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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5014 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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So best I can tell security at the recent dinner was somehow even worse than at the campaign event that nearly cost Trump his life. This sounds incredibly stupid but mainstream media reports of the security indicate it is so. And this is in a...storied location no less.

This is also not a situation where things have been calm for a while, we are at war and several attempts have been made, and people have died (ex: Kirk).

Some of this is probably due to security theater elements - security was never good, so it remains not good. You'd think we could make a bit of a change though?

Are all of our institutions really so rotten?

And perhaps more importantly - how many times can we get lucky and how will our civic norms survive when that luck runs out?

I have seen the conspiracy theory on leftwing subreddits that this was staged to bolster Trump's popularity. If looked at through the lens of it being performative, lax security kind of makes sense. They needed the "assassin" to get close enough that it felt dangerous to viewers.

It is also an argument for the ballroom. If private venues cannot be trusted with security, then you naturally have to make your own. Only for the sake of safety for your guests of course.

More seriously, the fact that the perpetrator was stopped arguably shows that security measures were perfectly adequate.

More seriously, the fact that the perpetrator was stopped arguably shows that security measures were perfectly adequate.

In a certain trivial way you're obviously right, but I increasingly fear that the primary reason it works that way is that this has more to do with the low quality of people trying, as opposed to saying anything about the security.

Yeah, it depends on how accurately one can predict the skill and risk of assassinations. If you are confident you are not at risk of some professional or organized effort to kill you, then you can afford to spend less on security.

I might be totally wrong here, but I imagine that a lot of security lies in gathering intel beforehand, and adapting your efforts to the information you have.

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