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Trump Assassination Attempt: A Round-Up

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

The iconic image (from AP’s Evan Vucci), helpfully annotated to show how composition makes for an iconic image:

And speaking of iconic images, if your first thought is “Trump (nearly) died for us”:

(Notice, in Vucci’s image, a woman also supporting Trump in his agony.)

Or if your first thought is “Trump (nearly) died for our country” (AP’s Joe Rosenthal):

(The stars and stripes doing its work, although I suppose Secret Service agents in sunglasses will have to stand in for the Marines. But that’s where we are, isn’t it?)

Icons propagate. Already, T-shirts printed with Vucci’s image are on sale at a New Jersey boardwalk:

“Shooting makes me stronger.”[1]

Having begun, as it were, in medias res, let’s circle back to the beginning, and proceed in an orderly manner. I will aggregate the material I have read on the shooter, the venue, the shooting, and cui bono. I’ll conclude with some of the more humane reactions. Starting with the shooter–

The Shooter

We know very little about the shooter, although one of the first things we know about is his partisan affiliation (or proxies therefor). From the New York Post, “Thomas Matthew Crooks ID’d as gunman who shot Trump during Pa. rally”

According to state voter status records, Crooks was a registered Republican.

The shooter made one singular $15 donation to the liberal ActBlue political action committee on January 20, 2021 — Biden’s Inauguration Day, the Intercept reportedp[2].

(Smith was not carrying ID; he was identified through the gun and DNA analysis[3].)However, from the Inquirer:

[ex-Bethel Park student Max Ryan] Smith recalled participating in a mock debate with Crooks in an American history course in which the teacher had students stand on opposite sides of the classroom to signal their support or opposition.

“The majority of the class were on the liberal side, but Tom, no matter what, always stood his ground on the conservative side,” Smith said. “That’s still the picture I have of him. Just standing alone on one side while the rest of the class was on the other … It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate.”

Crooks graduated from high school two years ago. From the Post:

Crooks was a member of the 2022 graduating class at Bethel Park High School, the school district confirmed Sunday morning.

Video shows him walking across a stage to accept his diploma. He also received a $500 National Math and Science Initative Star Award during his graduating year, TribLive reported.

His high school experience was unhappy. NBC:

A high school classmate, Jason Kohler, 21, said Crooks was a “loner” who was “bullied so much in high school.”

Crooks would regularly wear hunting outfits and was made fun of for the way he dressed. He often sat alone at lunch, Kohler added.

His post-high school experience seems not to have been happy, or at leat not STEM-oriented. BBC:

Crooks worked in a local nursing home kitchen just a short drive away from his home, the BBC understands.

Then there’s the family. CNN:

When reached by CNN late Saturday night, Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, said he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I talk to law enforcement” before speaking about his son. He could not be reached again on Sunday.

We have no motive. BBC:

Having established Crooks’s identity, police and agencies are investigating his motive.

“We do not currently have an identified motive,” said Kevin Rojek, FBI Pittsburgh special agent in charge, at a briefing on Saturday night.

It would be disconcerting if a diary documenting Crooks’s motives were found; a lone gunman, acting alone, but leaving behind a diary is a movie we’ve all seen before. And the sequels, too.

The Venue

From the New York Post:

Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pa., squeezed off at least five to seven shots — one of which grazed Trump in the ear — at an outdoor rally in Butler, just outside Pittsburgh, according to law enforcement sources.

Sources said Crooks crawled on the roof of a manufacturing plant more than 130 yards away from the stage at Butler Farm Show grounds.

Here is a map from the New York Times that shows the rally site and the manufacturing plant:

Security at the manufacturing plant (likely to be American Glass Research) was lax[4]:

And:

I recall reading, but cannot find again, that the cops talked to people at the plant, but only to tell them they’d be using the parking lot. Here is a report of “a guy” sighted moving between the buildings of the manufacturing plant:

The question arises how Crooks picked this building, how he knew to get access, etc.

The Shooting

Here is an extraordinary interview from the BBC with an eyewitness to the shooting:

The prose version, “Witness says he saw gunman on roof near Trump rally“:

Mr Smith was listening from outside the rally and said he saw the gunman around five minutes into Trump’s speech.

“We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50ft away,” he said. “He had a rifle, we could clearly see a rifle.

“We’re pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground, we’re like ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle’… and the police did not know what was going on.”

Mr Smith said he tried to alert the authorities for three to four minutes, but thought they probably could not see the gunman because of the slope of the roof.

“Why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here?” he asked. “This is not a big place. “[It’s a] security failure, 100% security failure.”

He said he later saw the agents shoot the gunman: “They crawled up on the roof, they had their guns pointed at him, made sure he was dead. He was dead, and that was it – it was over.”

Here is what someone very near the stage itself experienced. From the Free Press:

I was four feet from the stage, in a causeway with about five other journalists. My daughter, a photographer, was next to me. Her husband was next to her.

Trump was back on his feet within seconds, although his red hat was knocked off his head. He was calm.

I heard him shout to one of his staffers, “Get my shoes!”

He lifted his arm in the air. I think he shouted, “Fight!”

Then he definitely shouted, “USA!” The crowd chanted it back in unison.

Here is a photo of the bullet whizzing toward Trump’s head[5]:

And here is a video of Trump shouting “Fight! Fight!”:

Taleb comments:

Note that there were more victims: “A former fire chief attending the rally with family was killed, as was the gunman. Two other people were also critically wounded.”

Cui Bono

Now let us ask who benefits. Curiously enough, both Trump and Biden may. I say “may” rather than “do” because of this salutary reminder from Stoller:

But let’s not be nihilists. First, Trump:

The first and simplest reaction comes from the New York Post (and I confess that it was mine, as well):

The moment probably also won him the election.

The same reaction from The Hill:

“President Trump survives this attack — he just won the election,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) told POLITICO in a brief interview shortly after the shooting.

Prediction markets agree:

But then I remembered [checks campaign timer] that 114 days is a long time in politics.

Axios draws attention to the effect on apartisan voters:

The biggest electoral impact from Saturday’s stunning events could come courtesy of low-information and politically disengaged Americans, who are expected to make up a decisive voting bloc.

The attempted assassination was so shocking that it immediately cut through a wide range of cultural and digital bubbles, drawing mostly sympathetic reactions from influencers, athletes and CEOs.

Elon Musk, for example, immediately endorsed Trump in a post that racked up more than 80 million views on X.

YouTuber Jake Paul, who has legions of young followers, tweeted: “If it isn’t apparent enough who God wants to win. When you try and kill God’s angels and saviors of the world it just makes them bigger.”

Axios, however, equates “electoral impact” with popular sentiment; however, the salient point is the effect on low information voters in the swing states where the election will be won or lost. However, Pennsylvania is a key swing state (which is why I keep drawing a red box around it on the RealClearPolitics poll averages chart), and while I hesitate to say that Crooks just sewed up Pennsylvania for Trump, he certainly did Trump no harm. I would speculate that turnout in the non-Philly, non-Pittsburgh counties will be, well, fervent.

The Telegraph argues that the assassination attempt reinforces Trump’s messaging:

Trump has built his campaign on the idea that everyone is out to get him. Federal prosecutors, judges, election officials, rival politicians and journalists have all been accused of trying to bring down his campaign and prevent his return to the White House.

Many of those claims have rightly been contested. But after the incident in Pennsylvania, even Trump’s worst enemies cannot deny that there are some who would rather see him dead than re-elected.

Trump supporters urge that the attempt reinforces Trump’s ethos:

And people say, why do people like Trump so much? Why are his supporters, why are they so loyal to Trump? You know why? Because of what we saw today. Because he got up after getting hit by a bullet or something, and he said, I’m here basically fighting for you, and fight on. And we don’t have enough people like that in this country in politics.

But Biden may also benefit. First, his staff can wrap him up in tissue paper again. Axios:

For President Biden, it was an easy decision to reach out to former President Trump, pull down his political ads and return to the White House.Biden advisers were unanimous that he needs to take his fight directly to Trump.

That’s a difficult case to make against a man who came within several millimeters of losing his life.

There’s now a broad recognition that Biden is facing a delicate balancing act in the coming weeks: He must continue to warn that Trump is a threat to democracy, while acknowledging the recent threat to Trump’s life.

Second, out of deference and respect to Trump in this difficult time, the Biden campaign can save some money:

The Democratic National Committee told Fox News that it is in the process of pulling down ads that it went up with on Monday on 57 municipal buses in Milwaukee.

Third and most importantly, I speculate that the Republican National Convention plus Trump’s cannily postponed selection of a vice-present, would already have sucked all the oxygen out of the room. The Trump assassination attempt will “blot out the sun” (I somehow did not preserve the link to the Democratic strategist who used that phrase). The campaign to unelect Biden has depended critically on constant, incestuous dogpiling in the press. That coverage will be much, much harder to get, and so indeed Biden may run out the clock. (Alert reader antidlc helpfully points out that the DNC may set a date for its virtual roll call before the end of the month.)

Conclusion

I really wanted to have a section about how the blame cannons are being deployed, but time presses, and so I must leave them on the cutting room floor. To conclude, I’ve aggregated some of reactions to Trump’s assassination that are more kind or humane, rather than less; tending to reject the Schmittian view that the essential dichotomy of politics is the friend/enemy distinction:

First, Russell Brand:

Second, Robert F. Kennedy, Junior:

Third, Melania Trump:

(I actually found Melania Trump’s letter touching. Odd, but touching. Note that all these reactions, in their different ways, appeal to the “better angels of our nature” instead of vacuous notions of civility.)

Lincoln, in his First Inaugural, got it wrong:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

In fact, slaveholders and abolitionists were enemies. But can anyone truly say that the country faces such a “polarizing” issue today? (Perhaps it should — climate, for example; or, well, capitalism — but does it?) Perhaps this time we can get it right, or more right than wrong. Of course, this would take an extraordinary turnaround from “defiance” to generosity of spirit but what are we “fighting” for?

NOTES

[1] On Trump’s fist pump and whether the Secret Service should have permitted it, The American Conservative:

An assassin can kill a president, but cowardice is what kills a movement. President Donald Trump didn’t give his would-be murderer what the gunman wanted. Trump survived the shots, then he did something profound—he waved back the Secret Service agents shielding him, freeing his bloodied face up from the scrum, and, with a look of defiance, raised his fist and said, “Fight!”

He shouldn’t have done it, according to the rules of presidential security. And the Secret Service were obviously torn between the urgency of covering the former president and getting him to safety, and allowing him to do what he was determined to do. They parted just far enough for Trump to show his face and pump his fist. His life and theirs were at risk.

But the risk had to be taken. The United States can’t be led by a coward or by someone who looks like one under fire. Trump knew in a split second what a leader had to do in that situation. He had to show courage. Morale is a nation’s blood. Trump refused to let the assassin shed it, even as his own wounds bled.

Despite the garish prose, I think Trump was right to do what he did. We can’t have the stagehands directing the stars, after all. NOTE Re Kayfabe: Could Trump possibly have converted himself from a Heel to a Face?!

[2] The PAC was the Progressive Turnout Project:

Progressive Turnout Project’s email consultant was the cartoonishly evil Mothership Strategies. Mothership Strategies was not on my Bingo card!

[3] Crooks is said not to have had a criminal record, so where did the DNA come from?

[4] I’m not entirely happy with this account; the writer has done work for Bellingcat.

[5] There is a theory running round that the blood on Trump’s face comes from the shattered glass of a TelePrompter, but so what?

APPENDIX: The Cassandras

Here are some of the people who called it.

(August 30, 2023) Tucker Carlson, “Tucker Carlson stokes conspiracies, claims U.S. is ‘speeding towards’ assassination of Trump“, NBC: “If you begin with criticism, then you go to protest, then you go to impeachment, now you go to indictment and none of them work. What’s next? Graph it out, man. We’re speeding towards assassination, obviously. … They have decided — permanent Washington, both parties have decided — that there’s something about Trump that’s so threatening to them, they just can’t have him.”

(August 31, 2023) Yves Smith, “The Other Option for Containing Trump“: “It’s not as if this is the first time Tucker has brought up the possibility that Trump could be assassinated by members of the power structure.”

Steve Bannon (June 2024), the Guardian: “In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November. ‘It’s my number one fear,’ Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. ‘Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.'” (I can’t find the original when I search on these quotes, and I tried several search engines. Readers?)

* * *

Sadly, this tweet supposedly from wint is a fake:

But:

APPENDIX: The Lighter Side

Via:

This situation reminds me of this [Your Favorite Ethnicity Here (YFEH)] joke:

Two YFEHs are hiding on the side of the road waiting to try and kill Hitler. They wait and wait but after many hours Hitler still hasn’t come down the road where they expect him. After a long time of waiting, one man turns to the other man and says “Geez! Where is this guy?” And the other man turns to him and replies “I don’t know… I hope nothing happened to him.”

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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74 comments

  1. steppenwolf fetchit

    I was listening to BBC last night and heard the first few hours of reports. I heard some statements from the people who saw the “guy with a rifle” bear crawling up the building roof. They described how they kept waving ( though they didn’t necessarily say they were shouting at) police and secret service and pointing at the roof where the bear-crawler was. As I heard them talking, it sounded like the police and secret service maybe heard and certainly saw them very well, and studiedly ignored their repeated pointing efforts. And at the time I started wondering what was determining the police and secret service non-response to the waving pointers? And other people will wonder too. And fill in the blank with various theories which are not necessarily helpful at this time.

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    1. Jamie

      It is ridiculous to believe a SS team would not notice a roof top sniper.

      But. Interviews of that finger pointing, red haired guy (and his finger pointing friends) never mentioned pointing their phones at the would be sniper. Finger pointing guy never mentioned taking pics/vid. No one asked him why. Hard to take him seriously.

      If someone Zapruder ‘d the sniper crawling up the building (etc.), that would be a bombshell . .

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        2. albrt

          This is consistent with my comment below. It very much looks like they waited until the sniper got a shot off. I could see the command being reluctant to shoot somebody, but they failed to send any officers over to investigate.

          Reply ↓
        3. Jamie

          Would be really bad if that’s someone impersonating Willis on 4chan. Could cost him his life. As in, dead man walking.

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  2. lyman alpha blob

    “He must continue to warn that Trump is a threat to democracy…”

    Or, just spitballing here, he could provide some concrete material benefits to those without houses in the Hamptons. Had the Democrat party done that at some point during the last 40 years or so, a mountebank like Trump never would have had a chance in politics.

    Pretty sick of all the recent claims, many made while trying to give SlowJoe the hook, about Biden’s great achievements, rivalling those of FDR. Those claims are always extremely unspecific. The Democrat party has no policy other than “not Trump” which only leads to more divisiveness.

    If they want to get rid of the chaos, have a stable society, and “save our democracy”, then try doing something for the majority of voters for once, even if it hurts the corporate elite, rather than making excuses for why USians can’t have nice things.

    Then they wouldn’t need to depend on assassins to win elections.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Biden’s great achievements, rivalling those of FDR

      Yes, it’s ridiculous. Lina Khan is pretty great! OTOH, Biden slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, and infected most of the population with SARS-CoV-2, in addition to making the United States a source and sink for global infection, both biologically and in policy terms. That’s a body count bigger than Gaza or Ukraine, though I grant pandemics don’t edge us toward the nuclear precipice. Biden is not a good or decent man.

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      1. Pat

        Throwing the railroad workers under the train in regards to safety issuesEast Palestine. The elimination of child tax credits.
        It isn’t just the focus on foreign proxy wars and genocide, it is the continued disregard for safety and the basics necessary for workers and children.

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      2. Jason Boxman

        My favorite tweet, from some influencer or politico, today. Didn’t care who, presented again the list of Trump’s sins, including allegedly rape with Epstein now, and we need to vote Biden to “heal”. Just mind blowing stupid.

        Reply ↓
    2. flora

      Well, ya know, I’m thinking of the earlier Eu, what was it, the Belgian’s or Netherlander’s aristocracy , can’t remember, who wore a star of david whenst the bad guys came in and overran the place. I might just buy a red baseball cap. Who knows.

      Some local stuff. The local church attendance seemed larger than usual this morning based on church parking lot fill. And local attendance by young parishioners seemed larger than usual, to my assessment. And this is in a true blue uni town. What was it that Admiral Yamamoto said about awakening a sleeping giant? Not sure.
      This afternoon’s traffic on the major streets in my totally blue town seems very quiet.

      Reply ↓
        1. flora

          and adding a bit of thing-a-me : if my comments make you or your’s uncomfortable, well then, there ya go.

          Reply ↓
  3. juno mas

    So a 20 year old, self-described Republican, comes within inches of assassinating Trump and now his election is a wrap? For all the brave talk, and fighting for America, my guess is he, and Biden, will fight for America with Ukrainian men until the end of America.

    The dizziness of American culture is beyond the horizon.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs

      Trump displayed some behavior that is beyond the ability of most men of any age, less his own advanced age. It was courageous, even heroic. People are not going to let that go unrewarded, no matter how big a schmuck he is.

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      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        im not a trump fan, by any means…i see him as an Honorious, at best, along our long sawtooth decline into a ditch…
        but yeah…that was heroic.
        credit where due.

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        1. Jake

          You’re referring to Cadet Bone Spur, there? And “heroic”? For seizing the photo ap? And, of course, putting the agents, who are probably thinking about they’re doing, unlike some, in danger.

          Other less worshipful adjectives do come to mind….

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          1. Amfortas the Hippie

            simply put yerself in those shoes…i dont hafta love the guy to recognise a bit of heroism if i see it.
            jeez, this aint hard.
            have you ever been almost killed?
            beaten up?
            let alone buried alive?
            well, i have.
            crawled up out of the ground like an insect…twice.
            once by rednecks, once by cops.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltc6wIgiTLs

            Reply ↓
    2. Rip Van Winkle

      One would have to ‘register’ as a Republican to vote for Nikki Haley, for example. It’s only about which party’s primary ballot you get. There’s a different municipal ballot to skip the parties and vote for which day you want your garbage picked up, non-partisan.

      Reply ↓
  4. Carla

    When I saw the iconic picture, my first thought was “Did Trump’s campaign set this up?” Cause that pic sure looks like it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      FWIW, I don’t think so. I think it’s just a great photographer doing what a great photographer should do. (It would take strong evidence of the photographer’s political affiliations to convince me otherwise.)

      Reply ↓
      1. rowlf

        Driving around 5pm today WRAS 88.5 NPR station had a telephone interview with photographer Doug Mills and Mills explained what he saw and how/why he was taking his pictures. Mills also related that he had been good friends with the photographer that took the pictures during Reagan’s assassination attempt.

        A side note from a clever wag in a firearms forum: One thing’s for certain: Allen Dulles didn’t have anything to do with this one. He’s got a iron-clad alibi.

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        1. JBird4049

          Some of it is likely just luck although a good photographer creates luck his own luck. Reminds me of Abraham Zapruder’s video and how he managed to capture JFK’s assassination.

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      2. Amfortas the Hippie

        anybody who has ever shot a rifle…at a deer or merely a target…should know that this was not a staged event by the trump people.
        there were real bullets flying.
        and a dead guy behind himself, and 2 others wounded, critically.
        nobody can make that kind of shot…:”hit my ear not my brain…”
        lol.
        its just silly.
        from what ive seen, today, lotsa folk over at Kos are gonna get banned for having some experience with rifles,lol.
        because that is the narrative their hive has settled on.
        that it was staged.
        silly.

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    2. Acacia

      Another thing that strikes me about the composition of “the iconic picture”, is how much it resonates with one of the Donald’s recurring populist themes. I.e., that he is on the side of the nation — his fist with the flag —, trying to do what is right for the people, but mostly he is struggling against the state.

      Of course, here the SS agents are trying to protect him from harm — from a possible second shooter —, but the immediate, visceral effect of the image, the tangible conflict between the bodies, as it were, is between the SS agents, crouching down, pulling Trump down, while he is rising up, raising a fist defiantly in the blue sky. And it’s actually a photogenic shot for the Donald, low angle, almost feeling a little too perfect.

      Watching the video, Trump doesn’t look nearly as defiant, but that’s not the image people are going to remember. Trump, the consummate showman, truly seized the moment, and the photographer was there to capture and create his own moment, as well.

      It somehow recalled the end of Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986), in which the two photojourno protagonists, searching far-flung war zones for “the perfect shot”, they finally capture it — nodding, knowing, that it is “the shot” they have been seeking for their entire careers —, but this at a terrible price, as the John Cassady character (a stand in for John Hoagland), dying on the street, passes the exposed film roll to his comrade.

      To risk and sacrifice everything… for that “perfect” image.

      Reply ↓
      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        wow.
        thanks for that connection/
        should be a couple of pulitzers, or whatever, in this, at least.
        iconic images.
        (i hung out with a gang of lesbian photography students at sam houston state…wish i was still in contact, now,lol…we argued incessantly about such iconic shots)

        Reply ↓
  5. Maxwell Johnston

    First Fico, then Raisi, now Trump; all three of them not on board with Project Ukraine. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action.

    This was a comically bad security failure. Heads should roll at the Secret Service. And how could the shooter miss from 130 yards? Yours truly was a lousy shot with an M16 during my army days, but even I (with eyeglasses and nervous hands and no previous firearms experience) had no trouble hitting stationary pop-up targets on the rifle range out to 150 meters. The ones at 200/250/300 meters were trickier, but 50/100/150: no sweat. Only one bullet allowed, no telescopic sight. This guy shot multiple times.

    A question for the commentariat: the official story is that the shooter did not carry ID, so the authorities ran his DNA through the system and quickly ascertained who he was. Is this a reality? Does the USA government have the ability to take any random person’s DNA and quickly make a positive ID? That would be dystopian on the level of Dick or Huxley or Kafka…..

    Reply ↓
    1. Ranger Rick

      Now you’re starting to get how broad the surveillance net is. If it has been digitized, the government has access to it, whether by warrant, data request, DHS demand, or a data broker via third-party doctrine. Many states preserve a blood sample from infants after they’re born…

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    2. juno mas

      The “authorities” identified the shooter from the rifle registration. Then confirmed thru DNA. The rifle as purchased bu the shooters father. So no AI needed searching the DNA database.

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      1. Maxwell Johnston

        OK, that makes sense, thanks. Good to know that the DNA surveillance grid isn’t fully in place. Yet.

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        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          last time i was arrested for public intoxication, some 20+ years ago…they took a cheek swab…and this is decidedly a backwater county in far off rural texas.
          of note, perhaps, is that the city of austin, 10 years before, did NOT take a cheek swab when they arrested me for “theft”…that last $19 check i missed taking care of when my last paycheck from huntsville bounced and sent us immediately into homelessness…
          so between like 93 and 2003? something changed with all that.

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    3. JBird4049

      First Fico, then Raisi, now Trump; all three of them not on board with Project Ukraine. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action.

      We know that the CIA is very capable and ruthless enough to do multiple assassinations, but sometimes it is not state action or even very coordinated. Police from American municipal and state agencies have also been used for assassinations in the past as well, but unless we start seeing a pattern similar to the 1960s or to the leaders of the Ferguson protests, I am going to hold off on speculating. For the home country or even for other countries doing multiple assassinations for such as Ukraine seems requires an emotional readiness that I do not think we are there yet. Close, yes, but we don’t have the shootings, riots, and bombings of the 1960s to push people over the line to act.

      What I worry about are the overreactions of the fearful and incompetent authorities who have do have actual and realistic training for mass protests, which often involve peaceful negotiations and not crowd suppression, or either the experience and wisdom to deal with the violent political protests that was routine during the Twentieth Century Even if the George Floyd protests are included, the past thirty-two since the Loss Angeles Rodney King have been comparatively peaceful.

      Reply ↓
  6. jo6pac

    I was wondering how many copycats shotting we’ll have now? I wish they hadn’t killed the shooter.

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    1. ambrit

      I’m wondering how quickly after the first shots did the counter snipers “neutralize” the “Man on the Roof?”
      If it happened quickly, then I can believe that the counter snipers were “in the heat of the moment” and reacted to eliminate further shooting at the stage. If they took their time, then we enter “Conspiracy Theory Land.”
      America has a rich and varied history of political assassinations and attempted assassinations.

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      1. albrt

        The videos I have seen are strange. The counter snipers appeared to have the assassin in their sights all along, but only began shooting back after he got his shots off.

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  7. GDmofo

    As a Pennsylvania resident, it was so nice having a Sunday with no political ads, I even watched some Nascar! Seriously, there is at least 2 every commercial break during sports, going back to the spring. I dont watch much TV, just some sports, and even for me, it’s been unbearable.

    If only all political ads were banned, no more lowest common denominator baiting garbage trying to brainwash idiots.

    A guy can dream

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  9. Mo

    Is the bullet leaving Trump’s head in the photo, not whizzing toward it? That seems so from the stage diagram and shooter’s location.

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    1. eudora welty

      I try to remain quiet and only add something unique to the commentary, but – YES! – I wondered this, too.

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  10. Wukchumni

    Huey Long was gonna be a major thorn in FDR’s side in the 1936 election, but ran against Alf Landon instead when Long wasn’t long for the world all of the sudden.

    The Donkey Show pulled out all the questionable legal stops in stopping Trump from his appointed rounds as the next Grover Cleveland (on the $1000 FRN, btw) and it looks to have been all for naught.

    Security was a joke yesterday, almost similar to the hi-jinx displayed by law enforcement on January 6th in Humordor, hmmmmmm…

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  11. nickj

    trump tried to overthrow a democratically elected president. the republic should have shot him as a traitor there and then, surely?

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    4. The Rev Kev

      What is this “democracy” that you talk about? That is a system of government where the will of the people rule. Well the studies are in and they show consistently that only the will of the elites rule and the only time the will of the people is taken into account is when they align with the elites. Hell, even former President Jimmy Carter calls America an oligarchy. We now live in an era of Game of Thrones – but without the boobs and dragons.

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      1. jake

        Spoken like an American who’s never missed a meal.

        This “democracy” (as you call it) is presenting you with a very stark choice.

        If that difference is not meaningful to you, perhaps you’re largely immune from public policy or are too despairing to any longer participate?

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  12. playon

    All I know is I had a gig in Butler PA way back in the late 70s and I can’t recommend the town. We had a day off there so were able to do our laundry but the place was depressing, and no doubt is worse now (like most other things in the USA).

    I enjoyed Russell Brand’s video, he made some good points. The atmosphere is poisonous here in America.

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  13. Z

    What if the shooter was not politically motivated? It was an attempt at notoriety and a ‘shot’ of opportunity because simply Trump (someone famous) was going to be there?

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    1. Acacia

      Certainly possible, though from his perch atop that building, Crooks undoubtedly saw all the law enforcement and snipers.

      To me, at least, it seems clearly a suicide mission — and who chooses that?

      I wonder if we’ll ever get a plausible motive.

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    1. Sardonia

      When events are breaking fast, I sometimes click on Yahoo since they update news stories quickly. There was a touching article on Comperatore and his family. Then I clicked the comments….

      LOTS of them along the lines of “cool, one less Drumpf voter”, or “maybe a nice guy but a moron who won’t be missed”, etc. etc. What was especially sad was that the dozens of “thumbs up and thumbs down” were evenly split.

      If people are split on THAT…we’ve crossed a Rubicon.

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  15. willow

    A very profound moment in history that will have very deep & lasting consequences on US politics. As much from Trump’s response and already simmering anger over the use to lawfare to nobble him than the assassin’s attempt of itself.

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  16. hamstak

    Perhaps it is worth considering the possibility that this was less a political than a celebrity assassination attempt.

    A young, disaffected man, with no known strong political affinities, seeing few prospects in life (who knows, maybe he was recently spurned by a love interest) seizes the opportunity to conveniently try to take out the arguably foremost celebrity of our age, thereby obtaining his 15 minutes of fame in what was otherwise looking to be an utterly mundane existence.

    Perhaps he even saw the possibility of provoking a civil war or at least significant, violent unrest, and sought revenge against “the world”. Apres moi…

    If it had been a Biden rally or a Taylor Swift concert he might have gone for one of them (ignoring the security aspect of the convenience factor — the other being proximity).

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    1. Bazarov

      I just posted almost the same reaction as you (I nearly mentioned Taylor Swift, as well)! NC minds sometimes think eerily alike…

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    3. Amfortas the Hippie

      aye.
      we’ll likely never know…scrubbers are prolly working right now.
      but its trump…
      so the hat falls on the side of the bed that says “political”.

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  17. Bazarov

    I find, contra the “compassionate reactions” included in this round-up, it rather premature to blame the nation’s political division and vitriol for the assassination attempt on Trump.

    From what we know about the assassin, he sounds a lot like the various mass-shooters that’ve been terrorizing our schools since Columbine. Many of them have been, at least in part, motivated by the chance to be famous and important, to have their name recorded, to be finally acknowledged.

    There’s a cult of people out there who worship Klebold and Harris, just as there are for most serial killers of repute and, no doubt, for assassins. I imagine John Hinckley Jr., recently released from the insane asylum, has not few admirers out there. Many comment on his youtube videos. The chance to become a kind of internet saint must be, to those already suicidal and nihilistic, rather attractive.

    The “red vs. blue” stuff might be beside the point. The shooter so far strongly resembles the sad, bullied, lonely, neglected, young, male soldiers in the country’s rather pathetic revolt of the alienated. Trump just happened to come to him. Could’ve been anyone suitably famous enough and willing to visit his little town. A target of opportunity, for all we know.

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    1. juno mas

      I agree. And I’m glad he failed. Imagine he didn’t in this volatile, angry nation. I’m terrorized by ‘road ragers’; wild gun owners seeking revenge could endanger almost anyone.

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    2. Amfortas the Hippie

      “…sad, bullied, lonely, neglected, young, male soldiers in the country’s rather pathetic revolt of the alienated. …”
      thats exactly what my jr high and into high scholl years were like,
      40 years ago.
      but as Bonn Scott sez, ” i never shot nobody…”
      whats different since…say..columbine?
      shrink parents?
      fewer and fewer opportunities?
      a general malaise?
      easy answer is too much porn, and not enough nookie.
      but thats my sitrep, today…and i feel zero need to shoot anyone, unless its in defense of my place.

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    3. Lefty Godot

      Doesn’t the shooter have a long history on social media for would-be Sherlock Holmes/Sigmund Freud types to pore over? I mean, I thought everybody (but me) was on Twitter and Facebook. Or everybody that is anybody, at least.

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      1. Acacia

        CBS news:

        Crooks did have a social media presence, the FBI officials said. Agents are combing through his posts and emails but have found nothing so far that reveals a motive or anything threatening.

        …which is somehow what I’d expect.

        SSRIs? “Nope, couldn’t have been that!”. Whatever Crooks’ motive, I wonder if it will even be shared with the public.

        In the US, there seems to be a large investment is filing these events under “another lone nut — ’tis a mystery”.

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  18. Amfortas the Hippie

    man!
    i just went to do the sheeps for the evening…and Don’s cousin and hubs are up for a month or so, because of Beryl tearing up their north houston neighborhood.
    so cousin insists i come in and hang out,lol.
    but the news is on, and i say something about that iconic photo, fist raised, etc…”he’s already won”.
    and mom, who thinks im a trumper and a putin puppet and fond of alex jones(lol)…launches into a 30minute argument with me.
    i ended by saying, go to cspan and look up 40 years of joe bidens speeches…theyre all there,lol.
    she insists she has, but she still thinks hes Joe From Scranton, and a Union Man, etc.
    what can one do, but withdraw?
    mad mention during all this thats shes worried about who im reading…and i say…the same people ive been reading for almost 30 years, who have a track record, etc…as well as the horse’s mouth when it comes to the great enemies…russia, china and iran.
    useless arguing about it with people like that…they will never concede…especially if covert narcissism is involved.
    but thats why shes my proxy for the PMC….because they seem to suffer from various forms of narcissism, as well, en masse.

    ill be in the doghouse for weeks, now,lol.
    and im gone to lubbock for 3 days with youngest this week…and have a gay guy being me, out here, 7am and 7pm…which will just piss her off more,lol….and then she’ll ensure that he never ever wants to work for that woman…ha!
    to punish me for not just laying down and saying thank you, m’am, may i have another.

    i reckon she’s a pretty good specimen for study.
    that right there is how they are.

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  19. Carolinian

    Thanks Lambert. Re the future of Biden: perhaps he will indeed hang around if November is looking even more of a no hoper for the Dems. Why fruitlessly generate even more turmoil?

    Then we only have to wait for Trump to destroy democracy. I won’t be holding my breath. The fact that Axios still clings to this crap doesn’t say much about Axios. The people at that rally look to be about as unthreatening a bunch as you could imagine.Trump may be their paper mache idol but they are not evil for wanting one. And I’d say they aren’t stupid either. They just want to still be part of something that–PMC division–no longer wants them. The working and small business class may be on the ropes but the prob for the Dems is that they can still vote. And here’s suggesting there will be no more suspiciously available roofs at Trump rallies.

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  20. Dr. John Carpenter

    Good point about the benefit to Biden. They’ve been looking for an excuse to campaign from the basement again. Well, here they have it.

    One thing I’m really curious about, and you touch on it here, is how do they start the campaign again? And I include the Dem friendly media in the “they” I’m talking about here. Thus far, the campaign has been “vote for Biden because Trump is an existential threat to Our Democracy ™.” Many people have gone further calling him a fascist and Hitler, etc. You all know the song and dance.

    So, if that’s what they truly believe, how do they dial it back now? How can they condemn this assassination attempt if Trump is literally planning on canceling further elections? What else do they have?

    The part I think is really ironic is I’ve been hearing for years how it was just a matter of time before some MAGA deplorable takes out a Dem politician. Yes, I know this shooter was registered as a Republican, but I don’t think that necessary means he could have been immune to the “Trump is literally Hitler” thing. We may never know a why, but the fact is Trump was shot at, not Biden.

    (TLDR: your lighter side joke absolutely nails the current Dem dilemma.)

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  21. CA

    Lambert:

    Thank you so much for pointing to and briefly describing the impact of the photographic composition we experienced.

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  22. Samuel Conner

    DJT’s defiant expression in The Photo reminds me a bit of the moment when, after returning from Walter Reed Hospital in 2020 after his bout with COVID, he turned to face the cameras and removed his procedure mask.

    I don’t know how much credit to give the man for bravery and how much to shake my head at folly.

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    1. Duke of Prunes

      I’m skeptical. I mean it obviously could be true, but it could also be damage control about how that roof was left so wide open… it wasn’t wide open, see… we had a bumbling township sheriff up there who crapped his pants and fell down the moment danger presented itself.

      I’m still trying to figure how this supposed exchange went down. Did the gun man turn and point the gun at the cop from his bear crawl? While lying down? And turn quickly turn himself back to laying down and firing some pretty accurate shots in just a few seconds? Maybe it’s not that far fetched, but I’d like to see a reenactment

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      1. britzklieg

        Agree that it is murky at best. But the report apparently came from the AP so I thought it should be mentioned.

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  24. Northeaster

    Never voted for Trump (Golden Retriever was better than both candidates in 2016/2020). Now I am.

    Not that he a great candidate, but it’s a protest vote in how much a banana republic this country has turned into. Will he fix it? Probably not. But since we’re approaching Civil war 2.0, it doesn’t matter anymore.

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  25. Clwydshire

    Being knocked down and getting right back up and shaking his fist is not just an attractive political meme, I suspect that the event reinforces a core element of Trump’s psychological image of himself. I can say without irony that I hope this event does not lead him to be too full of himself. His enemies would deny it, but Trump can be vulnerable and frank, and that’s been part of his charm. But really, this event leaves me trying to imagine the kind of schemes and conspiracies that will be born in the back rooms of a Democratic Party convention where they will probably be absolutely dead certain that their own candidate will lose.

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