Trump

[Harlequin]

But, damn, the bullet hit his ear. And the reports suggest the shooter was firing from quite a distance as well - outside the perimeter of the event - so Trump is one hell of a lucky son of a bitch, that he was saved by the tiniest amount of imprecision / physics.

Perhaps as lucky as President Reagan, who was shot with an exploding bullet that failed to explode and stopped just short of his heart.

Mind you, at that distance I think I would have been more surprised if Trump had been hit by a more accurate shot.

[Harlequin]

Ah. I sit corrected:

The roof was less than 150 meters (yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M16.

[zip accident]

I honestly cannot tell if I find politics more interesting as I get older or if politics has become more interesting?

I think it has become more dramatic. Also more comedic, tragic and absurdist.

It ain't more dramatic, tragic or absurd than the killing of JFK.

It may have got a bit more bland in between then and now.

[F-ZeroOne]

Can’t confirm this yet as I’ve only seen it from one source but the shooter was apparently a registered Republican.

It’s just remotely possible Trump wasn’t the main target and the shooter was just attempting to cause mayhem, but I find that very unlikely even as I say it.

Trump has had a very narrow escape; at least one other person wasn’t so lucky and theres at least two other people in critical condition.

[F-ZeroOne]

I posted the above before I’d actually seen footage (instead of still photos) and yes, it does appear virtually certain Trump was the intended target.

[Little stoned kiwi]

I honestly cannot tell if I find politics more interesting as I get older or if politics has become more interesting?

I think it has become more dramatic. Also more comedic, tragic and absurdist.

It ain't more dramatic, tragic or absurd than the killing of JFK.

It may have got a bit more bland in between then and now.

It's a performance. A circus. Just look at the clowns and how much time they take up with their attention seeking distractions.
An example is Marjorie Taylor Greene who ties up an extraordinary amount of time with her nonsense. Her Wikipedia page is spectacular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene

[PFVA]

I'm just wondering how come security didn't secure the roofs. Maybe the heat wave affected the concentration of the people working on that and made them more careless than usual.

In anyway I'm guessing there will be several conspiracy theories on the way.

[F-ZeroOne]

Just further to the shooter being a registered Republican, apparently he had also donated a small amount to a liberal-leaning organisation as well.

[PFVA]

Just regular talk at the café a short while ago, someone raised the issue of where did the bullet that passed Trump's ear went, and why din't hit one of the people behind him.

(Yes, it's being talked at the café. The cafés are the old style social networks. Everything is discussed there)

[tufty]

It (they) did. 2 badly injured and one dead.

[KlaxonCow]

Just further to the shooter being a registered Republican, apparently he had also donated a small amount to a liberal-leaning organisation as well.

That was surprising when I initially heard it, because you'd think that someone who actually bought into the "stolen election" narrative to register as a Republican and made a donation to "the cause" would be an unlikely suspect to try to assassinate Trump.

But then I thought some more. Maybe that's the point. Maybe he fell for Trump's "stolen election" rhetoric hook, line and sinker - he was only 20 years old, so believed it all in his youthful ignorance - and, since then, has discovered how much of a massive compulsive liar Trump is, and how it was complete and utter bollocks. And that, no, the Democrats are not "Kenyan communists who want to steal all our guns".

Maybe that explains it. That he absolutely was 100% a "true believer" in Trump's rhetoric... and then came to realise just how much of a big massive criminal liar "the orange one" actually was. Like an evangelical preacher suddenly realising that, oh, there actually is no God, after all. But, in this case, there is a human being upon which to lump all of that betrayal - Trump bare-faced lied to everyone and, undoubtedly, Trump knows all this shit is a lie as well. Because he's a con man, so he doesn't care, as long as it gives him the advantage.

Which, unfortunately, this gun man has probably just given Trump all the advantage he needs to win now. It was already looking likely, but Reagan's vote sky-rocketed in sympathy for his assassination attempt.

[KlaxonCow]

Ah, to correct a misunderstanding, though he was registered as a Republican, the $15 donation he made was to a Democrat cause, not a Republican one.

It was poorly phrased in the news article I originally read, but reading a few more, it's clear that the donation was a left-leaning cause, in reaction to the January 6th riots, not a right-leaning one.

So it at least suggests that maybe he was not amused by Trump's attempts at a coup d'etat and lying about "stolen elections" - maybe he just was worried that Trump would win and then refuse to leave the Presidency ever again, coupled with that recent "Divine Right of Kings" immunity that the Supreme Court very short-sightedly decided all Presidents now have.

Still baffling everyone as to what motivated him exactly, though, as he apparently never talked politics to friends or family, nor posted anything political on his social media.

Very possible, of course, that we'll never know now.

[PFVA]

An expert on my local TV this morning:
"That weapon is the most common used by Americans to defend their houses and families"


I think I have left the US too long ago.

[Mat]

Still baffling everyone as to what motivated him exactly, though, as he apparently never talked politics to friends or family, nor posted anything political on his social media.

Very possible, of course, that we'll never know now.

I think I can hazard a guess:
A feeling of powerlessness;
A feeling of justice spurned as Trump is still successfully campaigning despite being a convicted felon;
The media alternately selling Trump as a saviour or fascist dictator;
General disenfranchisement;
And easy access to high powered firearms.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that electing Trump again would be one of the worst things that the US could do at the moment, and it would be terrible for the wider world.

At the same time, the Left over there consistently drawing parallels between him and Hitler or other fascist dictators really isn't helping things. To his supporters, if you call him a Nazi, you're calling them Nazis.
And while there are genuine Nazis out there supporting Trump, the vast majority of his supporters are blue-collar workers who really did see Trump's policies make a difference to their day-to-day lives the last time he was in.

But at the same time, everyone has been taught that there's no negotiating with Nazis, and that the only good one is a dead one.
So when that message gets touted loudly enough for long enough, someone's going to take the law into their own hands.

Things are so polarised over there at the moment that if one side criticises the other for being something despicable, the default move seems to be to say "I know you are, but what am I?"

Nobody is talking across the divide.

Admittedly, I struggle to find something as irrational on the Left as things that are now being espoused as virtuous on the Right (anti-abortion, anti-welfare state, anti-immigration, anti-government, pro-gun ownership), but I'm very Left-leaning.

[tufty]

I doubt the motivation was explicitly political, or even fundamentally political at all, and unless some manifesto surfaces, I think I'm probably right.

What I'm seeing is a young white gun fetishist loner who was bullied at school. Go out in a blaze of glory, suicide by cop and have the notoriety of Lee Harvey Oswald. See, I /was/ someone cool! Sandy hook, Columbine, Hungerford, etc - the only difference being that he had a primary target he wanted to hit first.

And he was clearly a fucking lousy shot. Even I can hit a melon at 100 metres, and I'm crap.