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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32131 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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Trump on his assassination attempt:

"They briefed me and I'm satisfied with it," Trump said. "They should have had someone in the building, that was a mistake, they should have had communications with the local police—they weren't tied in—and they should have been tied in. So there were mistakes made. And that shouldn't have happened."

"But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot, the larger plot," he continued, "I have great confidence in these people. They're very talented and very capable—they had a bad day, I think they'll admit that." "This is a very dangerous job being president,"

Trump’s claims of stolen election have led to much recriminations that he is no mere crook or liar, but damaging to democracy. His supporters otoh, have ramped up the anti-elite conspiracy to include this assassination attempt, in order to show loyalty/outbid themselves, even here on the motte. This rejection by the principal actor/TV star sends a clear signal where the truth lies in this matter, whether you agree with Trump’s politics or not. Test is over, results are in, you can calibrate. If you bought the assassination conspiracy, consider that your brain may have been fried by the culture war.

I'm curious what you think the counterfactual world looks like, where Trump comes out instead and claims "There were malicious people at work, and it was all orchestrated by [specific actors]."

What would happen next?

And if you're going off the assumption that Trump is being truthful and fully transparent, then why'd you bring up the election issues?

Are YOU saying that his claims of the election being stolen are credible, since you're here saying that he's honest about such serious matters?

His supporters otoh, have ramped up the anti-elite conspiracy to include this assassination attempt, in order to show loyalty/outbid themselves, even here on the motte.

Neat.

Now do the people who don't think Trump was shot at all.

So long as we're addressing conspiracy theories.

Are YOU saying that his claims of the election being stolen are credible, since you're here saying that he's honest about such serious matters?

Well Bondi hasn't investigated those yet.

/s

The overall problem is that Trump is not a reliable narrator. For this assassination attempt, he came out looking very good, by a centimeter or two. (Can you imagine what would have happened if like the side of his face was blown off, but he survived?)

That led to competing conspiracy theories:

  • BlueAnon types thinking it was staged.
  • QAnon types thinking it was a plot or at least allowed to happen by the Deep State, to actually kill him.

Since Trump came out against the theory favored by (some of) his supporters, that takes all the steam out of it. No reason to expect he would lie on this.

For elections, Trump says basically every one he's in is rigged. If he loses, it's rigged against him. If he wins, it's rigged against him (or they tried to, apparently, in 2024, per his Epstein tweet).

No reason to expect he would lie on this.

SOME reason to think he might, because if he straight up named conspirators, then now he's got to prosecute it and most likely try to have them executed.

There are scenarios where that is less than ideal, and the preferred method is letting them know he knows but otherwise dismissing it.

Oh sure, it's definitely not something that could be totally ruled out.

The 180 is hilarious to witness after all that build up.

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