Trump Assassination Attempt
Let me start this by wishing the former president a speedy recovery. He was lucky. His injuries were pretty minor. We have a history of political violence in this country going back a long time. It did not start with Donald Trump getting shot. Nor do I expect this to change the dynamics of the election. Why do I say that? Some people compared Trump’s reaction to getting shot to that of Teddy Roosevelt, for example. At least on this timeline, Roosevelt lost in the 1912 November contest.
If we are to defeat him in November, it is at the ballot box. We should not accept any level of political violence. Yet, even now, some Republicans are still calling for it. For example., Marjorie Taylor Greene after the Speaker told his conference, to can it.
However, I want to address a few things here. Mostly it is after observing the absolute shit show that social media has become. I include, of course, a lot of bots. However, some are pretty authentic.
First, even before the sound stopped reverberating, the accusation rose from the depth of Twitter: was liberals. The shooter was a Republican. There is a donation from three years ago to Act Blue. Not clear if this was the same person, I doubt it, he was 17, or a person by the same name. This is more likely. I will also add this. It should not matter. The young man who shot the president committed a crime. It should stop there, but many of the far-right accounts on X are making a point of this.
Thomas M Crooks, the 20-year-old young man, was a registered Republican. I guess that he was radicalized in far-right environments. He was a fan of a YouTube gun channel. This is Demolition Ranch. I only care about his party registration because some people are making hay of this. And I do hope the investigation team is going down some problematic leads. This includes the t-shirt he was wearing.
This brings me to the Groyper army and Nick Fuentes, on the country’s extreme far right. Fuentes is not a fan of Donald Trump, even if Trump had dinner with Fuentes and Yee. Why do I bring this here? This is pure speculation on my part. So please, feel free to ignore it. It is just based on what I know of the Alt-Right. This young man could be part of this group. He fits that profile, and I hope the Feds chase that lead, whether it’s fruitful or not, is beside the point.
But why try to kill one of your own? Well, for starters, they would love to replace the mainstream GOP. Or rather, whatever remains of it. It’s not just Fuentes; it’s also Alex Jones. Here is some of that because others are looking at US Politics. I just started again:
Jones isn’t the only MAGA influencer pushing the notion that Trump would do better to publicly embrace Project 2025. Hitler-admiring Trump dining companion Nick Fuentes was tweeting up a storm of complaints, Jane reports. Fuentes accused Trump of “assimilation into the establishment” and appeared even to believe Trump was actually disavowing Project 2025. “Trump folded,” Fuentes argued.
It is possible that these two are playing 11th-level chess and realize that by denouncing Trump they are bolstering Trump’s efforts to appear more moderate. But that’s doubtful, especially since they risk discouraging their audiences from voting, which would be very bad for Trump, who depends on the conspiracy theory dirtbags to help him win what may still be a close race in November. Which is why I like my theory that these folks are rudderless without Bannon giving out daily marching orders from his podcast “The War Room.” Bannon is good at making even the biggest morons in his audience feel like they’re part of Trump’s nefarious schemes. I have no doubt he could convince them to play along with the strategy of pretending Project 2025 isn’t Trump’s real agenda.
It’s worth remembering that the whole point of Project 2025 was to create the illusion of distance between Trump’s campaign and Trump’s actual agenda. Close Trump aide John McEntee, one of the architects of Project 2025, explained as much in April, telling the Daily Wire, “keeping the two separate is actually the most beneficial way to go about it.”
Mind you, strategically, this makes sense. But the far right is not strategic. As much as I criticize the former president, he does have moments of brilliant strategic thinking. This is one of them, especially when so many of us are now reading the material, talking about it, and writing about it.
Then there is this lovely I saw some months back, but Patriot Takes resurfaced on Twitter:
5 months ago, Alex Jones and InfoWars guest Ivan Raiklin discussed how assassinating Trump would be beneficial, according to them, because it would lead to retaliatory “in kind” assassinations of a “deep state” list which includes President Joe Biden.
Ivan Raiklin: “If they [assassinate Trump], option 2, behind Trump, is going to be so much better for us and so much worse them.”
Alex Jones: “I was about as to say, If they kill him, that’s best case scenario from a sick level. From a sick level medium, ‘Oh, please kill him.’ I mean, it’s so good after that.”
Raiklin: “Oh, it’s going to be the best cleansing and the fastest cleansing that we’ve ever seen in my lifetime. I guaran — , I access, with almost certainty, with the highest level of confidence, that if they assassinate Trump, it is so game over for them.”
Raiklin was a green beret at one point and knew General Michael Flynn. More importantly, his list of people to take down resurfaced two days ago. So, this is the kind of information I sincerely hope the Feds are taking a look at.
Could this young man have been a lone wolf fitting all the usual markers? Of course. That’s what the FBI has found out so far. They are sending his phone to Quantico to try to get into it. For all we know, the T-shirt was a nasty coincidence, and the young man did it out of spite. In spite, that is a good question, but they are starting to chase some leads. However, when we talk of a politician’s assassination, no matter who the target is, always consider who else could benefit and why.
The complete list and source are here for your perusal.
For the moment, President Joe Biden has struck the absolute right tone in denouncing the attack and calling for calm. In the meantime, some Republicans, including a rumored candidate to become Trump’s VEEP, have not done that. It’s as if they want the temperature to increase to the point we are shooting at each other. I do not metaphorically mean this, either.
Once again, I wish Trump a speedy recovery. I am sorry that one person was killed (apart from the shooter, the shooter I don’t care much for), and two more were injured. The questions raised by this event are significant. These investigations are not done overnight. In the coming days and months, we will learn more. The president promised transparency, and the Speaker of the House also pledged to hearings.
For the moment, the president has canceled two events. I am sure this was a recommendation from his security team while they revised protocols. The president also ordered a full review of security at the RNC convention.
And Incidentally, we can never, at least in this account, forget our friends from the Kremlin. This declaration from Dmitry Medvedev makes me think they are cooling the champagne in Moscow. Not that getting shot at guarantees the presidency. Or I missed the 1912 Teddy Roosevelt administration.
