Donald Trump appeared to be shot in the ear as shots were fired at the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump grabbed at the side of his face and blood spattered across his cheek as several popping sounds were heard.
Who the hell benefits from this other than his fanatics? I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be staged, and I’d be even less surprised if his supporters didn’t care it wasn’t real.
EDIT: I concede it was almost certainly a real attack, and probably by someone convinced they could save the country by killing him. I just wasn’t going to be surprised if it turned out to be staged. I wish it had been; this is going to get the fanatics frothing at the mouth. They’re already saying he was saved by God to stop the “leftists”.
I don’t disagree with the underlying idea here
But I would also caution heavily against doubting the simplest explanation: some unwell person, possibly a fallen Trump fan (groyper types angry he supports Israel) or some delusional Biden fan, whatever, just someone mad because Trump does objectively suck shit. Someone who hated him is the most obvious and simplest explanation and should be the assumption unless or until convincing evidence otherwise comes out.
I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question that this was a CIA op, like the assassination of JFK probably was. Trump is treading on a lot of toes, after all- with the possibility of “peace with Russia” (not that I think he could succeed against the blob there), or the (also almost certainly unfounded) hysteria around “leaving NATO” (or extorting the other NATO members, anyways) as well as the fact that the Biden admin is absolutely guilty of a whole slew of crimes they don’t want getting dug up.
Either that, or it was an unwell person, someone who hated him- he’s a very hateable person TBH (though anyone with sense should understand, he’s just as vile as the rest of DC regardless of party affiliation and if anything refreshingly incompetent/not with a death wish for his country).
The most obvious explanation as you said should be the assumption- but that this happened after he met with Orban (who for all his faults has been genuinely trying to prevent WW3, meeting Zelensky/Putin/Xi and then getting rebuffed by Biden before meeting Trump) stinks to me.
I ain’t busting out the tinfoil hat just yet, because it’s entirely possible with all the fearmongering of making Trump the antithesis of freedom, that some unwell person might think they’re saving the world by attacking him, but so much of it feels… off. I can’t help but be suspicious. That said, I’ll withhold any final conclusions until experts can investigate and weigh in.
The right wing will be going hog wild for the next… forever… if this turns out to a clear cut assassination attempt as it now appears. Expect weaponization of the term “stochastic terrorism” against the democrat types. And, to an extent, they won’t be wrong. If you call a guy Hitler 2.0 you are kinda telling people to stop that guy. Of course they ddi the same thing with the 2020 election calling it stolen. If you truly believed there was a deep state coup, isn’t it logical to do something maybe like Jan 6? Right wingers are always better at the bad faith messaging though, so, I see absolutely nothing good coming from this. Maybe some good memes.
Pray that it was a white bog standard, bluemaga deranged liberal or never-Trumper.
Anyone else, like an anarchist, an anarcho-vaushist, a DSA meeting attender is going to get the left the entire mail fist of the state. And we won’t even have to wait for Trump. If the person was DSA or doing anarchist posting online Biden will happily expand targeting and criminalization of the left before he leaves office and Trump will expand it a bit more once he gets in office. At least if it’s a brainwormed and deranged liberal or never-Trump Russia-gater Republican the storm over this dies down faster and there’s less hay made of it and a real push to ascribe it to inexplicable mental illness that we can’t hope to understand at which point by the time Trump’s in office he’s probably not thinking about getting commies but about hurting Biden, Obama, the DNC, etc who would be behind putting him on trial as well as getting him shot. Of course either way there’s going to be red meat thrown out to the reactionaries and speculation that it was antifa BUT if it’s confirmed we’re in a world of shit.
As to who benefits, by surviving Trump benefits. By trying to kill him any true believer, institution loving person who’s full Russia-gate BlueAnon pilled and convinced Trump is literally the second coming of Hitler and will turn 95% great and good USA into nightmare bad USA overnight. One needs look no further than online discourse on twitter, reddit, lemmy world, etc to see plenty of deranged liberals panicking over the state of the race with everyone aware Biden is senile, talking amongst each other about Russiagate hoaxes, how he’s Putin’s puppet, believing NATO is great and that Trump will destroy it, believing in all kinds of other cope nonsense. It’s not hard to see a true-believer in that who got lost in the sauce picking up a gun and fancying themselves a patriot to take him out.
My only counter is that Trump and his supporters already believe Biden and Dems are in a cabal with communists. If it was some anarchist, he’d still blame Biden as equally; if it were a Dem, he’d blame communists as equally. To Trump and his cronies, it’s all the same. No matter who wins, or who fired those shots, they’ll squeeze harder on us.
Yeah but that’s just red meat. When they say communists normally they mean standard liberal democrats. If it was actually an “antifa” type person it will be different in response from the government that it will mobilize at all levels against the left. Whereas if it’s a liberal the mainstream media and FBI aren’t going to call them a communist, they’ll say mentally ill or whatever the standard take is and slowly it’ll fade away.
Trump does not likely truly believe that Democrats are in league with communists knowingly. After all he voted Democrat for years and donated to them and was close to them. He knows how the sausage is made. That’s bullshit culture war red meat fodder for the rubes. He might think they’re importing non-whites to destroy America, that’s it’s vaguely crypto-communist or whatever but I really doubt that an anti-Marxist program is a strong part of his ideology. Being anti-communist is just standard, and it’s a convenient foil and boogeyman to rail against. Too many people on the left buy into the liberal histrionics about Trump being Hitler 2.0 which he isn’t. He’s a reactionary and a grifter and he excites reactionary rubes into violence and that’s about it. The American state will take the American people whatever direction it wants with or without him.
It absolutely matters because as much as Trump and such can bray about commies shooting him or whatever (he’ll be as likely half the time to say something like “Clinton/Biden crime family” or whatever), the government is only going to do so much based off that.
The threat is not that Trump gets upset at and decides to enact vengeance personally on communists (that is a problem if the person was one and no Trump is again not so brain-melted that he wouldn’t understand that a bog standard white male Biden supporter who believed Russiagate is not the same as the image of a pink-haired transgender, anarchist symbol wearing, black bloc type). It’s that if they actually are one. Actually are part of DSA or have photos supporting antifa or being part of it or part of some left group, that Trump doesn’t have to lift a damn finger. The FBI, Biden admin as mentioned, Dept of justice, Homeland security, NSA, etc, etc will all on their own with finger-point from the permanent part of the state institutions of violence gear up and turn heavily towards the left and further antagonizing it on their own. It will create momentum for more bills at the national and state level to criminalize protesting, left symbols, left speech, etc. Yes you’ll get that anyways no matter what but it moves slowly and if it were the case it would push it through more quickly with less even token resistance.
And let’s not forget, a large part of the US intelligence state itself tried to slander Trump. They invented Russiagate hoax, they’ve been saying he’ll weaken our security and NATO commitments, all kinds of fearmongering. So if a bog-standard, CIA loving liberal did this based off their propaganda, they can’t really do anything but quickly bury it under the label of “mental illness don’t look further into it”.
They are starting to identify the shooter. So far, the shooter is about 20 and is from Pennsylvania, according to five senior U.S. law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.
It will be interesting to see if the shooter ends up being a blue maga with an intense manifesto.
Edit.
Apparently the shooter is a republican. 😮
I’m wondering about the ‘staged’ explanation too. Points in favor of that I’ve come across from others or can think of:
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Who insists on stopping to do a fist pump to the crowd after being shot at? Yeah, he’s a narcissist, but still, wouldn’t fight or flight kick in and he’d want to get out of there?
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He has some history with fake wrestling, right? I’m not sure to what extent off-hand, but the fact he does means he’s not a stranger to “faking” things.
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The seeming lack of collateral damage if it was a real shooter. That someone would have the discipline of aim to only graze him, but not cause any other damage to anyone. I’m not sure on the logistics of this myself, but it’s something I heard that I’m paraphrasing from someone else.
He is a narcissist, above any sense of self preservation. He has bragged about things he shouldn’t, said things he shouldn’t, done things he shouldn’t. All to brag.
Wrestling doesn’t make bullet sized holes on ears, doesn’t make bullets appear flying on new York times video footage, doesn’t make shots happen, doesn’t kill a spectator.
There was a collateral death. Allegedly one spectator. Shooter was a bad shot, that’s all.
