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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   37685 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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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."

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)

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.

Maybe you added that last bit as a joke,

Nope. I've been looking at responses like the comments at this Reddit thread. Bits like:

What upsets me is his rage that he projects... where if you disagree then you are literally labeled by him explicitly as a treasonous enemy of America, which itself is so unamerican and dangerous to the country.

He has made this country more dangerous and fractured by the day ever since he started his political rhetoric way back against Obama.

He creates the situation that makes politics dangerous in America, whether it is crazy right wingers killing their imagined enemies or bringing out crazy left wingers who have been told they are an enemy so they feel like they have to attack their enemy in kind.

and:

Amazing, the Republicans, who have developed a list of 350 political opponents that they believe should be incarcerated and/or put to death, and assert they have the right to be violent to achieve their goals of overthrowing our government, have the nerve to complain of political violence tonight. 😡

and:

I wonder if this will be my generations Reichstag fire. Now more than ever he needs to be kept out of the White House so he can’t take his anger out on opponents

and:

The right is already blaming democrats. Marjorie Trailer Park Greene is blaming democrats and the media.

She’s linking criticism of Trump to instigating this attack.

If Trump wins and it looks like he will, he will definitely try to go after all media that doesn’t praise him. He will do exactly what putin does.

and:

Trump will say Biden tried to kill him and if he doesn’t, Fox News will to try to win the election. These people are horrible.

and:

America the democracy is done. Nobody who isnt a white Christian will be safe

and:

I hope Biden’s team really tightens up their security. There are enough crazies in MAGA to believe he’s behind this and retaliate.

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):

What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?

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:

Okay, so who’s gonna talk them down from making a dictatorship? We all know that republicans are totally reasonable and don’t justify mass shootings at all, or claim climate change isn’t real, or try to involve religion in school, or try to discriminate, or control people’s bodies.

Yeah, we should just let them go on. It’s not like I want to live on a planet that isn’t on fire.

I’m sure that the people who downvote me aren’t complete bigots who want their Glorious Leader in power. I’m sure they respect women and minorities and think that the corporations SHOULD have massive power over their livelihood. I’m sure that most of America isn’t diseased by the republicans and want to completely overthrow democracy. I’m sure they don’t ignore the most obvious points about how republicans are making the world a worse place. Because they’re nice and friendly and totally don’t want to resurrect the Nazi Regime

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.

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

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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Leftists hold Jan 6 like it was dooms forthcoming. Jan 6th attacked the govt, and didn't burn DC.

Did anyone actually get prosecuted for BLM riots? Are bippers and shoplifters actually arrested? Did Raz Simone actually get arrested for distributing guns that got black boys killed? Dems seem intent on fumbling the bag whenever its their protected classes who inconveniently express their criminal intent, while hushing up every instance where an accepted target is attacked by their pets.

Dems are surprisingly adroit at bending the machinery of govt to protect themselves. They are just afraid that the right will take this machine built by the left and turn it back on them.

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Now would be a good time to not fumble the bag. God I hope American rightists are smarter than Israelis.

Here is an excellent article on the Russian revolution:

https://www.theconundrumcluster.com/p/you-should-really-read-this-introduction

Before the bloody civil war there was a lot of incompetence and appeasement. People to the right of other figures, refusing to use power, abdicating their duties and giving power to people to their left and letting them get away with crimes. Then came the violence.

A very rough summary of this: You had the Tsar giving power to a liberal relative Grand Duke Michael, who gave power to the Constituent Assembly (which imprisoned Tsar Nicolas)and the monarchy disintegrated to provisional assembly to lead the country during the elections lead by to Kerensky who followed a "no enemies to the left" dogma while the Bolsheviks were rising. Lenin ended up removed from prison. Both The Grand Duke and Tsar were murdered and Kerensky ended up in exile.

If they actually suppressed the radicals with force, and didn't give them more power the civil war would had been averted or less severe.

Point being, refusal to try to shut down leftist radicals and being afraid more of doing so than them makes future conflict larger, inevitable, and also their future atrocities. Putting and keeping people like Lenin in prison is more important than violent fantasies. It is only a failure to keep law and order and suppress such elements that lead to the Russian civil war and then the red terror.

Rather than lamenting future violence, you ought to be critical of the current right refusing to use power to suppress leftist extremists. I do agree with most of what you say of how the left breaks norms. I also don't want to see things breaking down in the ways the Russian revolution, civil war did.

But the right also breaks norms by complicity and not stopping them. For example, how about actual strong reprisals like trying to shut down left wing media with unhinged hateful rhetoric towards right wingers? Such as advocating to limit their reach by reprisals from their specific state We know the republican party is willing to do plenty of authoritarian moves, by looking them doing so when it comes to the Israel issue.

Although stopping criminals does include a component of physical violence, which is part of any duties of any police force, there are ways to exercise power, (and you are a moderator who have some power of your own however limited), that is different than just physically hurting people.

For example treating antifa as a criminal organization and then arresting their members, and have them subject to prosecution could be one of the possible ideas to suppress leftist extremism, targeting one of the worst of the worst groups most characteristic of it and it would qualify as qualitatively different than just physically harming in a purity spiral people identified as a different political tribe.

Another example, would be to try to debar antifa lawyers.

I see suppression of leftist/liberal radicalism and anti-right wing radicalism as preventive of current and future escalating violence, and the refusal to act as ensurer of things escalating...

Err.. She's positing a counterfactual, that's not "making this up", anymore than if I say that if I went and punched you, you might punch me back.

She's positing the counterfacual of "if a rightist made an attempt on Biden's life". but she's making things up when she then decides how conservatives would behave in response. The behavior of conservatives isn't a premise of the counterfactual, it's an assumption about what conservatives are like in the real world.

You cannot have a counterfactual without assumptions. I happen to think, given observed behavior on both sides of the political spectrum, that there would an absolutely non-negligible number of people on the Right doing the things she spoke about.

You're welcome to disagree, but it's impossible to talk about things that didn't happen without said assumptions. Criticize those, as you're doing now.

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We're not certain the shooter was from "the left". He was a registered republican for two years but had also given a small amount ($15) to a progressive Democratic group. There's still a lot of ambiguity in play and I wouldn't be too surprised if he turned out to be a right wing accelerationist.

It'll be funny if it turns out to be he was a disgruntled Haley supporter.

Grover Norquist rises from the grave!

I'm guessing progressive who registered Republican to vote in the primary.

Possibilities on the registration bit include:

  • He voluntarily registered Republican like mom and dad when he was living in their home, then his politics shifted
  • Mom or dad filled out the registration form for him
  • He registered Republican so that he could strategically vote for the "worse" candidate in the Republican races
  • He was truly a Republican then and truly a Republican yesterday when taking shots on the presumed nominee

Talking of its inevitability would squeak in at a solid 1% of all comments, with 69% being "feds" and the last 30% being "that retard tried to kill a corpse."

If I were speculating here, I'd wonder about the increase in probability of an assassination attempt on any D politician other than Biden. It's gone up, but maybe not much--had 7/13 been a historically bad day, I would think it inevitable.

Would there? How can you make that assertion?

The shooter appears to be a registered republican

This is false.

Someone at his residence registered republican.

He did give money to actblue.

I thought they knew he was Republican from voter records?

He was registered as a republican. That doesn't actually tell you who he voted for; there's no way to look that up.

Right, my point was merely that it was attached to his name, not his address, if I understood rightly.

Someone at his residence was registered... Not evidence he was. Unless new info had been discovered.

What evidence did you have? After searching reddit, I found this.

Are we sure the act blue donation isn't a different guy? Sources please

The zip code matched, which is not especially likely, as people were only posting that there was one other Thomas Crooks in the Pittsburgh area.

Likely so that he could vote in the republican primary.

Party registration means essentially nothing at this point. I change my party affiliation almost every election season.

This was almost certainly why, Pennsylvanian has closed primaries

The very special sort of Republican who donates to ActBlue.

A registered republican who donates to democrats, yes.

I don't really see who it galvanizes to back Trump. The hollowing out of the middle means that I don't think that there's a huge bed of people who are gonna be additional votes for him as a result.

It could galvanize closet Trump supporters with some degree of social cachet to speak out now in favor of Trump. See eg Musk, Ackman. While anyone following those two closely weren’t surprised by the endorsement, the timing is suggestive of my point.

Also, while Trump shouldn’t directly make this point, his surrogates need to hit “Biden n has been lying about him and calling him a wannabe dictator—Biden has some responsibility.”

I feel like there's a certain energy of 'oh this is our Jan 6 that the media will have to blow out of proportion' to some of the Pro-Trump responses to this and I very much doubt that the media will fan the flames in the same way as they did Jan 6.

That's not what "hollowing out of the middle" means. It's usually used to describe how there are allegedly fewer political moderate, cross-aisle people elected to Congress than in previous times, and the reasons for that go beyond simply "there are fewer moderate voters". At least since 1994, and with a party lens, there's not much difference over time in the middle group among the actual voters. If anything, the "lean" group has increased, reflecting a general dissatisfaction with politics rather than an actual extinction of non-partisans. In other words, concerns about swing voters disappearing and everyone being too opinionated is conflating at least two different phenomena.

I think they will attempt this sure. I don't think they'll be successful. They can't arbitrate reality to the extent required against events like this and biden's performance to facilitate a Democrat win. Something else could possibly happen between now and the election, but as it stands, I'd say the prediction markets are fairly accurate.

Interestingly, the New York Post describes the shooter as “a Chinese man.”

Not sure what to make of that, but that seems to me to be a strike against theories of “antifa” and “right-wing schizo”, although obviously more info is needed. (Do they mean “Chinese-American” or “a Chinese national?)

Post updated it to say 'white male'. Disappointing that we won't kick off 2025 with a declaration of war against China 'for trying to get at me'.

The only question now is leftist, psycho or deep state. My money is 50/40/10. I put no money on foreign assassin, but it'll be fucking wild if it is.

100% on psycho but

30% leftist

20% Muslim

20% Identifiably right wing

5% Christian extremist

25% total dingbat

I confess to forgetting about muslims. If its a palestinian (black haired man, so not a small chance its an arab) with a social media history of pro-palestinian leanings I will fucking laugh. I think an attempt will be made to make the shooter right wing regardless of leaning, like how Europe defines muslim antisemitism as right wing because islamism is a right wing ideology according to the authorities. In this case if the shooter at any point expressed concerns about state overreach he will be cast as right wing, if the fact that he held a gun without bursting into flames isn't enough for that label to be thrown.

If its MUSLIM, fully expect it to be entirely memory holed and for endless pro-islam marches to be made. Pulse nightclub is now cast as a right wing incel attack, and the Fort Hood and DC sniper attacks are also forgotten. Fuck even 911 is forgotten by leftists who find it irritating that America dared to strike back against brown terrorists.

I honestly doubt its a right wing gun nut. Any gun enthusiast will know that a .22 is a joke round and will go for .223, 30-06 or .308 for an assassination. Someone using a .22 seems just bafflingly incompetent.

As someone who doesn’t know about guns, what’s the difference? And why not the common 5.56 round?

Simplified version: 5.56 is .223, 5.56 uses the same bullet as .22 but throws it a lot faster. Speed makes aiming way easier, and just like in car accidents, speed kills.

And why not the common 5.56 round?

We don't know yet. Shooters of this type tend to be shockingly incompetent (generally because there are other things wrong with them)- and making aiming harder in a life-or-death situation and using a round that isn't sufficiently powerful is incompetence.

5.56 uses the same bullet as .22

I think you meant to say .223.

No, .22 and 5.56 use what is, functionally, the same projectile; the simplest explanation for 5.56 is just a .22 with anger issues.

Sure, the projectile for 5.56 needs to be pointier and covered in copper so it doesn't disintegrate due to spinning at ~300,000 RPM, but it's not meaningfully different in terms of weight (from "slightly heavier" at 55-62 grains to "exactly the same" at 40) and identical in terms of diameter.

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.223 is, essentially, 5.56. There's some variations between the two as .223 specifications were developed by civilians and 5.56 specifications were written by the military, but it's essentially the same round for most practical purposes, and most guns can fire most loadings of the two rounds interchangably.

.22 refers to .22 Long Rifle, an extremely weak round used for hunting rabbits and target shooting. The .22 LR has the same bore diameter as a .223/5.56, but has a significantly shorter and lighter bullet, and fires it at significantly lower velocity; 1000 feet per second, rather than the 3000 feet per second of the later. .22 LR would be an extremely poor choice for an attempted sniper assassination; it's plenty accurate at a hundred yards, but the low velocity means bullet drop, wind drift, and lethal effect are all greatly reduced. A perfectly-centered .22 shot to the head from a hundred yards has a so-so chance of killing the target. Anything less than perfectly centered and it's entirely possible the round would deflect off the skull or fail to penetrate into the brain.

By contrast, a perfectly-centered 5.56 to the head from a hundred yards is a modulo-certain instant kill, and has a decent chance of literally blowing their head apart from the hydraulic force of the impact.

To add on to this, @mdurak, 5.56 is basically .223 described in international-standard (rather than American) terms, in order to aid military standardisation among NATO. .223 means "0.223 inches across the rifle barrel, in the rifling grooves" - imperial measurements and the American practice of measuring calibre across the grooves. 5.56 means "5.56 mm across the rifle barrel, not in the grooves" - metric measurements and the international practice of measuring calibre across the ungrooved parts of the barrel (the "lands"). (5.56 mm is, as you might expect, very slightly less than 0.223 inches.)

.22 LR would be an extremely poor choice for an attempted sniper assassination

Reminds me how this is a plot point in Day of the Jackal, where the assassin deliberately picks explosive rounds to make up for it.

.223 is just a cheaper generic version of 5.56. .223 is technically a lower pressure round than a 5.56 but they're interchangeable in any firearm chambered for them.

.22 is a small round not recommended for using to shoot at anything bigger than a squirrel. A sniper in particular should be using a deer cartridge like .308(the standard US military sniper round) or 30-06, both of which are substantially bigger and more powerful rounds than a .223 which is more powerful than .22.

I honestly doubt its a right wing gun nut. Any gun enthusiast will know that a .22 is a joke round and will go for .223, 30-06 or .308 for an assassination. Someone using a .22 seems just bafflingly incompetent.

It was a .223, was it not?

If it was an AR platform, yes.

BTW Nobody shoots 30-06 anymore.

Saw people here say .22, so I ran with that. Updated info points to AR style, so bushmaster XM15 is the most likely candidate just for availability. So, .223.

Also, boo on 30-06 not being fired anymore. Military doesn't, true, but home pressers usually load up .308 or 30-06. Admittedly I haven't been in the scene for years, but all the small town rednecks who pivoted away from walmart supplies during the 2020 ammo shortage swear by their old reliable hunting rugers.

Also, boo on 30-06 not being fired anymore.

.30-06 is obsoleted by .308 on the low end (and in most tactical/fighting rifles) and .300 Winchester Magnum on the high end (and in hunting rifles).

Modern gunmakers, when designing hunting rifles, build their receivers for the physically largest cartridge they'll offer first. .300 Win Mag is that cartridge, so if you buy that rifle in .30-06 you're taking a rifle that's already sized for a more powerful cartridge and, well, nerfing it. And when hunting, people generally welcome the extra power, since you only really want to take (and frequently, only get) one shot.

As for .308, there's no .30-06 Pmag, and why would a manufacturer reinvent the wheel when a different company has already designed it for them? And if you're designing a hunting rifle with its own custom magazine, the above point applies.

Don't worry, though. If it makes you feel any better, in the next 20 years all .30 caliber cartridges will be obsoleted by a hybrid-case high-pressure .308-sized round that delivers .300 Win Mag performance, and I don't believe any mass-market cartridge is going to bother going higher because .300 Win Mag is already at the upper limit of human recoil tolerance.

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Point of pedantry, but the AR platform covers just about every commercially available cartridge, from .17 rimfire to .50 BMG.

It was probably a .223/5.56mm, but the AR platform is extremely popular and absurdly diverse.

People who have 30-06 caliber rifles shoot 30-06. It's just that the two main choices in an AR platform rifle, unless you happen to be a gun nut, are .223 and .308.

The first discussion I had brought Muslim front of mind, because I wasn't really upset by it and my friend said come on its a big deal, and I said hey Trump's had people assassinated turnabout is fair play. So like the first discussion I had was if it would be valid by the USAs own interpretation of international law for Iran to kill Trump.

Also not all right wingers are gun nuts.

I think if it was any variety of right wing or Christian we would have heard by now.

How? I don't even think there's a name yet

Eta: I should note that two different baptist friends have told me in recent weeks that based on biblical prophecy their bible study groups think Trump might be the antichrist. Just a weird thing that's going around I guess, I wasn't sure what to make of it.

I should note that two different baptist friends have told me in recent weeks that based on biblical prophecy their bible study groups think Trump might be the antichrist.

Interesting -- are the evangelical elements of the red tribe shifting against him?

I guess my response is, of course he's the antichrist, have you seen the guy talk about his relationship with the divine and how his most ardent supporters talk about him? But then again, I also think Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Henry VIII, Peter the Great, and of course the OG Nero are the antichrist, there are many of them. So that's not a particularly spectacular claim for me to make.

I'm not really sure if it even means they aren't voting for him! Some prophetically inclined evangelicals seem to be interested in triggering the end times, what with Israel and red heifers and whatnot. Although my impression is that one is always choosing sides against the antichrist even if his coming it's inevitable and ultimately welcome.

I'm not really sure if it even means they aren't voting for him!

Reminds me of the Lizardman's Constant post.

"Well, on the one hand, Obama is the Anti-Christ. On the other, do I really want four years of Romney?"

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The actually-religious parts of the republican base are consistently the last people to line up behind Trump who will ultimately do so anyways.

Amusingly enough, it is true that Moscow "sits on many waters", and it was, at least under the USSR, "drunk with the blood of the saints".

I assume law enforcement had his name within 5 minutes of the shooting, that gets you their social media and then somebody from the FBI calls their friend at CNN or the NYT or whatever and we get an "according to an anonymous source familiar with the matter..." article.

Revelation 13:3…

I am 90% on psycho, but only 60% on obviously psycho given what comes out. The guy is dead, so we won't have a prison psychiatrist's report. This is unfortunate, because the guy turning out to be unfit-to-plead level mentally ill like the guy who shot Reagan would defuse things a bit.

I just think people tend to weirdly equate "identifiable ideological point" with "rational" and that's silly. One can be a psycho for Islam or Mainstream Democratic politics or for the Dallas cowboys.

Interviewee says he saw the guy on a roof and reported him: https://x.com/SharpFootball/status/1812265909727396107

I watched that and his disbelief that Secret Service didn't have those roofs covered. I'm assuming Trump has a much smaller SS detail than he would have had while he was president, right? I understand that former presidents and presidential campaigners get some degree of SS coverage, but is their detail really big enough to station agents on all of the roofs in a small town, like this guy seems to have expected?

But drones with cameras are cheap. Couldn't the Secret Service have easily had eyes on all the rooftops within sniper range?

There may be an issue with drones that, if you have several of your own drones flying around for security, it's much harder to spot an unauthorized drone that may be up to no good.

From some of the pics, it looks like some of the security detail was from local police, so maybe a core SS detail coordinates with local law enforcement for events like these, which means using teams that are not necessarily accustomed to the scope of sweep needed for events like this?

Suicide drones are a bigger threat than shooters, so public security officials prefer to lock down the airspace entirely, and current practices prefer clean air to ease identification of assets, using tethered drones for station keeping in fixed positions (so visual rotations, not patrols, and both are insufficient to cover a 1km radius without 9 or more teams). No Unmanned Traffic Management system exists yet, and these opt-in systems cannot handle uncooperative elements.

Interesting, thanks. Then shouldn't the Secret Service have placed fixed cameras on all the roofs in shooting range that they didn't plan to have men on?

Installing temporary cameras is actually super irritating and most agents on the ground prefer to walk and use their eyes instead of fiddling with cameras. An agent in an elevated position can just turn his head to scan a sector, then walk 8 meters and see another sector. Temporary cameras streaming to a command post have relatively low resolution for transmission ease, and can't move. You need to spam a shitload of cameras, and therefore spam a shitload of observers. A command post can only stuff so many bodies in it and comms overload is something to be guarded against.

Update: I saw the map of the shooting. I take back my above regarding observer spam. The entire site is practically empty with the firing position being literally the closest point to target with direct line of sight, and no clutter or surplus of alternative angles of attack. There is no excuse for this magnitude of failure. This isn't a rally at a factory or a town center with a shitload of positions to consider, its a fucking open field. An absolute failure by SS to secure this barest of bare minimums.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-vp-vance-rubio-7c7ba6b99b5f38d2d840ed95b2fdc3e5

According to this (and the "all clear" in the video), they killed the shooter in seconds. I guess it could just be a really tight window between him popping up and opening fire?

Edit: here's a video with the guy's corpse in his shooting position.

Interestingly, the New York Post describes the shooter as “a Chinese man.”

As of now, it is (emphasis added):

The gunman believed to have been behind the attempted assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump Saturday was shot and killed by Secret Service, sources told The Post.

The shooter, identified only as a white male, was in a sniper position located hundreds of yards away from Trump’s podium in Butler, Pa. as he spoke to a campaign crowd, sources said.

About 120 m or so, not hundreds of yards.

Really close.

NSFW, gore warning: picture of the shooter.

/images/17209263241078749.webp

Whats up with his cauliflower ear? Damage to the skull underneath?

down and left of his ear is what appears to be the rim of a catastrophic exit wound. Pretty sure that guy is missing a good portion of the lower-right quadrant of his skull.

He got domed by the secret service Counter Assault Team within seconds of opening up. They couldn't prevent the attack, but their reaction was incredible.

One of my first thoughts upon seeing this was "I wonder if this is real or AI generated", and that's a scary thought. I wonder if fake images of this event will soon be circulating.

Young man, scruffy unkempt hair, peach fuzz. Skinny-fat vibes. Certainly fits the antifa stereotype, but not much to go on. If this is real, then it's incredible it got out so soon.

If Shaggy decided to become an assassin instead of solving mysteries with his talking dog.

Well we all know, hopefully, how first accounts during live news go. Crazy amounts of bullshit. But anyway, checking wiki to see if there's been any U.S President assassination attempts since Squeaky Fromme on Ford, there's been a surprising amount. I guess the media decided to not report these things. Though it's hard to tell how serious all the listed are.

But the point is, the examples of the lesser known recent assassination attempts sound very schizo. Random Chinese man wouldn't actually be out of the theme. I like this one:

Joe Biden: May 23, 2023: Sai Varshith Kandula, a 19-year-old man from St. Louis, drove a rented box truck into a barrier that separated the White House grounds from the public. Shortly thereafter he was taken into custody by the United States Park Police and was found to have a Nazi flag in his truck. Kandula expressed admiration for the Third Reich and stated his intentions were to "kill the president" and "seize power".[128]

But anyway, checking wiki to see if there's been any U.S President assassination attempts since Squeaky Fromme on Ford

A rather famous one on Reagan, by a random schizo attempting to impress Jodie Foster (she wasn't impressed).

There's been a previous attempt on Trump (as candidate, in 2016), though it didn't get as far as shots being fired.

I think I've heard people say she kind of was impressed.

It'd be kind of funny if they raid his home just to find pictures of Jodie Foster plastered all over the walls. That might be the best possible outcome of all this.

My favorite is Ronald Gene Barbour in 1994. He was driving to commit suicide at a particular destination, but missed his exit and decided he might as well continue on the highway all the way to Washington DC and shoot Bill Clinton. As it happened, Clinton was overseas at the time, so Barbour gave up, went home, and wound up telling a friend (and the friend's tape recorder) all about it.

So does this qualify as a new correlation of Sailer's Law? K>W is white, W>K is Black, W=K is Chinese?

It would be very fitting for the Chinese to be the embodiment of perfect balance.

The Middle Killdom.

You need decent cognitive skills to draw blood on such a well-guarded target. The takes calling the shooter a retard are, well, retarded. We've seen what it looks like when mentally ill people try to assassinate Trump. It's pathetic.

Reminder that a literal 65 IQ* retard shot 32 people inside 90 seconds, killing 20, in the Broad Arrow café & gift shop.

In the café itself:

From the first shot, all of these events took approximately fifteen seconds, during which Bryant fired seventeen shots, killed twelve people, and wounded ten more

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bryant

Reading the article, it's possible that he wasn't nearly that stupid, of more 'average' intelligence yet mentally odd enough that he didn't care to learn to read or do well on any test. He may have killed his father and the heiress who was (presumably) sleeping with him.

A caution: "mentally ill" is a very broad term, much broader than "retarded". You can be plenty intelligent and planning-capable and also anxious or depressed. Not even all psychotics are as useless as Sandford; Kaczynski was probably mildly psychotic and he lasted almost two decades.

I'm not sure what I expected, but Chinese wasn't it.

Presumably they must have identified him by nationality or they'd just say Asian.

Rooftop chinese would certainly BTFO my prediction.

Man who isn't President doesn't die. Is this what passes for Things Happening these days?

  • -70

A bullet went through his ear. Donald Trump was an inch away from being shot in the face on live tv.

Looking at pics of his ear I suspect it was glass or some other fragment. There's hardly any actual tissue damage.

  • -20

The glass fragment from a teleprompter is the stupidest cope I have ever seen. What angle of shot has glass flying PERPENDICULAR from the OTHER side. Trump faces the camera, a teleprompter is there, the shot comes from the right and everyone turns to the right. Please tell me what magic teleprompter in front of Trump can be shot so that the direction of shot comes from that other side.

Stop repeating the desperate cope of dangerhairs trying to downplay this. It was an assassination attempt, a bullet clipped his ear. This theory doesn't pass the smell test or reality test and anyone repeating it has their baseline credibility lowered in turn.

The glass fragment from a teleprompter is the stupidest cope I have ever seen.

Have you seen the 'Trump has friends in Hollywood, this was all faked via special effects to boost his popularity' takes yet?

I've seen 'its all AI', which is automatically false because there aren't photos of trump with a billion plastic bottles turned into rocketships by african kids yet.

The glass fragment from a teleprompter is the stupidest cope I have ever seen.

I've already encountered 'It's a false flag so Trump gets elected in a commie plot to bring the revolution' in the wild.

In the early hours it wasn't that crazy as it's not uncommon for some addresses to be made behind various glass screens, and the blood pattern made it look like it could have been a glass fragment, but since then as it's I think clear he wasn't meaningfully surrounded by such protection it's dumb to still repeat such if you've been updated or looked more closely. I think it's now clear the blood was actually from dripping down his face while on the ground rather than a spray from shrapnel.

The flying bullet has been captured in a picture just before it hit trump.

Just after, actually, assuming it's the picture where the bullet is on the right side of the picture.

The flying bullet has been captured in a picture just before it hit trump.

I think that photo captured the first shot, which missed Trump, just after it passed behind his head. Trump also said he heard a whizzing sound right before he was hit. It may have been his reaction to that first miss which saved him from a clean head shot on the second attempt.

Looks to me like a through-and-through with a small caliber round on the upper part of the right ear near his skull.

It looks like thetes damage to both the front and back of the top of his ear (swear I used to know the words for the bits...)

If it's a bullet wound, it's one for the history books.

There isn't much tissue damage because it missed

Trump posted to Truth claiming it was a bullet wound. Watching the video it seems the most likely explanation—reaching for his ear is the first thing he does, only gunfire can be heard over general din, and I don't see how glass could have reached him in the middle of the huge platform.

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!

The teleprompters were intact after the shot. This theory doesn't hold, unless you have evidence for some other source of broken glass?

Don't tell me about things that almost happened.

  • -35

Things that really happened include "culture war temperature just spiked". That's an update regarding P(Boogaloo) and the related P(WWIII).

How is it an update regarding P(WW3)? It’s very unlikely to have been a state actor, that’s not how they would approach this kind of thing.

Oh, I'm not suggesting a state actor had Trump shot. The issue's that, as I said, P(Boogaloo) and more generally P(chaos in USA) is related to P(WWIII), because the USA is load-bearing in the world order.

America goes up. Pax Americana can't be maintained while America is busy committing messy suicide. All over the world, people make their moves.

What a bizarre comment.

Saturday night comments are more likely to be drunk trolling. Totally not speaking from experience of course.

You're joking, right?

We've found the one person on the planet who doesn't have an opinion on Donald Trump.

I do have an opinion on DJT and this assassination, but I don't want to share it - it's counter to consensus reality. You would probably just disparage it. And, like the ending of Game of Thrones, having an opinion on it doesn't make it important!

  • -23

You've been posting on and off about how unimportant this is for 3 hours and haven't been deterred by the uniformly disparaging responses you've been getting. Why not just share your opinion?

What else should I do? It's Sunday afternoon, I'm bored and slightly depressed. This is light entertainment and stimulation, like playing a video game. That's why yo