A 20-year-old registered Republican opened fire with a rifle at a
Trump rally in Pennsylvania, killing one MAGA-head and wounding two
critically, but merely grazing Trump's ear, who benefited from a very
photogenic streak of blood on his face. Not missing a beat, he defiantly
raised a fist for the photographers. (The shooter was also said to have
given a small donation to a Democratic-Party-linked organization.)
Conveniently,
the Secret Service executed the would-be assassin on the spot. So no
Lee Harvey Oswald or James Earl Ray or Sirhan Sirhan, left alive to
complicate the propaganda story for the spinners of the legend that will
be planted around this event and become official "history." (Just
saying.)
The shooter was obviously not trained as a sniper. If he
had been, he would have known not to go for a headshot. Heads are a
smaller target than torsos, and move around more. (This I learned from a
youtube video, which the shooter could have easily done too, had he
made a decent effort to prepare himself. I have a lifelong interest in
military matters, which is how I came to watch such a video.) The young
shooter was probably misled by entertainment industry garbage featuring
make-believe assassins. Then again, Trump may well have been wearing a
bullet"proof" vest. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as an
absolutely bulletproof vest. Such protective devices come in various
levels of protection, depending on the type of projectiles they are
designed to stop. Still, the shooter would have been wiser to aim just
below the throat, or make for himself copper-tipped bullets, for
example, which have greater penetrating power than the soft lead that
most bullets are made from. (Bullets made from harder metals are
outlawed for the public, under pressure from police, who branded them as
"cop-killer" bullets.)
The Democrats immediately made things
worse for themselves by spewing hysterical rhetoric, as if Trump was
their beloved grandmother. Instead of issuing pro-forma "expressions of
concern" and stuff like "of course we condemn violence," they went into
overdrive, as if to prove their loyalty to Trump. Top Democratic
politicians fulminated that they were "shocked" and "horrified" and
condemned the attack in the strongest terms. Contrast that with how
Republicans would respond to a violent attack on Biden. They would issue
lukewarm, milktoast expressions of concern, while some of them, and
especially their various fascist auxiliaries, would blame Biden and the
Democrats for bringing the attack on themselves. In the shooting at the
Trump rally, the despicable J.D. Vance has already blamed the DEMOCRATS
for the shooting, because of their rhetoric. Vance, a totally amoral
hustler, parlayed a book and his strategic move of linking himself to
Trump into a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio, and now the vice-presidential pick by Trump after only a year and a half as a Senator. He is one of many ambitious,
ethical-and-conscience-free self-promoters who have attached themselves
to Trump, like suckerfish hitching a ride on a shark's body.
The
Democrats, if they weren't so lame, would learn something from Vance
and make insinuating remarks about how Trump's long history of violent
rhetoric and incitement (most especially his failed coup attempt of
January 6, 2021 which Republicans and their propagandist auxiliaries
like Tucker Carlson now insist was a peaceful rally!) has come back to
bite him. They could remark that "He who lives by the sword, dies by the
sword." They could mention how Trump sent a U.S. Marshal's death squad
to execute Antifa fighter Michael Reinoehl. (They wouldn't because they
fully supported that murder, as did the U.S. media. The eyewitnesses to
the execution reported that Reinoehl was summarily gunned down on sight
without warming.
Instead the Democrats instinctively obeyed
Trump's call for "unity" and united in wishing Trump well, expressing
great relief that he was unharmed, and on and on. Pathetic, and typical
of Democratic Party weakness. This weakness is a big reason Trump
will probably beat Biden (or whoever) in November. People follow
"leaders" who seem strong. Feeble, senile, fumbling over his words,
slurring his speech, tripping on stairs Biden projects weakness. And
"debating" Trump while in the throes of a senility episode starkly
illustrated his weakness and incapacity. This man insists on being
president of the United States for four more years? Both he and his
party are demented.
Biden's handpicked U.S. Attorney
General, Merrick Garland, a man deprived of a Supreme Court seat by
Senate Republicans led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, called the
botched (deliberately?) shooting "an attack on democracy." Well if Trump
is a THREAT to democracy, (which he is, whether Democrats believe their
own rhetoric or not), then attempting to kill Trump is a
DEFENSE of democracy. That is, of the tawdry simulacrum of democracy
that exists in the U.S., which is a corporate oligarchy and a bourgeois
class dictatorship fronted by a two-party political cartel which
monopolizes political power. "Democracy" in the U.S. means every two but
especially four years the two imperialist factions that are the
Democratic and Republican Parties fight over power, and the power
establishment's propaganda system has the job of working to generate
artificial excitement in the "race," which they literally cover as if it
is a sporting event, and tries to herd people into voting booths, since
legitimizing the power system necessitates the appearance that it is
"the people" who choose the unchanging and unchangeable (short of
revolution) power system.
But as bad as that is, it is preferable
to the fascistic dictatorship Trump has made clear he plans to
institute. And with a large and organized group of long-time fascists
such as the Heritage Foundation as his cadres, he has thousands of goons
salivating at the prospect of taking over the government and remaking
it to their liking. And this is not new. These people have been around
for decades. (I closely followed the so-called "New Right," their chosen
label, extremist goons of the 1970s and later, whose slogan was "We're
Ready to Rule.")
As for Biden himself, the Boss of the
Democratic Party, he immediately made an ass of himself, as he so often
has done throughout his "career," announcing that political violence is
"unheard of" in the U.S. That's rather like claiming the earth is flat,
and doesn't revolve around the sun. Even NPR major domo Mara
Liasson contradicted him on air the morning after the shooting (Sunday
morning), pointing out the murders of two Kennedys and Martin Luther
King, Jr. Predictably, she omitted to mention that all were CIA
assassinations with FBI aiding and abetting, and crucially, media as
enablers to this day. And the co-conspiring city police departments,
Dallas, TX, Los Angeles, California, and Memphis, Tennessee. And let me
add the numerous political assassinations by the CIA, FBI, and various
police departments, plus freelance fascists murdering progressive
protesters and getting away with it. Texas governor Greg Abbott just
pardoned a fascist terrorist who committed premeditated murder of a
"leftwing" protester (he posted messages in advance with his intent),
erasing the murderer's conviction.
By the way, the FBI, which
handled the cover-ups in the state murders of the Kennedys and King, as
well as in all other state crimes, is handing the "investigation" of
this one too. Which simply means, an untrustworthy organization is doing
yet another political investigation. So a word of advice: take the
result with more than a mere pinch of salt. Use the entire salt shaker.
The
United States has for years been in a situation analogous to the Weimar
Republic of Germany (1919-1933), where an ostensibly democratic
government protected fascist murderers by not prosecuting them or giving
them wristslap punishments while harshly repressing their communist
foes. This was a key factor in the growth of the Nazi Party, which
wasn't even impeded by Hitlers 1923 coup attempt. Someone attempted to
overthrow the government, and he got a very light sentence, comfortable
conditions of confinement, and was allowed in prison to write his deadly
manifesto, Mein Kampf.
And just as Hitler could
play the martyr after his failed coup attempt, now Trump is playing the
martyr-card. Which he was already doing with his criminal cases and one
conviction (on 34 felonies for fradulent business records in a New York
State trial, the ONLY trial that has actually occurred so far, thanks to
Republican judges obstructing prosecutions in his Federal cases for
stealing boxes of classified documents and the January 1, 2001 coup
attempt, judges including 6 of the 9 Supreme Court "Justices" and
Federal District Court judge Aileen Cannon, who has stymied the
prosecution in the classified documents case at every turn and now even
refuses to set a trial date).
So the brave, strong martyr
Trump has defied death, defied the "haters" (most of the haters in the
U.S. support Trump), and is unbowed and determined. How are the
Democrats going to beat this?
They probably aren't. They insisted on putting up a senile man four years ago, and they're doing it again.
HEROIC LEADER AND SAVIOR OF THE NATION SURVIVES INCOMPETENT ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT!
(And he wasn't even shot. No bullet entered or passed through his body.
His ear was lightly grazed, creating an extremely minor flow of blood-
just enough for Trump to strike a pose.)