I am writing this on the day Donald Trump was shot during one of his rallies. Information is still sketchy and uncertain, but it looks like an assassination attempt. Tragically, reports are coming in about one attendee killed by presumably a stray bullet, with two others wounded.
I want to be on record saying this is awful. I think my views on Donald Trump are pretty clear, but in case they aren’t, I find him to be as close to an existential threat to America as any presidential candidate has ever been. I disagree in the strongest possible terms to his policies, his character, and his outlook on the country. But this is a man who should be voted down, not gunned down. As much as I don’t want to see him elected, I do not want to see him hurt or killed.
So this assassination attempt is a terrible, terrible thing. In every way I repudiate this action. I don’t think I can be any clearer on this.
I’m not going to write a “however,” essay, if that’s what you think is coming. There can be no justification for any “Trump should have been shot at, but,” sentence. What I am going to do is speculate on the fallout of this.
I hope I am wrong, but I wonder if today was the day Trump got elected again.
I can’t help but believe that those who approve of Donald Trump (his followers, media biased in his favor, etc.) will use this relentlessly as fodder for his campaign. Here’s what I think will happen.
Right-sided Media will, to varying degrees, cover this not just as a failed assassination attempt but as evidence of Trump’s vigor and vitality. They’ll praise how he rose from the wound and pumped his fist defiantly in the air. How he went back to the campaign trail. In some cases, there will be talk of how he got shot in the head (not quite–yes, the ear is on the head, but anyone shot in the fleshy part of the ear didn’t really get shot in the head) and shrugged it off. He’s the Man Who Can’t be Killed. He is so tough, he deflects bullets. There will be T-shirts of him rising, ear bloodied, defiantly screaming into the sky. He’ll be talked about as God’s special anointed, how God was looking out for Trump and kept him safe. In short, one of the things that will happen is this near-miss will be seen not as evidence of how close he came to death, but of how strong and godlike he is to rise above a head shot.
The second thing right sided media will do is paint this as a “hit” ordered by Joe Biden. This will be done in various ways–some will outright claim it, saying Joe Biden, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity (recall the absurd argument made by Trump’s own legal team that a president might be able to order the assassination of a rival and claim it as an “official act”) ordered a Deep State sharpshooter to kill his opponent. And even then Joe screwed it up. It will be seen as evidence of both Biden’s evil and of his incompetence. Mind you, not all media will say this overtly. Some of the more “responsible” right-sided media will merely “ask the question” or couch their coverage in ways to gently suggest this. “We don’t know yet what involvement, if any, the Biden administration had in this attack” sort of thing. No doubt the shooter will be identified as a left-wing nutjob, which may indeed be the case. But even if he or she isn’t, that won’t matter. In fact, nothing factual will matter about this.
And that’s the point of this essay.
The optics and preliminary information about the incident will become as fact. Spin will become as fact. Right side media–and the Trump team itself–will paint this as evidence of Trump’s demigod status and as evidence of the left-wing trying to silence him. He will speak at the convention about how the left is trying to shut him down, using the law, and now using guns. He’ll claim he took a bullet for all of us. It won’t matter if any of that is true. It will become true.
I really don’t like being this way. I don’t like having this nihilism about the state of political discourse in my country. But I can’t help it. I can’t help knowing what I know. Nothing that’s actually true matters. Only what people want to be true. And once a person has committed to the truth as they want it–as they need it to be, there can be no shaking it.
Trump is a god. Joe Biden tried to kill him. Those will become as true as any empirical fact about the universe. And if somewhere down the line, we discover something about the incident that casts doubt on either of those two truths, it won’t matter. Nothing will matter.
Again, I need to return to my original point. The assassination attempt (for it is becoming clearer and clearer that this is what happened–any lunatic left-wing fantasy about a “false flag” or “setup” is very likely as insane as those who would proclaim Trump to be a demigod) was a tragic and awful moment in American history, and it would appear only chance kept this from becoming an even more tragic moment. Donald Trump is, in my view, bad for America. But in no way does that justify what happened to him. It’s a stain on our country, and it should be and is being condemned by both sides of the political spectrum.
We shall see how this plays out.
Be seeing you!
I want to be on record saying this is awful. I think my views on Donald Trump are pretty clear, but in case they aren’t, I find him to be as close to an existential threat to America as any presidential candidate has ever been. I disagree in the strongest possible terms to his policies, his character, and his outlook on the country. But this is a man who should be voted down, not gunned down. As much as I don’t want to see him elected, I do not want to see him hurt or killed.
So this assassination attempt is a terrible, terrible thing. In every way I repudiate this action. I don’t think I can be any clearer on this.
I’m not going to write a “however,” essay, if that’s what you think is coming. There can be no justification for any “Trump should have been shot at, but,” sentence. What I am going to do is speculate on the fallout of this.
I hope I am wrong, but I wonder if today was the day Trump got elected again.
I can’t help but believe that those who approve of Donald Trump (his followers, media biased in his favor, etc.) will use this relentlessly as fodder for his campaign. Here’s what I think will happen.
Right-sided Media will, to varying degrees, cover this not just as a failed assassination attempt but as evidence of Trump’s vigor and vitality. They’ll praise how he rose from the wound and pumped his fist defiantly in the air. How he went back to the campaign trail. In some cases, there will be talk of how he got shot in the head (not quite–yes, the ear is on the head, but anyone shot in the fleshy part of the ear didn’t really get shot in the head) and shrugged it off. He’s the Man Who Can’t be Killed. He is so tough, he deflects bullets. There will be T-shirts of him rising, ear bloodied, defiantly screaming into the sky. He’ll be talked about as God’s special anointed, how God was looking out for Trump and kept him safe. In short, one of the things that will happen is this near-miss will be seen not as evidence of how close he came to death, but of how strong and godlike he is to rise above a head shot.
The second thing right sided media will do is paint this as a “hit” ordered by Joe Biden. This will be done in various ways–some will outright claim it, saying Joe Biden, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity (recall the absurd argument made by Trump’s own legal team that a president might be able to order the assassination of a rival and claim it as an “official act”) ordered a Deep State sharpshooter to kill his opponent. And even then Joe screwed it up. It will be seen as evidence of both Biden’s evil and of his incompetence. Mind you, not all media will say this overtly. Some of the more “responsible” right-sided media will merely “ask the question” or couch their coverage in ways to gently suggest this. “We don’t know yet what involvement, if any, the Biden administration had in this attack” sort of thing. No doubt the shooter will be identified as a left-wing nutjob, which may indeed be the case. But even if he or she isn’t, that won’t matter. In fact, nothing factual will matter about this.
And that’s the point of this essay.
The optics and preliminary information about the incident will become as fact. Spin will become as fact. Right side media–and the Trump team itself–will paint this as evidence of Trump’s demigod status and as evidence of the left-wing trying to silence him. He will speak at the convention about how the left is trying to shut him down, using the law, and now using guns. He’ll claim he took a bullet for all of us. It won’t matter if any of that is true. It will become true.
I really don’t like being this way. I don’t like having this nihilism about the state of political discourse in my country. But I can’t help it. I can’t help knowing what I know. Nothing that’s actually true matters. Only what people want to be true. And once a person has committed to the truth as they want it–as they need it to be, there can be no shaking it.
Trump is a god. Joe Biden tried to kill him. Those will become as true as any empirical fact about the universe. And if somewhere down the line, we discover something about the incident that casts doubt on either of those two truths, it won’t matter. Nothing will matter.
Again, I need to return to my original point. The assassination attempt (for it is becoming clearer and clearer that this is what happened–any lunatic left-wing fantasy about a “false flag” or “setup” is very likely as insane as those who would proclaim Trump to be a demigod) was a tragic and awful moment in American history, and it would appear only chance kept this from becoming an even more tragic moment. Donald Trump is, in my view, bad for America. But in no way does that justify what happened to him. It’s a stain on our country, and it should be and is being condemned by both sides of the political spectrum.
We shall see how this plays out.
Be seeing you!
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