Wading Into the Fray

“There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.”

― Winston Churchill

(tip of the hat to Streetwiseprofessor for that quote)

It is always shocking when someone attempts to assassinate a political leader. In third-world countries, you try to understand the backstory. I remember when Marcos assassinated his political rival in the Philippines back in the 1980s.

In the US, we had an assassination attempt against Reagan. His assassin was crazy and mentally ill. The US has a history of assassinations. Kennedy’s was in 1963. Prior to that, McKinley was killed in 1901 and it was Lincoln in 1865 after the Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt was shot while campaigning for a second term. RFK Jr’s father was shot while campaigning for President in 1968. I can’t believe the Biden Administration won’t give him security.

I maintain Lincoln’s was the most pivotal assassination in American history. Lincoln’s death paved the way for Southern Democrats to enforce Jim Crow and 100 more years of discrimination. If you know history, you know Democrat Woodrow Wilson might have been the most racist in American history. You’d also know Democrat President FDR refused to shut down lynchings for fear of losing votes.

The culture in the Democratic Party is corrupt and reprehensible. It is worse today because many of them are full-throated socialists. Democrats crave and need power to take taxpayer dollars and funnel them to their patronage machines. If they don’t have the power, the money dries up and they can’t keep their machines in line.

Trump is a gigantic threat to their machines given his plans to strip the bureaucracy of power and funding. He is the most lethal threat since Reagan.

If the bullet had killed Trump yesterday, it would have been worse than the Kennedy assassination since our country is significantly more divided. There are speculations that it could start a new Civil War. Maybe. But, so far when faced with violence, Republicans have never retaliated.

The litany is long.

An attack on Republican congresspeople at softball practice. Some of them were shot and almost killed.

An attack on Rand Paul.

Violent protestors in front of Supreme Court justice’s homes.

Attacks on right-to-life people.

Attacks on houses of worship.

That doesn’t include the lawfare, the fake Russian dossier, and the sham impeachments which are non-violent ways to curb political speech and freedom. It doesn’t include DEI, “equity”, and letting boys play girls’ sports.

The Democratic media carries water and now is advising Republicans to stay away from violence. However, in spite of all that has happened, Republicans haven’t been violent.

Democrats are trying to tear the fabric of our capitalistic free market society apart. It’s a different Democratic Party than the one that existed 30 years ago.

Governor JB Pritzker has compared Trump to Hitler and the Nazis.

Many other Democrats have done the same. Just the other day, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said it was “Richard Nixon’s fault” that over 100 Black people were shot by other Black people in a city and county that is 100% run by Black people. Nancy Pelosi has done the same.

Joe Biden in a private phone call with donors said Trump needed to be put in the bullseye and large Democratic supporter Reid Hoffman joked at a panel with his friend Peter Thiel about assassinations.

Democrats consistently say things Republicans will do, but it is the Democrats that carry it out. The Democratic press turns their heads and yawns.

The violent rhetoric isn’t exactly two-sided. As a matter of fact, Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson along with 8 other Democratic Congresspeople introduced legislation to reduce or take away Trump’s Secret Service detail.

Democrat supporters like Robert De Niro have advocated punching Trump in the mouth. Comics have beheaded him and reliably every night Colbert and Kimmel dehumanize and spin the news about Trump.

So far, this is a one-sided affair when it comes to threats, the dehumanization of people (deplorables anyone?), and the actual carrying out of those threats. The media lies to you about it.

Humans are hard-wired to gravitate toward optionality. We don’t like to be forced to make decisions. We will procrastinate and delay until we absolutely have to choose. We don’t like suffering the consequences of those decisions. Humans don’t like opportunity costs.

Humans also love a good conspiracy theory. They are already starting to crop up around the Trump assassination attempt. It’s easy to feed them since the FBI and CIA actively attacked Trump during his first administration. Crossfire Hurricane, the Russian dossier, and other made-up stuff the intelligence community enabled all. The same community covered up the Hunter Biden laptop.

It’s easy to see a conspiracy theory because there is a lack of trust in those agencies by the Republican side.

I prefer not to engage or believe in conspiracy theories. Because, if it’s a failure of leadership it is one thing. If the conspiracy theory is true, we have a whole lot bigger problem.

However, I have seen two things that would punch a hole in conspiracy theories. First is this Twitter stream. It looks like there was a breakdown in communication and responsibility between tiers of security.

It could be that the Secret Service snipers thought the shooter was a local law enforcement person on top of the building.

The other is a personal friend who was a police officer for a long long time until he retired. People saying it was staged.

Got to have a lot of faith in someone to let them pull the trigger to wound you from 100-150 yards out when they know they will be killed almost immediately after.

As for the cop on the roof who appears to have a shot before the first round is fired but possibly hesitates? This is what happens when every shooting is scrutinized to the extreme. Guys will hesitate until a round is fired. Cops don’t want to be labeled trigger-happy.

It certainly was a failure of leadership all the way to the top of the US Secret Service. The woman who Joe Biden appointed was more concerned with employing females and DEI than she was with protecting people.

Again, I stress a failure of leadership. Joe Biden appointed her and is the ultimate leader. The Buck stops with him. He is a failure.

I am not an expert on how someone holsters their gun or how professional they look after an incident. I don’t care about the appearances. What I care about is the fact that because the leader took their eye off the ball, it filtered through the culture of the organization and someone else took their eye off the ball which allowed for a past and potential President to be assassinated.

That entire leadership apparatus needs to be replaced 100%.