He missed! But he took out others in the crowd, so we cannot be totally jubilant. The assassination attempt was unsuccessful in taking down its primary target. Some say it was divine intervention that kept Donald alive, and barely wounded. I’m not sure about that, but it is an obvious fact that it was a very close miss. But if you hoped that the attempt would bring about a Road to Damascus moment for Donald, it appears you will be waiting for a very long time. It took only about a day before the murmuring to resume, only now with added emphasis based upon the assignment of blame.
Of course, according to Republicans, all of the speech that provoked this attention seeker was Democratic. It is very easy to whitewash all of the Donald’s past comments about violence as an acceptable response to political differences as simply another case of fake news. And of course, all of the sycophants are happy to go along with the flow, and lay the blame upon the enemy. It is worse at the RNC since all of the sycophants are gathered together in one space, where they feed off of each other’s energy, and they have absolutely no compunction against revising the story of our lives in the last administration. According to these speakers of their truth, it goes without saying that the economy was never better than in the 2017-2020 time period, and everyone was fat, dumb, and happy. People have never been happier than they were back then, with depressed energy prices caused by demand collapse, and 15% unemployment. Those little irritating facts just get swept away as one speaker after another tries to sell their own line of reality.
Remember, more Americans died of Covid under Biden than under Trump say the Trump cultists. So Trump must have done so much right, according to the story sold by the true believers. (I am feeling like I have a horrible cheek hernia caused by my tongue poking through my skin after penning these lines.) Unfortunately, all of this is exactly what I’ve been expecting. Nowhere is anyone willing to take any responsibility for creating the culture that results in lone punks trying to take out a presidential nominee. My late father-in-law shared his wisdom from his 90 years on this planet. He said, “there are too many guns in the hands of too many people who have no business having them.” When you combine apocalyptic rhetoric from politicians of all persuasions, along with so many weapons out there, it is a wonder that this sort of event has not happened before.
Many people now want to believe it was an evil plot that nearly succeeded in Pennsylvania. We are so expectant that nothing happens by chance, we cannot accept any result that is not formed from a complex conspiracy. As it so happens, the tiniest of actions, like turning your head unexpectedly to the side, can prevent evil from triumphing. But in our society that has been raised on conspiracies, it is now impossible to accept simple answers. According to the cultists, no one has free will. Everyone is manipulated into their actions, and the more convoluted the explanation for an event, the more likely it is to be transmitted as undeniable truth. I am reminded of the Mexican bandits in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, except their iconic line has been changed to: “Facts? We don’ need no steenkin facts!”
So now it appears that our nation is going to be captured by a rogue minority who doesn’t believe in the changes of the past 60 years. Heck, they want to go back to the days before 1920, when US Senators were elected by legislators, women couldn’t vote, and Social Security and other safety net programs were only gleams in the eyes of the libs. All of the changes to society are suspect, and the only solution is open carry. Submit, all ye women, as ye reclaim your rightful position as being inferior to males. How do you deal with people who exist in an alternate reality? Who believe in male superiority? Forget white privilege, it is male privilege that is truly more important to the members of the cult.
So to imagine society will be brought together by the tragedy of Butler PA is a fever dream. It ain’t gonna happen! Although, I guess, if all of the people decide to join the cult, they would deign to pretend they’ve brought about unity. Of course, when you are led by someone who inherited hundreds of millions, then somehow successfully peddled the myth that he was a self-made business genius, a little lie about unity is easy to swallow.
Even A Broken Clock 