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Notes -
Trump shot during rally.
The biggest news. The biggest! It literally just happened. I don't know what to say. Commentary beggars one's belief. I apologize for the brevity of this post, but the implications of it are mind-boggling. Political violence has escalated (perhaps, degenerated) into new levels of unforeseen disaster. What do you Americans think?
I, for one, think that everyone who talks about how this means a surefire Trump win is seriously underestimating our media institutions' skills at narrative management.
I mean, beyond the people claiming this was a false flag — our Reichstag fire, even — there seems to me to be an increasing prevalence of "frontlash" arguments: that this means it has only become more important than ever to keep Trump out of the White House, to protect the many innocent people who will be hurt by Trump (and his violent, bigoted supporters) when he lashes out violently in Putin-esque vengeance against anyone and everyone he happens to perceive as an enemy the moment he retakes power.
Edit: I also find quite rich the narrative that this indicates Trump is a threat to himself, because it was "his rhetoric and manipulation of people's emotions in a dangerous way" that caused this, and that if the shooter was left-wing, then he only did it because of "crazy right wingers killing their imagined enemies" thanks to Trump causes people on the left "who have been told they are an enemy" to feel like they have no choice but to "attack their enemy in kind."
Maybe you added that last bit as a joke, but I think the incongruousness of panicking about violence from the candidate who just came almost literally within a hair's breadth of being brained by (presumably) a Biden supporter would not be lost on most viewers who are not already extremists.
Nope. I've been looking at responses like the comments at this Reddit thread. Bits like:
and:
and:
and:
and:
and:
and:
That's the whole "frontlash" idea — the real issue is all the innocent people who will be hurt by the likely "backlash". To quote a 2016 tweet from the late Norm Macdonald satirizing this view (in the context of Islamic terror attacks):
The problem, says this narrative, isn't that someone tried to kill Trump, it's all the horrible things he and Republicans are going to do to innocent people when they lash out blindly in retaliation.
Edit: add on this bit of sarcasm:
This is just boo outgroup stuff. If a rightist made an attempt on Biden’s life there would tons of conservative forums and even users here making essentially the same comments inverted, about how woke and the left had divided America and fractured society racially and politically and this was the unfortunate consequence.
You are making this up.
"The left actually did this. Well, the right didn't actually do this, but I'm sure they would do it if they had the chance!" is not very good reasoning.
I’m saying that on occasions where reactionary political violence in the US has been discussed on this board, many civilized posters have argued that it’s inevitable because the left have broken the social contract and have been steamrolling the right and that there might be no alternative. I mean, are you really disputing this? It’s not a great leap of a hypothetical really.
You are currently discussing an example of what strongly appears to be the Left breaking the social contract in a way that makes "reactionary" political violence inevitable. They whipped themselves into a frenzy over Trump, and now someone has actually tried to kill him, and for many on the left there is no actual way to walk it back, nor ability to recognize the realities of their position. All they know how to do is double-down, which makes further incidents inevitable, which in turn makes reciprocity from the Reds inevitable.
The Left actually rioted nation-wide. They actually have used national security assets to persecute their political rivals. They actually have inflicted lawless violence on Reds in particular and on the nation generally. They actually have made two serious attempts at assassinations of Republican leadership. They actually have prosecuted Reds for lawful self-defense. They actually have attempted to jail political opponents. They actually ignore all of the numerous violations they actually commit on a regular basis, and paper it over with fictions about Nazis and the Handmaid's Tale.
There is only so long this pattern can continue before it breaks things none of us will be able to fix. Today was just another step closer to the brink.
Seems like if you guys were going to do anything about it you'd have started by now. After 2020 they know they can do anything to you and you can't or won't stop them.
It's way too late to talk tough now. If Robert Evans and all the other antifa leadership had been found decaying under a bridge in September '20, maybe they'd actually be scared to fuck with you.
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