WHAT
- Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump was shot at a rally in PA.
TRUMPS STATEMENT
“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW SO FAR
- gunman is dead
- Trump “is fine”
- one attendee is dead
- another attendee is in critical condition
News Sources
- CNN - Trump rushed off stage after shooting at Pennsylvania rally
- AP News - Live updates: Shooting at Trump rally is being investigated as assassination attempt, AP sources say
- The Hill - George W. Bush condemns ‘cowardly attack’ at Trump rally
- Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) on Xitter - video interview with witness who tried to warn police before shooting happened
- Sky News - Gunshots reportedly fired at Donald Trump rally - as former president rushed off stage (Article confirms one rally attendee dead)
- Reuters - Biden says he is grateful to hear Trump is safe, has been briefed on shooting
- OAlexanderDK on Xitter - The shooter was on a roof approximately 125m or 400ft from where Trump was standing.
- JakeMRosen on Xitter - An emergency room doctor I spoke with tried to save someone’s life in the crowd
Do not advocate or celebrate violence, please. Comments advocating violence will be deleted and bans will be issued.
Also, please avoid promoting conspiracies. Discussing current events is fine but suggesting things like “it’s a false flag” without evidence is spreading a conspiracy.
spreading a conspiracy
I know this is off-topic, but can we please go back to saying “conspiracy theory”? Conspiracy and conspiracy theories are not the same. There are actual conspiracies (a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful) , and there are theories of conspiracies. They should not be confused.
Surprised you’re not already banned just for the c-word. I mean, if someone crashes their car through a storefront, I could speculate without evidence that the driver was excessively old, young, drunk, or just plain stupid and it’s left up to the reader to take my comment with a grain of salt, but if I so much as entertain the possibility of this shooting being anything besides what is being reported by official channels, I must be silenced.
Why not? Isnt that what americans claim the second amendment is for?Prevent fascism?
Communism, not Fascism, or to protect workers’ rights if you go back far enough. We only got involved in fighting fascism because we were drawn into the war, otherwise it’s never been that big of an issue to Americans and many schools aren’t even allowed to teach about it anymore because “kids shouldn’t have to feel bad about something like that” or whatever excuses the far right is currently using to prevent their schools from teaching about Anne Frank, concentration camps, slavery, anything else they want to implement themselves.
Sic semper tyrannis.
A reminder, he incited people Jan 6th which resulted in deaths.
That’s the wild thing.
This is a “Oh no what will Cheeto say to start a riot?”
Or all the domestic violence
And his cult still defends the insurrectionists.
Unless it’s more convenient to call them Antifa.
That’s not a justification for more violence, two wrongs don’t make a right. He was wrong for doing what he did and this is wrong as well. This is because political violence in it’s entirety is wrong. Jesus, do people not have principles anymore? Seeing all the supposedly moral people turn into Q anon level conspiracy theorists who condone violence is depressing.
The death of Hitler, sadam hussein, Bin laden and all the others who threatened the free world disagree.
Hitler committted suicide. Any insight in how the other executions actually improved the world?
Millions of fascists were murdered to win WW2, are you saying we should’ve used strong debate language instead?
But these are vastly different situations. For the record, all three of these individuals used political violence to achieve political aims, that’s one of the reasons why history doesn’t remember them fondly. The constantly killed people they didn’t like under the justification that it’s for the greater good or self defense. Saddam Hussien did that when he genocided the Kurds in Iraq and the invasion Kuwait, Hitler did that with the Holocaust and the invasion of Europe, and Bin Laden did that with 9/11 and the other terrorist attacks he launched.
Keep in mind, we actually have a justice system in this country that actually works. If we want Trump to face justice it has to go through the justice where he faces trial and is found guilty based on evidence… which has already happened btw for one of his crimes. That’s how justice is handled in a civil democracy. We can’t have randos going on self righteous terrorism crusades killing political candidates they don’t like. If someone tried assassinate Biden, would you being say the same? Probably not, and rightfully so, but the terrorist who tried to kill would be making similar justifications to what you’re trying to make right now. The very idea is wrong.
Donald Trump intentionally and maliciously mishandled an epidemic and allowed it to turn pandemic for his own stupid and shortsighted political gains. He then intentionally hindered national response.
And then he intentionally incited a literal insurrection. He has absolutely employed political violence.
I’m not here to defend him. He’s one of the worst of the presidents in our history. His list of horrendous acts goes far beyond his pandemic response and the insurrection, and it goes was past his presidency too. He’s truly awful. But with that being said, things like assassinations and terrorism should not become normalized as a legitimate way of achieving political means.
free world
lmao
While its not perfect you could easily be alot more oppressed. Democracy dies when people stop fighting for it.
two wrongs don’t make a right.
You’re right. But let me tell you all about the sympathy I have for him:
.
That’s about it.
one wrong plus another wrong, generally seems to overthrow most rights throughout the history of man kind.
I’m not sure what to do with this information, but it’s present.
If by rights you mean you human rights then normalized widespread violence tends to do that, that’s the whole reason why tyranny isn’t exactly good.
if by wrongs you mean human wrongs, then i have no idea what you’re talking about.
What?
same, you and me both.
A wrong makes a right if it prevents many many horrible wrongs in the future.
The ends don’t justify the means politics, that’s how you end up with terrorism, tyrannical governments, and atrocities. I’m all for bringing Trump to justice, but it has be done through civil and democratic means via the established criminal justice system. If Trump goes through trial and is found guilty, which has already happened for one of his crimes, then our criminal justice system will punish him accordingly. If the punishments aren’t deemed harsh enough then we reform our punitive laws. We can’t have self righteous assholes going on terrorism crusades assassinating political candidates they don’t like. That’s a sign of a failed state.
Tyrannical governments rise from apathy. The final governmental check is its people.
True, which is why now is the most important time to condemn political violence, get people politically active, and vote to keep the fascist wannabes out of power.
Tell me, should we have turned the other cheek during WWII? Two wrongs don’t make a right after all, right?
We didn’t join WWII because the Nazis were bad, we joined because Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and then Hitler declared war on the US.
Exactly, should’ve just turned the other cheek, right?
Really? You don’t realize that the US didn’t join a war that started in 1939 until 1941 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor … so was only part of the war for less than 4 years?
Wow!
You inferred something about Nazis, and now what you’re saying makes no sense as a response to what I’ve been asking you.
I’ll put it more clearly so you can actually give an answer: When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, you’re saying we should’ve turned the other cheek?
Two wrongs do not make a right though.
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But 1 click on a windage knob would have.
This is funnier retrospectively because apparently this fucking dumbass wasn’t even using an optic. insanity
This shit was never here before because it’s likely CYA mode for Lemmy because feds could come sniffing here if copycat incidents occur.
bro the feds are already sniffing lemmy you think they arent?
They’re sniffing lemmy just like their sniffing literally every other social media platform right now.
Is it not actually called the fed…averse…
fed i verse.
Federal investigation universe. Checkmate.
Oh so that’s why my official Lemmy moderator paycheck comes from the FBI?
(This is a joke, we are not paid)
the M stands for Money :)
How many deaths did it result in? Cause there is only one death on Jan 6 that has ever been attributed to Jan 6.
I don’t disagree that he incited the insurrection, but making false claims doesn’t help show that the left is the party of honesty.
Hey numbnuts, America doesn’t have a left and it’s the MAGA fascists that are the problem here
The left, who? What party?
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/11/how-many-died-as-a-result-of-capitol-riot/
Babbitt plus suicides, and other “natural” deaths.
On March 7, the District of Columbia’s Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board declared that Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith’s suicide in the days after the Jan. 6 riot was a line-of-duty death. The board concluded “that Officer Smith sustained a personal injury on January 6, 2021, while performing his duties and that his injury was the sole and direct cause of his death.
The left isn’t even a party, genius.
Why are you pretending like right-wing violence isn’t the literal leading domestic security threat?
Have you been living under a rock since 2016?
2016? It’s been since at least the 90s.
Well, yeah, I mean, we can go back a hundred years, conservatives will always be pushing violence and division whatever era you look at since they can’t hold power without it, I mostly mean it’s come out fully into the open since 2016. The mask dropped off completely and they’re no longer even pretending to be anything but the Confederacy 2.0.
I know you have to say this, but holy shit do I disagree.
This person advocated significant violence and contributed to the deaths and loss of human rights of thousands. A good whack of the world would turn up hungover to work tomorrow after celebrating only a few inches over.
No better fuel for an extremist ideology then having a martyr. Trump isn’t the problem, it’s the millions who listen to him.
Trump is absolutely the problem when he’s the mouthpiece of American fascism. Why are we pretending his death would be bad? We’re a couple years from having concentration camps in the US if he wins and everyone’s wringing their hands over this attempt at saving millions of lives by taking one.
Yea it might cause a civil war, that looks unavoidable at this point anyway. I’d rather civil war than concentration camps
They’re still waving the Confederate flag. What makes you think bullets will kill this ideology in round 2?
It would silence one of the most successful voices and hamper the movement, not kill the ideology itself.
And how do you kill the ideology? By having the most successful voice of it ultimately accomplish nothing and die as a sad old man.
There’s a reason his rhetoric has been: “The election was stolen!” Because that feeling is powerful, that they were right on the cusp of doing something great, if only the enemy hadn’t poisoned it. It’s got the right mix of victimization and hope that really motivates a movement. You’ll get that 10x now that he’s victimized. And you’d get it 20x if he’s martyred.
You can’t kill any ideology.
Nazis are still around.
Confederate apologists are still around.
The only effective end to the tyrrany of their ideology when it had enough momentum wasn’t strong words and voting. MAGA is about three small steps from turning the US into a literal fascist state.
The only thing that holds authoritarian regimes like the MAGA crowd together are narcissists like Trump. They would collapse without someone as good at stoking their anger, and he really is the only one that is personally revered by the MAGA crowd. Sure, other grifters make money and get ciews, but nobody cares when the other grifters like Alex Jones face some justice.
Concentration camps? Do you actually believe that or have it based on anything?
How do the people get justice for a convicted criminal that’s above the law? Is there a reason why the constitution has an amendment for guns? Why are so many platforms against the constitution and against the need for correct course when apt?
Stop acting like corpo reddit admins and mods.
“Convicted criminal” who is “above the law?”
Seems like he was convicted, thus not above the law.
You keep him from being president by getting enough people to vote against him, or you accept the will of the people.
The 2nd Amendment was originally to make sure militias weren’t disarmed, in a time when militias were more relevant. Has nothing to do with political assassination.
How about when said political candidate openly calls for violence and murder against his opponents, to the point of asking the Supreme Court if he could assassinate people.
Maybe the 2nd amendment comes in to play a little? Last I checked we didn’t vote king George off our shores.
But we did vote Trump out of office, and he left. That’s the difference between Republics and Monarchies.
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Lemmy users when they can’t advocate violence:
young_guy_straining.jpg
Advocating for violence to prevent a fascist from abolishing the democracy is the only acceptable violence. Sometimes a democracy has to be protected violently if it is too weak to protect itself. Trump allies always say its why they have the second amendment. Now that it is used against them they cry about it.
Everybody thinks their form of violence is the only acceptable violence.
The paradox of tolerance is only a paradox if you don’t believe in the social contract.
Beliefs that violate the social contract deserve no protection under it.
Violence is rarely good for anything as we have seen it just now. It would be better even if this guy shot at Biden that’s how counterproductive it is.
Modern problems aren’t solved with blood but with marketing. You cannot kill an idea but you can ridicule it
You cannot just eradicate everyone who opposes you. China tried, Soviets too. Now they have something vastly better - troll farms.
Modern problems aren’t solved with blood but with marketing.
Tell that to the Ukrainians and the Palestinians. I know you want this to be the case, but you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.
In both cases they didn’t solve anything and only made things worse for themselves
Not sure what you mean, but Ukraine and Zelensky have been marketing themselves all over the place. They need all the help they can get, and they are doing whatever they can to boost support. So far pootin hasn’t achieved his goals so it’s working.
You’re right, better to allow a violent oppressor to slowly eradicate your people than attempt to free or defend yourself by whatever means necessary…
Eh I think you guys see what you want to see in my comment. I was talking about Russia. putin attacked Ukraine, it was insane in any case and what did he got out of it really?
The violence on Ukraine was just plain stupid.
I am kinda surprised and amused you take me for some pacifist goodie two shoes, other cheek blah blah. funny from my pov. Idk how you extracted that from my comment, I bet you will now continue to argue with something that doesn’t exist. My congratulations
Appeasement of an aggressor never works. History has taught this over and over and over again. We still haven’t learned I see. I’m mainly talking about Ukraine. Palestine is a lot more complex.
Your last point is actually not a bad analysis - but it is missing that the ones operating their propaganda and troll farms already also control the violence monopoly. And both entities also use violence where they deem it practical.
Lol how kind of you, thank you I guess
How do you spread a conspiracy? I think you mean speculation.
My friend, you know exactly what they mean. Don’t push a “well maybe somebody set it up because …” theory unless you have facts to back it up.
Obviously someone set this up, bullets don’t just appear out of nowhere. It may have just been the gunman who acted entirely alone. We have no evidence that anyone worked with the gunman but what’s that saying about the absence of evidence?
Yeah but there’s also no evidence that this was anything other than a single person acting on their own. Most loan shooters are actually loners.
You can’t use the English language in an openly misleading fashion and expect that people are going to go along with it, not in a situation like this. The expression “someone set this up” clearly implies the existence of a second person.
What made you think that another person is involved? Nothing. If we were to look at historical evidence, we would find that a lot of these situations are done by so-called lone wolf attackers. So if we’re going to blindly speculate, we should at least be consistent with historical evidence, and we should certainly speak unambiguously.
The issue is the volume of comments about this being faked entirely or a false flag.
I would like facts that back up you claim to know what your “friend” was thinking
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This sub has some crazy censorship. I’m pretty sure it’s all right-wing mods.
Was it wrong when Trump triggered Jan 6 with his calls for violence?
If yes, why do you get to call for violence?
If no, you should read more about the ramifications of Jan 6
Didn’t know this was the “othe r/ place” now…but… Okay.
This community can be whatever it wants to be. If you want to advocate for violence you are free to do that elsewhere in the fediverse. Just not here.
“no actual discussion allowed” got it
If the only way you can discuss an assassination is by advocating for additional violence and pushing lies, then I guess not?
pushing lies
How did you determine what was true in this situation and what was false? I am curious about your methodology.
True: confirmed information. False: unconfirmed information of a speculative nature. Do you see a specific issue you disagree with or are you just trying to argue?
You are just moving the problem around via definitions not actually saying what method you used to know exactly what happened yesterday.
All I asked is how you arrived at the truth. Did you see evidence that the general public didn’t? Because what I am seeing is you all are so absolutely certain you have literally compared it to Covid misinformation. Amazing, a 30 hour news event is so well understood you can compare our knowledge of it to the single most studied virus in human history months after a new variant had appeared.
It is not unreasonable how you were able to obtain information the rest of us apparently do not have and how you were able to eliminate all other alternatives so quickly.
You are limiting discussion to centrist viewpoints, centrism caters towards permissive attitudes towards fascism. You know this.
“hey guys don’t politicize an attempted political assassination”
Not really what I said at all. “Hey guys, don’t make stuff up, please rely on credible sources, and don’t advocate for violence”.
Or, in other words: follow the rules we’ve always had in place
Advocating for, or not advocating for, violence is a political stance. Many people defend Israel’s ongoing genocide and are not blocked from doing so. That doesn’t feel like the rules being consistently enforced. The people speculating on whether or not this is staged have access to the same information as everyone else, and in the spirit of true discourse, if it was seen to be false you could figure that out by discussion rather than censorship.
If you have evidence that it was staged, feel free to share it. If you don’t, then we ask that you not speculate. It’s no different than any other claim for which we’d require a basic amount of credible substantiation.
Should I start reporting every comment that doesn’t have sources? 😂😂
I don’t personally think it was staged, but be honest … it’s not like you delete every single comment that doesn’t have sources …
What peeves me is that the right are all clutching their pearls about anyone who says anything other than blind Trump sympathy. Don’t get me wrong, political violence is wrong. But, remember this:
When Paul Pelosi got his face bashed in with a hammer, the right made fun of it. Mocked him. Idk, man.
This is what is so frustrating.
Conservatives call for violence; Call for rising up; Literally calling themselves DOMESTIC TERRORISTS: Absolutely a nothing burger. Just a bunch of locker room talk. Relax that’s normal conservative speech.
Liberals blinking aggressively: WHY ARENT YOU MORE TOLERANT BE BETTER.
Or how about when he said that if he lost to Clinton:
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Have we considered that the gunman might be a jilted lover? /s
Maybe it was the father of one of the children trump raped.
That shit was amazingly disgusting. And yeah, Trump gets no sympathy from me. But I won’t call for his death, either. I want him to live a very long time. In prison.
He can still incite violence and rally his base from prison.
Not if he can’t get on video. The man’s bizarre hold on his base is all about his verbal delivery. If he has to rely on written messages, he can’t verbally circumvent the higher brain function in his victims and they’re more likely to actually become aware that his messages are gibberish.
What about half way.
Permanent disability, less ability to look after himself, a lifetime in pain.
I’d be happy with aggressive pancreatic cancer, because it will feel like a lifetime for him and shut him up faster.
The WSJ:
A few days ago the WSJ said Biden was old and ineffectual. Now Biden is a power master.
Pick a fucking lane, WSJ
Alright, let’s get it out ahead of time, since I’m already seeing this:
It’s probably not staged. Trump reacts quickly - the fuck kind of timing you think that bloated potato has? To lift his hand to his ear just as the gunshot rings out? And the idea that the shooter grazed him on purpose is, likewise, absurd. The kind of risk that would entail, to just nick his ear?
Whether the shooter was insane or politically motivated, this is a real event.
I said this in another one of these threads- it is not at all outlandish to think that someone unhinged with a gun would see the threat of a fascist dictator and decide to do something about it.
Yeah, I remember my grandfather telling the story of how Hitler held a speech at a Stadium that was visible from his attic window, and his biggest regret was, that he did not have a machinegun to take him and the other Nazi officials with him out. The US has enough guns and desperation for someone to attempt this, definitely.
The right has been agitating for stochastic terrorism for about sixteen god damn years. Well, they got it.
It’s likely a good thing the guy missed. Trump being assassinated might just kick off the open violence that has been brewing. Still might, but it’ll depend on the next couple of days. If that dude turns out to be a left-winger, and Trump makes no attempt to stop it, I could see things getting very, very ugly.
If that dude turns out to be a left-winger
That dude’s political leaning will turn out to be whatever the news we prefer says he was.
It’s a very common gut reaction to assume something like this has to be “staged”, I said it in the other thread in some discussions: It’s understandable to have it as this feeling. But everyone who feels that way: take a breath, remember the world is much more chaotic and much less controlled than you think, you don’t have to think of yourself as stupid for thinking it, but wait for more information to come out and be ready to give it up then.
Reacting properly to this new reality is much more important, than trying to adjust reality to fit an emotion. It’s human to do that, react instinctively in a first gut reaction, but it is also human to be able to let go of that.
the way i like to look at it, is that it doesn’t matter whether it was staged or not, it still happened. People still died, people still evacuated, trump still got shot, none of that changes.
If it does, you’re doing a conspiracy theory, and you should stop.
I think it absolutely does matter for the political conclusions.
But at the very least it is far to early to get into these conspiracies, even if the events had unfolded very differently like the bullets not hitting anywhere close.
However given what we already know and what was caught by dozens of cameras, all the points the conspiracy theorists are coming up with are just insane.
Plus, the rally attendee being confirmed dead. Someone shot at him, 100%.
Do we know yet whether the would-be assassin or Secret Service hit the bystander? I was driving when it happened and am still getting up to speed
Edit/update: It seems the gunman was on a rooftop, not in the crowd, so, no idea what happened. I have a few theories, but I’m not gonna risk starting rumors.
Same. And same with Biden. When asked, he said “I have an opinion but we’ll wait for the facts to come out.”
Genuinely infurating that the moment anything happens, NeoLibs will just start copying right-wing talking points.
Yeah, a 120 meter shot to graze does not exist. One inch to the right and he’s dead. With wind variables and stuff, the shooter who can reliably pull that off in one shot or volley does not exist.
Thank you. And fuck the idiots spouting off with the “staged” nonsense. The time to believe something is staged is when you have evidence that it was.
Trump’s entire persona is built on lies, it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s many people’s first thought.
But it shouldn’t be. He shows no signs - cognitively speaking - of being capable of putting something like this together as a stage-managed event, and all of his past stage-managed events have been shitshows because he micromanages everything and he’s incompetent.
The person killed by the shooter, Corey Comperatore, was a 50 year old volunteer firefighter shielding his family from the gunshots.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-rally-shooting-victim-identified-50-year-old-man-2024-07-14/
He was also, it seems, a scumbag
Who attended a Trump rally, knowing full well the violence that maga stands for.
“Much bleeding took place”
Trump was not involved in the writing of that statement.
Trump was not involved in the writing of anything in his entire life ever
FTFY. Pretty sure he’s functionally illiterate.
You think someone else wrote Covefe?
Nah he can focus for short things, but he’s unable to extract meaning from longer segments of text
Guy tries to overthrow the country, and people are worried that someone tried to kill him. What is wrong with this world. If people aren’t trying to kill him we have something to worried about.
The justice system failed to arrest and detain the suspect and keep him imprisoned until charged properly. This isn’t a failure of the people, it is a failure of the government.
We’re worried because of what will happen in retaliation.
True, unlike the packed supreme court, literal attempt at insurrection, already #1 terrorists in the USA according to the DHS and FBI…
I’m sure he will spin it into some grand conspiracy with very little evidence behind it. But his lunatic supporters don’t really need evidence of conspiracies so I’m not sure it’ll change anything very much.
Now if the bullet had hit him that would be a very different thing.
Some countries deserve to have the government overthrown
Fuck. This is probably not going to lead to good things.
Agreed. It’s going to further inflame chaos and tensions in the country, it’s going to further radicalize Trump himself into an even nastier man, and it’s going to motivate his base. Even if Trump were to pass away, that base still remains, and we have the risk of a much more intelligent and gifted speaker taking up its leadership.
people gathering around him ready to pounce and abuse power are more dangerous than he is
The people are so divided, and this makes it worse.
I was excited at first, then sad. Trump’s death would be the only way american people get justice as he’s clearly above the law. Can’t believe all the news hasn’t called him felon trump, instead calling him president trump, dropping the former.
The great recession, a global pandemic, and now a second American civil war. I want off this train.
Don’t forget the climate change!
And not a single of those things will matter or be remembered after the great climate collapse.
*bullet train
They don’t have those in the US. They went with mega highways instead
I like Presidents who DON’T Fail their Assassinations!
If you’re planning to take out an aspiring despot, you better be damn sure of your shot
I don’t think your advocating for or celebrating violence, but this comment is probably going to be taken that way and deleted. I totally agree with your point though, a failed assassination attempt is probably the worst thing you can do to a guy who wants to destroy democracy.
All things being equal, I am glad that the assassin failed. I am no fan of Trump by any measure. I wish, every day, that Trump would just go away and stay out of politics.
I feel that assassinating someone like Trump would only intensify the right-wing’s rhetoric and make things worse in the long run. I also feel that whomever would replace Trump would be far much worse than Trump himself. It’s a lose-lose either way.
No, the appropriate thing to do is to vote these bastards out of office. I fear the worst, that maybe we’re going to fail doing that; we’re what, 4 months away from the election and we’re talking about replacing Biden, but NOBODY has said with whom? Yeah that’s confidence inspiring.
My doomer mentality aside, I do still hope I’m wrong, and that democracy and justice will prevail. But dammit if the “good guys” aren’t bending over backwards to make that hard to believe.
I feel that assassinating someone like Trump would only intensify the right-wing’s rhetoric and make things worse in the long run.
I hear that a lot, but I honestly don’t see how. The man is toxic to the core, he consistently takes all the sanity out of public conversation. An America without him is just less crazy and less angry.
we’re talking about replacing Biden, but NOBODY has said with whom?
People have said over, and over, and over that it would be Harris. She is beating both Trump and Biden in the polls, is able to take over the Biden-Harris campaign funds with minimal legal dispute, she appeals more to women, independents, black voters etc.
It’s not a question. She’s not ideal, but she actually stands a chance to beat Trump. Biden does not, especially now. It would be Harris. Now you know.
I have heard that mentionedonce or twice, but never concretely. Most of what I’ve been seeing is that “Biden should step down,” and nothing more.
Either way, the last thing the Democratic Party needs right now is more fragmentation. If they’re going to replace Biden, just fucking do it already. If not, shut the fuck up about it. Time is ticking, and it’s not on our side.
4 months is not a long time to campaign. We’re already halfway through July. This should’ve been figured out long ago.
I have heard that mentionedonce or twice, but never concretely. Most of what I’ve been seeing is that “Biden should step down,” and nothing more.
Because that’s the order of operations. But if you having only heard it twice is because you’re not paying attention, not because people haven’t been talking about it.
Biden has already fragmented the party, he simply cannot win. It’s not viable. No one can force him to leave. And no, people should not “shut the fuck up about it” since doing so means Democrats will lose for sure. Democrats will unify more behind any candidate who is not as polarizing and alienating as Biden. If he stays in past the convention then you can start telling people to shut the fuck up, but until the convention is over people should be doing everything they can to convince him to leave.
Chris Hedges’ tweet…
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.
source: https://x.com/ChrisLynnHedges/status/1812526737982726267
Civil disobedience may not be the best way forward. A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
Remember: countries where the Nordic model is used for social welfare and economic development/growth are thriving, consistently voted high in the happiness index, and also have been rejecting the far right extremism seen else where in Europe
He’s super point on here
… The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics.
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.
A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
And as we have seen, true progressives have been repeatedly pushed from the ticket in favor of establishment-friendly centrists time and time again. The two-party duopoly won’t allow it.
A better approach I think is voting more progressive thinkers into congress and other places of power and authority.
It feels like a long con. The years of eroding the educational budget have finally paid off. It’s going to be an upward battle to bring back logical thinking and media literacy.
I did some cyberstalking (someone actually built a whole ass family tree on Ancestry already, which was my source to look up the other info). Just a reminder, please don’t dox or post any publicly identifiable info on here.
The alleged shooter did donate to a liberal group in 2021, age 17, before he was registered to vote. Rumors of this being another person are likely inaccurate, as the donor has the correct name and zip code listed.
The alleged shooter is a registered Republican. Some have theorized he did this as a “stop Trump” sort of thing to vote in PA’s closed primaries. His father is a registered libertarian and his mother is a registered democrat. His sister is a registered libertarian.
I imagine we will have more info on his background and motivation in the coming days and weeks. It’s possible that he could have any kind of political alignment. A lot of young men can get radicalized between 17 and 20.
It’s just as possible he started having major depression and hearing voices with that age range.
Very true, it’s a pretty typical age for schizophrenia to develop in men
