History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Trump Assassination Attempt

36 Comments

This will have the same effect that the attempt on Reagan’s life did in 1981: Unite much of the country in his favor.

[Late-night update]

A white-hot anger on this July 13th. And Bill Ackman finally metaphorically plights his troth to Trump.

[Sunday-morning update]

I agree with the last point, but as Trump pointed out in the debate, Biden never fires anybody. Maybe because he’s never really been in charge. If Mayorkas refused the request to provide addition resources to the Secret Service to protect Trump, and he keeps his job, he should be impeached. Again.

[Afternoon update]

Jeffrey Carter wades into the fray.

[Bumped]

[Monday-morning update]

Mark Steyn: What they wanted.

[Bumped]

Trump, Biden, and the shame of the corporate media.

Honestly, they seem to have no shame.

[Update a few minutes later]

Who’s the real threat to democracy?

Hint: It’s not Donald Trump.

36 thoughts on “The Trump Assassination Attempt”

  3. Those sounds you hear are being made by a whole lot of Democrats and journolists and pundits and influencers going through their social media and frantically deleting a whole lot of postings and “hot takes” and zingers that they posted in the last few weeks.

    Otherwise, based on the conflicting reports I’ve seen, anyone rational should be waiting a day or two so their opinions can based on facts. (Not that I expect the facts to make things look any better.)

    1. Damn, I was wrong. Here it is less than 24 hours later, and there are so many Progressive Democrats saying really stupid things, or defending their earlier stupidities. Because they can’t shut up, they determined to remove all doubt about how evil they are. (It seems “saving our Democracy” includes applauding political murder.)

      1. Many Ukraine supporters are also acting this way.

        I despise Russia and want Ukraine to win but it looks like we have mini-Putins as allies. They don’t care about the USA. They are fine with totalitarian Marxists abusing the populace. They just want their country to not be Russian, which is understandable, but they are no better than Putin.

  4. This assassination attempt presumably should make it that much more difficult for judge Merchan to sentence Trump to prison in September. This would be assassination attempt should catapult the issue of presidential candidate safety to the point where sentencing him to jail an incarcerating him would cease to be a viable option.

  5. Things may be a little more complicated as news came out over the evening. We really need to see this guy’s writings to see what his state of mind was. It might not be political, or it could be but not how people expect, or well anyway.

  6. The advance work by the Secret Service was pretty obviously seriously defective. One has to wonder if this was deliberate, as was the case with Capitol Hill “security” on Jan. 6, 2021. And will the FBI really investigate this or is it already leading the coverup?

    1. Secret Service is denying that they turned down requests for more protection but who knows these days? Can’t trust the Biden admin

      1. It has been reported that the Secret Service’s priority on Saturday was covering “Dr. Jill, EdD Woman” at her appearance in Pittsburg that took place at the same time.

    2. The more I see of non-explanatory “explanations” from Biden’s Secret Service Director the more I am inclining toward “something else” myself. It would be interesting, for example, to see what the “security perimeters” and personnel dispositions were like for previous Trump campaign events. I have a feeling we would find that Butler, PA wasn’t the first place where “back doors” have been deliberately left unsecured.

    1. Nobody really hates RFKjr and he isn’t a serious threat to the Left. But he should get protection.

      1. He should considering his family is a magnate for crazies. He would have been a threat if they had a primary but they rigged it

    3. Violence stalks the president who has rejoiced in violence to others.

      “Weighs In” Jim? Did you choose to leave off the sub specifically, or are you unusually busy? Or unusually uncertain, wondering where the political winds will blow? Thinking The Atlantic has got to carry… weight. It’s verified opinion. It’s an authoritative viewpoint. It’s Trustworthy. “We say Dictator, Violence, what more do you need? It’s all there, what could anyone possibly add that’s worthy of attention?”

      What will you say if it all collapses Jim?

      1. “Weighs In” Jim?

        A boxing metaphor. Surely you’ve heard it before?

        Did you choose to leave off the sub specifically, or are you unusually busy?

        I assumed people could read it themselves. Like you did.

        Thinking The Atlantic has got to carry… weight.

        An example of left wing spin. I suspect the Atlantic gets cited more than Rand’s blog; certainly more than you or me.

        What will you say if it all collapses Jim?

        I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “it” but I’ll probably say something along the lines of “Hey, it collapsed”.

  11. My take is that a huge part of looking into why this occurred should be how the secret service, and local police, not only let the assassin get into position, but didn’t spot him when audience members did. And, why were warnings from the audience ignored for what looks to be two minutes or more?

    I’ve seen the video of the secret service counter-sniper team preparing to fire, and firing. What’s bothering me the most is it appears that they held fire until the killer opened fire. IF so, I think a crucial part of this investigation should be looking into what the Rules of Engagement are, because if the ROE prevented opening fire until the assassin did, the ROE have to be changed, immediately, and whatever cretin put them in place needs to be fired.

    1. For those who seem to think that every failure is a sign of a conspiracy– As an Irish Republican Army apologist said about one of the IRA’s assassination attemptes against Thatcher, “You have to be lucky all the time. We only have to be lucky once.” Right now there are a lot of mentally unstable people looking to get lucky, and on Saturday, one almost succeeded. Why he got lucky needs to be determined, whether it was human error, or bad policy, incompetence, or willful negligence.

      As for the cop who supposedly encountered the killer on the roof– I’ve heard two stories, one that he was using a ladder, the other that he was being boosted up by a second person. In either case, physical reality says that he was in no position to become Dirty Harry and start shooting at someone. (And anyone posting about firing “warning shots” needs to stop getting all their information from Hollywood screen-writers.) I’m going to wait until I hear more before leaping to a conclusion and labeling him a coward.

      And I’m not so sure I want to see the Secret Service blowing away every suspicious character. Do you realy want give them “a license to kill” like that? I doubt even having that 007 card is going to protect such a sniper from being turned into another Derek Chauvin after the wrong person has their head exploded.

      1. Well stated Raoul.

        There is a lot of debrief that needs to occur regarding what caused the holes in the barriers, but let’s not blame the few officers and snipers, who are the ones that actually engaged the shooter. They were not the initial barriers that failed. They were the last line of defense that simply wasn’t fast enough.

        1. The big question for me, was there a not shoot first without permission order?

      2. Sometimes people just fuck up at the wrong time.

        Drawing and shooting from the top of a ladder certainly isn’t something they train for and there might not have been time for him to reengage the shooter before counter snipers took him out. The cop who could have been a hero will have to live with the shame but he was just one failure among many others.

        It is an unforgivable error that they missed a ladder to the roof. Accountability starts at the top.

        The part about shooting first should also consider people lying prone on a rooftop with a rifle shouldered. However, a lot of actual snipers have pointed out the counter snipers likely didn’t see as they were focused farther out.

        1. Not only do they not train to shoot from a ladder, it’s not a good idea at all. You run the risk of shooting yourself if you fall. Recoil is bad if your feet are not on the ground.

      3. I didn’t meant to imply a conspiracy in my prior post. I suspect something far darker and evil; the incompetence of bureaucracy.

        I’m not claiming it was, just that it needs to be looked onto, and fixed if indeed it was.

        However: FACT CHECK. Looks like I may have been wrong regarding who took out the assassin. It may not have been a SS sniper, but a police sniper. Also, it appears there was likely a tree at least partially obstructing line-of-sight, so my hunch is now that the tree, rather than ROE, delayed the counter-sniper fire. I still think it needs looking into, though.

        As for the officer who encountered the killer on the roof: My take is that he had a choice; duck, or get his head blown off. Personally, provided he raised the alarm as soon as practicable, I have no issue at all with that officer’s actions. Going up against a guy with a rifle with a handgun is bad at best, but under those tactical circumstances? Yep, duck, and shout the alarm so that someone not in such a disadvantageous tactical position can make a move.

        As for shooting first, most police aren’t going to wait until an armed attacker fires at them or civilians; just pointing a gun is generally enough. All I’m suggesting is that of there were ROE in place preventing this, that needs looking into, and whoever is responsible for it (if true) needs firing. Otherwise, it’s a clear message to all would-be assassins; you get the first shot.

  12. We on the right are partly to blame for allowing decades of the normalization of calling fascism “right wing”, opening the door for any Republican to be compared to Hitler, when we know the historical truth that fascism is, and always has been, a leftist ideology. Hitler was ALWAYS one of theirs, not one of ours.

  14. I found an article on this (now lost) which stated that Donald Trump “claimed” to have been wounded by a bullet. “Claimed”? “Claimed”? And I found a USA Today article which acknowledged the assassination attempt in the first paragraph, but the second paragraph opened with reference to “shots fired in Trump’s direction.” As if the “shooter” (assasin) was shooting at something else, and it just happened to be near where Trump stood.

    But the Left’s efforts to blame the attempt on Trump himself are just ghastly. The Bee’s article is the perfect satire, except that it would probably be received as real news to the brainwashed half of the USA.

    1. The alleged shooter allegedly fire an alleged rifle, allegedly aiming at the alleged former President, Trump, firing alleged bullets allegedly hitting the alleged Trump’s alleged ear. Alleged blood was allegedly seen allegedly running down his alleged face.

      Allegedly.

    2. Maybe he was aiming at Selena Zito and just making it look like an attempt on Trump because assassins are tricky that way.

  15. Re “a threat to our democracy”. Tell your Democrat friends to Google the text of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Federalist Papers, then perform a word search in each for “democracy” and “democratic.” There will be zero hits in either the Declaration or the Constitution, and 18 total in the Federalist Papers. The latter instances each give all of the reasons why we don’t want a democracy. When they’re done, ask them how they came to think that the United States was supposed to be a democracy. I suspect the answer will be the equivalent of “Because shut up!”

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