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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 20, 2026

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An unknown assassin has attempted to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner tonight. One person is dead. President Trump is unharmed. The disposition of the assassin is unknown.

Naturally, they are celebrating the assassination attempt on Reddit. The leftists completely lost me once they started celebrating the deaths of people they don’t like; they obviously want society to break down completely.

Shooter allegedly a tutoring service worker who graduated Caltech https://x.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/2048230659496497459

Surprised somebody with that educational resume who shouldn't be getting filtered on diversity grounds was working as a test-prep center drone. Also an Indie Game Dev

I'm not seeing any reports elsewhere of someone dead; someone was saved by a bulletproof vest.

I saw reports the shooter died but seems inconsistent

There were reports, but the messaging is currently leaning the other way.

Journalist(?): "One Service agent told me the shooter is confirmed dead."
Trump: "The shooter has been apprehended"

Sigh. Once again, I am going to remind people that this is not Twitter or Reddit. Obviously this is a big news story and people will want to discuss it, but take the time to at least wait for some information and provide some links and maybe say something more interesting than "Wow did you see the news?"

You do not win by being F1rsT!!!

Low effort. You have multiple warnings for low effort posts so I'm tempted to give you a timeout just to make the message stick, but since the thread is off and running, fine, you got your little firsty in.

I feel like for massive geopolitical happenings worth discussing without a particular lede

At this point it's a dog bites man story.

What you feel is not what we prefer.

Trump being assassinated would be that, I think it's possible that even @Amadan would be ok with a low effort starter post if that happened. Not sure if a possible failed assassination attempt against Trump is massive enough, though.

Total nuclear war would certainly justify bending the rules, in my book. But then, if you're rushing to The Motte to write a post after total nuclear war starts, you might want to reconsider your competence at making decisions.

Trump being assassinated would be that, I think it's possible that even @Amadan would be ok with a low effort starter post if that happened.

Even for that we would prefer more than just someone rushing to be the first to post the news.

Total nuclear war? Sure, post your good-byes while you can.

Last night I impulsively decided to download the movie In the Line of Fire. At the time Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump, I was in the middle of watching a documentary about the JFK assassination.

Can I... predict the future? Do I have some kind of sixth sense about when someone tries to assassinate Trump?

It’s a very similar set up to the scene in that movie.

Here's a clip. I think I hear shooting sounds at 0:40 and then they react a few seconds later. Dunno how close the shooter actually got, seems like they must've got him further away from Trump?

https://x.com/WomanDefiner/status/2048203588841750754

One can only imagine how toxic fake shooter narratives are going to be this time... I don't like Trump much but how hard is it to believe that people sincerely want to shoot him dead and will even sacrifice their lives to do so? Or that if the Trump campaign somehow faked their own assassination attempts that wouldn't immediately leak, like so much else that they do?

Edit: Apparently the assassin made the world's shittest-looking steam game too and people are shitposting in the reviews:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/945530/Bohrdom/

I'm a huge critic of the "small number of people did something bad so everyone tangentially related is responsible or guilty" sort of arguments, but I do at least appreciate that the conspiracy theories formed after bad events are logically consistent with that. After all if you do truly believe in the concept then you're forced to deny that anyone tangentially related to you could do bad or else you're admitting that you are bad.

So of course then people have to go with "This Trump shooting was staged" or "the people who beat up cops and planted bombs during Jan 6th were secret fed antifa" or whatever because it can't simply be "oh that guy was nuts, but I'm not that guy so it doesn't impact me or my beliefs". Not that false flag attempts don't exist at all, but the question really should be, so what?

What does it matter if the guy who shot a police station was actually a boogaloo boy false flagging instead of a BLM protestor? No one is accountable for his actions except for him. To me it didn't make BLM look bad beforehand and it didn't make right wing groups look bad afterwards just cause this individual sucks. I appreciate the consistency but it's still really stupid.

I'm a huge critic of the "small number of people did something bad so everyone tangentially related is responsible or guilty" sort of arguments,

I'm a critic of "My movement is only the good people, and the bad ones are unrelated." Sorry, but if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. Your stance would give zero consequences for extremism.

What does it matter if the guy who shot a police station was actually a boogaloo boy false flagging instead of a BLM protestor? No one is accountable for his actions except for him.

As an example, imagine that there was a gas attack on a public place. The police arrest the perpetrators, and discover that they were all members of the California Chemistry Club. Shortly thereafter, there's another gas attack and the perpetrators are also members of the CCC. And again, and again, and again. It's weird that it keeps happening, but it's not like the Club has any relation to the attacks. No one is accountable for the the perpetrators' actions except themselves. Under your framing, people couldn't even think that the organization might be promoting or benefiting from those actions, because only a small number of their members are carrying out attacks.

If Boogaloo Boys are shooting up police stations, then it's evidence that they're a violent group and should be (formally or informally) punished for that. The alternative is playing whack-a-mole after the fact.

Trying to equivocate 'Trump intentionally got shot in the ear since he's a showman' with 'massive sprawling mess potentially had glowies involved' is a bit of a stretch

Yeah, I'm not sure that any person has been actually hated (as opposed to just disliked) by a greater fraction of the US population than Trump is since Osama bin Laden (which is not to say that the fractions are even close to similar, since my guess is that Trump is probably hated by something like 30% of the population and with bin Laden it was probably at least double that). Before bin Laden, maybe you'd have to go back all the way to Hitler, Tojo, and Hirohito. I dunno, possibly Ruhollah Khomeini in between, as well. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and GW Bush have also been widely hated, but I think also not to quite the same degree of Trump, although it's somewhat close.

And before that, maybe you'd have to go back all the way to Hitler, Tojo, and Hirohito

Castro?

Don't think he ever entered direct beligerance with most people. Cuban expats sure

I think it's a bit premature to say Trump was the target. Apparently the gunman started shooting in the hallway outside the dinner while Trump was still inside, at least from what I can piece together from Wolf Blitzer's firsthand account.

Yeah, that's a good thing to be careful about. His target may very well have been one of the less-hated people, rather than the most-hated man on Earth.

Pretty much anyone else is going to be at their hardest to assassinate when they are in proximity to the POTUS. Unless the assassin just wanted a challenge, he could have waited until any of these people were not being indirectly protected by the President's Secret Service detail and have an easier job of it.

Maybe when his cover was blown he decided to go down in a blaze of glory instead of getting taken away. Would make sense if his net history showed that his target was the president, because that's a pretty bad crime.

I think even with Trump as hated as he is, a future president won't pardon a would-be assassin, that just invites assassinations towards presidents in general.

I mean I guess it's possible that somebody else was the target but I feel like generally you siege the white house due to issues with the president.