both? Given the choice I will take luck every time over being beautiful or smart. But you have to admit, several rounds fired from a high-powered rifle and 1/2 of an inch either way, a breeze, a sneeze and that high value political target is no more.”
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/good-to-be-lucky-or-providence
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/fraudlent-trump-documents-case-disssmisssed
I cannot claim much optimism that the Left has truly reconsidered its hate-mongering toward anyone who disagrees with it. To me, the Left is merely being prudent in stepping back from its political attacks, and even calls for physical violence, as they are presently too extreme even for many in its own voter base. After all, the Left will never settle for anything less than a complete victory, and major elections are just around the corner.
The Left’s hatred has always been there, and Donald Trump, more than any other figure in modern times, has served as an excuse for the Left to abandon all prior restraint.
The attack on 9/11 serves, very sadly, as the likely timeline for today. A VERY brief respite from political hostilities in favor of comity, soon followed by a full return to business-as-usual.
Robert wrote: “Is Hoffman truly regretful wishing Trump would be killed? It is hard to say. Without doubt however he now realizes how utterly inhuman and ugly he sounded, and regrets that for sure.”
I remember exactly where I was when I heard Trump had been shot. I was among some leftist Democrats (when and where can I not be?). Of the four of them, two expressed that they wished the shooter hadn’t missed, and the other two agreed. One of them (the more anti-Trump of the four) later expressed what he may have intended as regret for saying it, when he said that he knew that sounded bad.
Or maybe he didn’t really care that it sounded bad and was merely acknowledging the poor optics (sonics?) of his statement.
“For many on the left they are now The Chaplain after Joan had been burned at the stake. They have seen with Trump’s almost assassination the very horrible consequences of screaming ‘Fire!’ in crowded theater, and wish such madness to stop before something even worse occurs.”
Yeah, I’m not sure that is going to take hold. I think it is as temporary as when that gunman was outside Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh’s home, or when the Bernie Sanders supporter shot up the Republican baseball practice, hospitalizing Representative Steve Scalise. They certainly didn’t learn the lesson of the crosshairs when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona. We have been here before, and if the Democrats had integrity or memories, they would not have been so deranged about Trump.
I think it is similar to the case when everyone united after the September 11th terrorist attack. Democrats were anti-terrorist for a week or so, then they reverted to style. I doubt the Democrats or the Biased Propaganda Press are more serious about peace, law, and order than they are about keeping Trump out of office at all costs. They mean all costs. I suspect they will return to normal by Election Day. Maybe even by the beginning of the Democratic National Convention. They just aren’t mature enough not to and never were.
Nancy Pelosi (who ranted about Jan. 6 called for uprisings)–typical…Van Jones attacked the Supreme Court… Trump’s exoneration being a “license to thug.”
We were told that speech is violence–so all those accusations need to be replayed with anti-Trump rhetoric right afterwards—juxtaposition.
Teddy Roosevelt: undisputed assassination attempt champion.
Shot 14 October 1912. Refused medical transport, and gave a speech immediately after the attempt, with a fresh bullet in his chest.
“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Coutour – a quibble … but a “hi-powered rifle” would more likely have been a Browning BAR in .300 Winchester Magnum, with 3x the muzzle energy than the 55 grain .223 round, 3x the mass of the bullet & 50% more cross-section. The 5 mph crosswind at 150 yds moves the .223 bullet about a half inch. The .300 Win Mag is moved only half that. With the .08″ greater diameter, that puts the bullet one-third inch closer to Trump’s skull.
Browning produced exactly that rifle for the mass market over 60 years ago. And the Sears catalog sold firearms thru the mail.
I’ve seen an article about how the gunman (in a Black Rock ad?) rushed his shot
Trump doesn’t stand still much–the first struck in silence of course–he probably thought it was a hornet sting.
MilkBar TV and other sources say the gunman was spotted atop the roof a full 30 minutes before the attempt. NY Post said the counter sniper team was in the very building the gunman was atop of.
You know, if I wanted to eliminate a political rival, I might go after a geeky, awkward little dude and say “Hey kid–Donald Trump is actually the antichrist..he’d survive a bullet to the head–here–we’ll help you.”
“Okay, we’ve got our 21st Century patsy….we’ll let the kid have about five to ten shots–then you take his head off….no arrest….wait….he’s been spotted…ah…send PR over there and tell him he’s one of ours—which he is.”
I believe that two key data points may MAGA…they are both necessary and hopefully sufficient
1. Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn’s message (apologies for the very brief summary) that they didn’t love freedom enough….that had the people used whatever means available to deliver blows to the henchmen, then each night/shift night the henchmen would have thought that they might not return home, then the Hidden Hand would have run-out of useful idiots.
2. You are in a communist revolution from the Frankfurt school of thought and action (violence) from which the Green Tyranny has arisen and developed for many decades.
America must stop the Communist Revolution.
Bob, I’d like to share your optimism about a permanent change of behavior of many on the Left because of the horrific events of the weekend. But…….
To quote the guy in the beginning of Steve Bannon’s Warroom:
I wish in my soul, I wish
That any of these people
Had a conscience
A while ago, I realized that LinkedIn had negative professional value, in that it caused more problems than any value its superficial “connections” had. So I ignored it.
But I finally got around to canceling and closing my account this weekend.
Has it been duly noted that none of the Maga conservatives rioted, looted, burned buildings, or injured (or worse) anyone after the assassination attempt?
The “propaganda” press has already returned to normal.
I think the photo Mr. Z. included in his post is going to be the equivalent of the Flag Raising at Iwo Jima for the 2024 presidential campaign. The Dems will give all the Hitler talk a rest for maybe a week, tops, and then it will be back to their business as usual. What else do they have, really, except “The Narrative?”
Good assessment of the PUBLIC “changes of heart” by the leftists!! But let’s be HONEST – they’d be CELEBRATING – IN PRIVATE – had this been successful! People need to realize something – something TERRIBLE – the MAJORITY of the LEFTISTS are INSANE! They have no RATIONAL approach to anything – it’s what benefits THEM, regardless of the damages to MILLIONS of PEOPLE or Our Nation!
Now about the shooter and the COMPLETE FAILURE to PROTECT PRESIDENT TRUMP! A POLICE OFFICER encountered the SHOOTER! The SHOOTER pointed his RIFLE at the POLICE OFFICER! The POLICE OFFICER backed down! And THEN he did WHAT??? If nothing else, shouldn’t he have just fired his weapon into the ground to attract attention??? At the very least then the SS would have covered PRESIDENT TRUMP and the PROTECTIVE SNIPERS would have been reacting much quicker – MAYBE!
I would ask Dan Bongino to head an Investigation – can we TRUST ANYONE INSIDE the FBI/DOJ???
The problem with an ideology dedicated to insulation from reality is that they cannot learn since they never acknowledge any mistakes or recognize any irony. They’ll mouth the right words, it won’t change their essential indecency, their belief that (as Yglesias might say) the world would have been objectively better off if the bullet were a few inches to the left.
And don’t kid yourself, this was a classic Derp State coup attempt. We have confirmation that they saw the shooter on the roof half an hour earlier with a rangefinder, took photos, yet didn’t even warn Trump. Oops! They surrounded the 6″4″ Trump with tiny, ducking women. Whoopsie! They diverted his SS resources to Jill Biden. Oops! They had only one regular SS detail agent. Whoops! But Mayorkas has “100%” confidence” in everything. As with Fauci’s COVID genocide, the purpose of a system is what it does.
Lee Harvey Oswald was not an actual member of the CIA, but he was , per the CIA, an”associate,” a person contacted and utilized for odd jobs. Sort of like the dupes the FBI use and cultivate for their disgusting “jobs. Think Thomas Matthew Crooks .
As Bill Clinton told someone, I can’t remember the name, but the statement has rung in my head ever since, “There is a government within government in Washington, and I can’t control that one.”
“TRUST ANYONE INSIDE the FBI/DOJ???”
can we TRUST ANYONE INSIDE the FBI/DOJ???
NO.
Both agencies’ leaderships agenda, self-interests and power lie where?
With a new Trump administration? When it is clear that both agencies and the CIA have actively worked to remove Trump from the equation in American politics?
Human incompetence and sloppy operations can be a strategy.
But we must wait to see what other facts are developed before we go further than good old fashioned generic human incompetence and sloppy operations.
Assume the worst, compensate as best as you can and move positively into the future.
As of right now its a deranged young man with his daddy’s gun, some ammo and a ladder that has defeated the entire Secret Service protection of former president Trump.
As of right now.
Stand by.
And as far as the Democrat party’s obsession with symbolism in hiring over experience, qualifications and competence, I post this:
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-fundamental-problem-with-d-e-i
“You know the names: From Pete Bootygig to every judicial nomination, to every prosecutor, to most every Congressional and Senate Democrat party nominee. It’s all about race and the color of your skin and or sexual orientation and definitely about the “progressive”, really Marxist “We hate America” agenda.”
I think we will see the story arc like 911 play out in 6 weeks instead of 2 years.
The overheated hatred will be back in plenty of time for election day.
I do believe there will be electoral consequences. Trump will likely get record support from the black community. But it will be mostly offset by the complete loss of unmarried white women.
I am just going to ignore all the conspiracy theories. They take us nowhere and never end. They detract from the real goals and slow down the real objectives.
As for the shooting.
The shooter was a mentally disturbed person. I feel for him and his family. He needed help years ago and obviously never got it.
We all know what type of indoctrination he received from his teachers and professors all his life. They are the real enemies of the US.
Now the next thing we need to do to make sure Trump is elected is to start fighting back.
Remind the left every time they make a disparaging remark. Every single time, make them apologize for it. Every time they say things like nazi, enemy of democracy, racist, and any other of the dozens of disparaging remarks about republicans and MAGA members.
Always remind them of the thousands of times they have made there remarks over the last 10 years. Remind then about all the times they attacked the right on gun ownership and remind them that the right does not do the shootings.
Remind them that the mentally weak grab onto those expressions and start to viscerally believe them to the point that we have seen time after time that one of them eventually acts on those ideas.
Remind them of ALL the violence the left has perpetrated. Starting with the congressional softball game.
The lefts new attack is trying to link trump in some way to Project 2025. Which he and the republican party had nothing to do with. Read about it and learn how to counter it.
Edward wrote, “I was among some leftist Democrats (when and where can I not be?). Of the four of them, two expressed that they wished the shooter hadn’t missed, and the other two agreed. One of them (the more anti-Trump of the four) later expressed what he may have intended as regret for saying it, when he said that he knew that sounded bad.”
pzatchok wrote, “Remind the left every time they make a disparaging remark. Every single time, make them apologize for it. Every time they say things like nazi, enemy of democracy, racist, and any other of the dozens of disparaging remarks about republicans and MAGA members.”
pzatchok is of course right. I therefore ask Edward, did you say something to these people, or did you stand silent and do nothing so evil can triumph?
I suspect the latter, as you seem to have that overall mentality. You are conservative most clearly, but you have also made it clear in many other columns you have no interest in fighting for your beliefs.
I believe Mr. Zimmerman is being a bit optimistic, but there is hope. The money and power in politics is still with the Boomers. They’ve “been there, done that” with assassinations. The late 60s/early 70s were chock full of them. Perhaps, just perhaps, wiser heads will prevail.
As for the rank and file, the leadership (on both sides) seems to forget that “riling people up” is not something with a controllable dial. The grassroots (or astroturf, if you prefer) hatred is not going anywhere. For the leadership, no one actually believes the rhetoric; it’s just a tactic. They can at least tone it down, if not stop it altogether, and move on. The people on the ground are a different story. They believe it.
My Trump flag is on the way. I’d get out the MAGA hat, but the only thing I’m going out for today is a haircut. I don’t want to smush it down, first thing!
From the real world:
I was dealing with a young, 30ish Hispanic fully American customer the other day. I do not talk politics with my customers but will touch on it if they ask my opinion.
He spontaneously says to me: “You know, I was on the fence about who I was going to vote for president in November.
I am no longer on the fence”. He will be voting for Trump.
And during this unsolicited spontaneous interaction sitting at my table happens to be sitting a FEMA manager (D) knee jerk “Trump is a racist” who I have come to know who was in the process of attempting to pick my brain for my opinion on the effects on the subject of the attempted assassination of the former president. He heard the entire interaction.
He was dumbfounded!
Can’t make it up.
Cotour: I might want to quote this story from you in my column today. It illustrates perfectly the political shift that is going on. Do I have your permission? I will also link to your webpage in doing so.
Of course.
Hilary will stop at nothing to exact her revenge
Remind the left every time they make a disparaging remark. Every single time, make them apologize for it. Every time they say things like nazi, enemy of democracy, racist, and any other of the dozens of disparaging remarks about republicans and MAGA members.
Always remind them of the thousands of times they have made there remarks over the last 10 years. Remind then about all the times they attacked the right on gun ownership and remind them that the right does not do the shootings.
Sorry, there reaction will be – and already is – “He deserves it. He started the violence”
Zman, you might consider including this former Trump hater in your piece?
Amber Rose speaking at the Republican Convention: https://youtu.be/yyBLaGF4Slc?si=NbIsRDpw-zyD43ta 5 min.
Cant make it up.
“Latinos For Trump”
Trump Latinos (August 2023)
https://youtu.be/jLWewH0-Lgk
2:46
As an answer to the left stating that the right and especially Trump is against women and their abortion choices.
Tell then that we are are not trying to remove their ability to get an abortion but we are trying to give the unborn baby their rights.
I personally can not understand how a woman would support abortion as a form of birth control. Especially after they have had a child before.
I also can not understand why they want to allow an abortion for the mental health of the mother. If the simple birth and adoption of their baby will cause life long mental health problems for her why wouldn’t the very same woman not have mental problems over the death of that same child? Especially if she caused that death on purpose.
As for the rape allowance. I want a DNA sample from the fetus so we can find and prosecute the rapist.
If twin sisters both get pregnant at the same time what is the difference when one calls the fetus a baby and the other aborts it? How could one sister plan for her sisters baby shower while planning for her own abortion?
Sorry I just had to let out that rant.
Dehumanize and objectify anything that stands in the way and after accomplishing that you can justify anything. Make it a thing.
This is one of the accomplishments of the Liberal / Leftist Feminist movement. And to be sure there is a valid feminist movement, as there is a gay movement, as there is a trans movement. Mutual respect should be the goal, but like all things political it goes way, way too far and winds up becoming a religion of the zealot.
Another of their tactics is because men are naturally dominant in many spheres of life and women are different then the only solution to such an inequity is to feminize men. And you do that through law if you can.
And in that model, everyone then is theoretically equal.
That is the theory, that is the mantra.
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-patriarchy-is-dead-long-live-the-patriarchy
To pzatchok,
you can call the scenario I mention above a conspiracy theory all you like–but even NYT admitted the sniper team was watching him two minutes before the attempt (Wait, that’s how long the secret service sniper team observed Trump’s would be assassin? TOWNHALL).
That lends credence to the scenario “Get a patsy to shoot Trump, we shoot the kid instantly a moment after he takes the shot–Oswald to Ruby in 8 seconds–all neat.”
A more usual botch up would be–the sniper makes a shot, the first responders look around to see what they missed–and it’s a foot chase with the crowd pointing out the sniper AFTER he makes his attempt.
Come to think of it, Kamala Harris supported violence and crime by supplying bail for people who were “mostly peaceful” rioters across the country in the Summer of 2020 (“peaceful” now being the Orwellian term for violence, which explains why Democrats insist that when Trump said to be peaceful, on January 6th, 2021, he really meant to be insurgents). It isn’t just rhetoric that contributes to violence but it is actions, too. It is not just Trump that is the target, but it is others, too. It is not just individuals that are targets, it is groups, too, such as Trump supporters or the police in general.
In 2022, Elon Musk left the Democrat Party because it had become the party of division and hate. These two concepts permeating through the party’s membership makes it easy for the membership to become violent (rationalizing these actions as “free speech”). The Party certainly hated Trump, now they hate Musk, too. Musk was right about what The Party had become, and we have to wonder how long it has been this way, or whether it ever was any different, the Democrat Party having been founded to defend the institution of slavery, was the party of the KKK, the party of Jim Crow, the party that interned citizens descended from Japanese ancestry, the party that opposed civil rights, etc.
I am starting to read of a concept called stochastic terrorism (stochastic means: randomly determined), which is the idea that influential individuals demonize and dehumanize targets, either groups or individuals, inspiring unknown actors to perform terroristic violence against these targets. Easily done by a political party that spreads division and hatred throughout its followers.
Obama did this with his political party and with the Democrats within the government when he presented his tyrannical policy of using governmental power and treasure to punish enemies and reward friends. This fundamental transformation of America introduced what I will call “stochastic law-fare,” random people in government weaponizing their department or agency against the demonized target(s). Democrats within government used this against the Tea Party movement. Lois Lerner didn’t have to be ordered to bias her work, she took initiative based upon Obama’s stated policy.
Obama didn’t have to give orders, he only had to make a vague suggestion of carrot and stick, and it was followed by inspired random, self-selected actors. He even put in place plenty of people of the type who remain across administrations so that those people would stochastically apply governmental law-fare against Obama’s and the Democrats’ enemies. It worked against Trump throughout his presidency, culminating in two bogus impeachments and several bogus court cases after his presidency ended.
These people who are so permanently in place are now punishing Musk for abandoning The Party. Robert Zimmerman seems to think that they are following Biden’s orders, but they could just as easily be employing stochastic law-fare against Musk, without orders from higher up.
Biden neither participated in, nor ordered, the assassination of Trump, but by calling him “literally a threat to everything America stands for,” and other rhetoric, he incited the violence. Biden mentions ” bullseye” and someone uses a rifle to literally put Trump in the crosshairs. This is political incitement that has provoked several random acts of violence, in recent years, but the instigator (e.g. the politician, the television commentator) applies ambiguous rhetoric that allows him plausible deniability for the resulting violence. Or assassination.
In the past, Democrats claimed similar incitement by Republicans, but it was almost always Democrats who performed the violent acts. In the present, Democrats, news reporters, and Democrat commentators used constant inciting rhetoric for nine years, ever since Trump announced his first run for president, but it wasn’t until the Secret Service began to employ DEI policies (Democrats Excessively Incompetent) that there was enough incompetence available for the opposition candidate to be this vulnerable.
It is now being claimed that the Iranians wanted to assassinate Trump, and the Secret Service claims it had increased the protection of Trump to cover for this increased threat level. Funny how no one noticed the increased protection, and funny how this supposedly increased protection was still not enough to protect against an amateur assassin. Imagine what a professional assassin could have done.
Am I suggesting that the government intentionally left Trump vulnerable? Since the Trump campaign asked for and was refused increased Secret Service protection for the ever-increasing threat level, yes. That is exactly what I am suggesting. Virtually every Democrat who is influential has used rhetoric to increase that threat level, but the Secret Service didn’t respond.
Not only was stochastic terrorism employed, but there perhaps there was also stochastic incompetence: could the the head of the Secret Service have intentionally assigned less experienced agents to protect the political enemy, the man Biden wanted in the bullseye. For some reason, many of the people assigned to surround Trump during his speech were significantly shorter than him. Apparently, Trump’s torso was being protected by the heads of some of his protectors.
Stochastic terrorism would certainly explain why some of the Capitol Police waved unarmed Trump supporters into the Capitol Building on January 6th of 2020 only to have other officers (or maybe even the same officers) use them for target practice. That was a classic example of the “I’ll set ’em up, you knock ’em down” strategy. No one had to order them to do that, they just did it because it was what they could do to do their part for Obama, H. Clinton, and Biden. With the terrible treatment and murder of the Trump supporters, the Capitol Police expected all the other Trump supporters to be terrorized into silence and stay home.
So far, terrorism, law-fare, incompetence has worked fairly well for the Democrats. Police departments across the nation have lost funding and support (not only support of their communities but support of the officers who no longer want to work there), Trump and Musk have both been slowed down tremendously, and an assassin came within an inch of success.
Robert may be right: “And most amazingly, I think the trends are all positive, in a way that might save this country in ways no one expects.” But I don’t think it will happen in the way Robert thinks. It won’t be a more civil Democratic Party, which cannot win by being civil. I still don’t hear talk of refunding and supporting the police. Trump is making legal gains, but not because of this failed assassination but because the law-fare is not legally supportable, but the process itself is the punishment, so it worked for the Democrats. I don’t think DIE policies will be rejected, either, because few people are talking about these policies being why the Secret Service is so incompetent, these days.
Will the Secret Service change? There have been no indications of it so far, no resignations, no firings, no discussion of change, so no.
It will be a public that sees how much stronger the Democrats’ opponents are. Stronger because they can withstand the incessant verbal, psychological, and physical attacks by the Democratic-dominated government, media, and culture, but how this will affect anything is a mystery.
There seems to be a temporary change: It is sounding like the Democrats have given up replacing Biden, because they no longer think The Party can win this year. I expect this to change in the coming weeks, as they emotionally recover from the disaster that resulted from their stochastic terrorism policy and decide the problem was not the policy but was poor aim.
When the Democrats return to division, demonization, and hatred as usual, someone is likely to try a do-over, now that Trump’s poor protection has been exposed.
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Robert Zimmerman,
Why would I bother pissing off the people I have to deal with all the time? It would be futile.
I have begged you to supply us with people worth voting for, because if we continue voting for Republicans who just take us farther to the left then all is lost, and we will end up in a far left country. Your response was that we all should just vote for whoever the Republican Party put on the ballot.
You recommended that we vote for the least liberal candidate, but that is what we always do, and we almost always end up with a liberal leader. We all did this for our entire voting lives, yet we ended up here. We all thought it was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t. Now the voting system has been completely corrupted, with Democrats making the ballots count, not the voters, and the Republicans are doing nothing to rectify this. Doing the same thing over and over will give us the same results: A Republican Party that continues to take us to the far left. If we don’t do something different, then all is lost.
I recommended that we follow Milton Freedman’s suggestion that we make it politically profitable for politicians to do the right thing, but you rejected that in favor of voting for whoever happens to be on the ballot. Thus, the wrong people doing the wrong things profit politically, taking us all farther to the left.
If you are unwilling to get your party to do the right thing, then all is lost. You stand silent and do nothing, so evil triumphs. It is not worth voting, because there is no one worth voting for. You refuse to insist on conservative candidates, so we almost always get leftist Republicans, and the left wins again and again. This is how we have ended up here, a slow shift to the left with no motions back toward the right.
The Republican Party promised to end Obamacare if we would give them the House. We did; they didn’t. The Republican Party promised to end Obamacare if we would give them the Senate. We did; they didn’t. The Republican Party promised to end Obamacare if we would give them the President. We did; they didn’t. We followed the Republican Party over and over again, insanely expecting different results, but they kept Obamacare every time. Promises made. Promises broken. The empirical evidence is that the Republican Party — leadership and voters — is no longer on our side.
Blame me all you want, for my insistence to have a conservative to vote for, but it is the insanity of your good intentions, continuing to do the same thing again and again, that brought us here and that keeps us on the same path.
You once suggested that I run for office, but if I cannot convince you to follow Milton Freedman, do you really think I could convince enough people to vote for me? I would just water down the ballot and leftists would have an even easier time winning office, and all would be lost. I never expected to change any leftist’s opinions, as they are emotionally committed to them, but I cannot convince one person to follow someone you already respect. Over the past eight years, you taught me that my participation is futile.
I learned that you are willing to do the same voting all over again, and all these years you have expected different results and still do. If I cannot convince you to do the right thing rather than follow the Republican Party as it takes us farther to the left, what makes you think I could convince shameless hard-core leftists into shame for wishing their hated enemies dead? They will still hate him, and they will still think that violence is speech. You have taught me the futility of it all. All is lost.
Here we are, all of us in the same basket, on the path paved with good intentions, arriving at the gates of hell. What does it say over those gates? Dante told us.
You won’t do what it takes to beat them; I won’t join them; but I have to live among them.
Without a path back to the right and back to the once-conservative America that believes in truth, justice, and the American way, why do you think I should piss off the people I have to deal with all the time?