Conspiracy theories aside, I'd like to see people mocking the injury with little red ear clips, just like these assholes mocked John Kerry with purple heart band-aids:
I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to think that the actor turned politician decided to act like he was getting shot for attention. He's a reality show host that says shocking things. I don't think it's a far stretch to say he would fake an assassination attempt when it's in every other movie in Hollywood. This is in his wheelhouse.
So walk me through how that conversation goes in your head. Trump is just this side of senile, so he definitely couldn't have come up with a convoluted plot involving his attempted assassination, so it 100% would have had to be a suggestion of someone else. So let's walk through the conversation that must have happened for this to have been a fake assassination attempt.
"So Mr. Trump, I think that the best thing to do to ensure you're going to win the next election is to have someone shoot very near you. Maybe the bullet will graze you, maybe it'll hit the teleprompter and send shards of glass your way. But either way, it'll be a very close thing, and you'll suffer a minor injury along the way."
Do you honestly think that Donald Trump, the guy who got out of the draft because of bone spurs, the guy who gets queasy at the sight of blood, the guy who has spent the last 2 months talking about how he'd cling to a battery to get electrocuted instead of taking his chances with a shark, would be ok with being shot at? Seriously?
Because if that's what you think, you and I don't occupy the same universe.
Why would Trump losing incite civil war? Who is going to take any weapons from anyone? Who is going to enforce the law? They aren't going to fight themselves. They want a civil war and they want the Dems to just make one mistake to cause it.
There is no way to say that there will be that many of them. There will be a few. But nothing on a scale of civil war. That's some dumb neck beard fantasy. If the Dems win it will be ok. Until the next 4 years.
You will find that civil wars in a digitalized surveillance state are very short lived and that the masses don‘t actually hold all that much power apart from the few things they‘re legally allowed to do. So unless tens of millions just stop showing up to work across the country, I don‘t see how the citizens have any leverage whatsoever once the election is over.
I blame the news media. After years of fear mongering. Will make a crazy parson act up. Sadly it did. But they not going to change. They're not going learn from this. The news media are do what they been doing. Like nothing happened.
Early reports are that he was a registered Republican
Okay admittedly we all know it's not a false flag. But could we all just collectively pretend and shout it from the rooftops like Republicans do? That would be so cathartic.
What the fuck is with all the jokes about missing Trump? Assassinating a political candidate is nothing to be happy about, no matter how you feel about them.
At what point does someone calling for and causing harm to people you care about sufficient before you lose all empathy for them? How come politicians can literally get away with poisoning people's water like in Flint, couping foreign governments, and contributing to the deaths of thousands or even millions but I can't post memes when they die or else I'm worse than them by some brainworm logic? It's so hypocritical the way they go unscathed because they didn't put a gun to someone's head directly. Now every milquetoast senator is sending well wishes to someone who would rather see them dead or deported. People should act in a way deserving of that empathy and maybe people would show it.
And you think this would help your cause? This would only motivate the right and make them more brazen. You can change things using violence, and if you do they won't last. It's up to the people to defeat them in the elections. Your focus should be on grassroots movements to change the people's minds, not resort to violence like this. This same thought process is what led to J6 riots.
It's self defense. He's been threatening our lives for years. If you can't see that, you are speaking from a position of absolute privilege. Stop victim blaming.
Just to clarify... Would you've said the same thing about Hitler?
Americans, specifically Republicans, are very hot about their gun amendment and how it shall be used against some sort of authoritarian uprising. Now one of their nutjobs ended up attempting exactly that. Or he's a boogaloo dumbo who thought this would incite a civil war.
How about this isn't simply a matter of not liking someone? He is a very real threat, and in all honesty, this should have been an official military act. And they wouldn't have fucking missed. This man can absolutely not be allowed to take office. It cannot happen. And the law doesn't seem to be making sure he doesn't.
My thoughts on the assassination attempt on former President Trump:
The assassination of Trump would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan and denounced reality-based science and journalism long before Trump did. Cults are a product of social decay and despair, and our decay and despair are expanding, soon to explode in another financial crisis.
The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to discredit Trump, as if our problems are embodied in him, are futile. The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. This crusade attempts to reduce a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It is accompanied by a refusal to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression, which have impoverished the working class, fostered endless war, militarized our police, created the largest prison system in the world, licensed corporations to exploit the most vulnerable and transferred wealth upwards into the hands of a billionaire class, neuters the press, Trump's critics and the Democratic Party.
Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like resistance movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience, especially strikes, and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, rather than Trump, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a bankrupt Democratic Party -- whose presidential candidate is in clear cognitive decline -- that is a full partner in corporate oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.
At best it might've given us a win for the White House but this is just one election. Even if Donald Trump wins and voluntarily leaves office afterwards his GOP successor will be even worse I'm sure. The best thing about Trump is how much of a lazy grifter he is. It wouldn't surprise me at all if barely anything changes at the federal level because he's too busy trying to line his pockets with taxpayer money. The DeSantises and Ramiswamys of the US want to hand over the country to the corporations and churches and they're fine doing it for pennies on the dollar.
New York Post is the first to identify the shooter. Not linking it here because, well, New York Post... but it is being floated out there on non-social media.
Edit CNN is speaking to Evan Perez, Senior US Justice Department Correspondant, confirming the information first reported by the New York Post.