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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?
Yes, you are technically at war, and yes, Kirk was killed, but the way you phrase it implies that these things are connected. Kirk was a victim of violence inspired by the culture war, but the culture war has not killed very many people for all the mind space it claims.
And yes, you are fighting a war against Iran, and Iran would probably jump at the chance to assassinate a US president, but this seems to be a problem of your own making.
You can still rely on the US military. They are world class at killing elderly theocratic leaders, kidnapping foreign rulers, fighting naval battles against suspected drug smugglers, and neutralizing girl schools.
Seriously, in the grand scheme of things, the Secret Service is pretty far down on the list of relevant government institutions. Even if they failed to stop a president getting killed once per dozen years, this would not result in a lack of qualified people willing to do the job.
More broadly, Trump is synonymous with dismantling or perverting institutions or replacing them with his own cheap temu knockoffs:
So in conclusion, Trump is the one who you would vote for if you found that US institutions are beyond saving (probably because they are woke) and should be dismantled. Sadly, his replacements are what you would expect from some banana republic. For all of Harvard's many faults, Trump University is not an adequate substitute. The Peace Nobel has not been without troubles, but does anyone seriously expect that the FIFA peace price will earn a similar prestige? Likewise the Security Council -- mostly a club of big countries with nukes who will only vote for resolutions which do not touch the interests of any of their client states, but who on occasion have aided in conflict resolution. Trump's pay-to-play Board of Peace will die with him.
Quite frankly, the only reason why I do not want Trump to replace the Secret Service with the TRUMP ELITE PRAETORIAN PRESIDENTIAL GUARD is because it would enable them to further his cause by getting shot by some dumb liberal, which would be his most effective move now. But I cling to some faint hope that he decides to take health advice from RFK Jr and croaks of measles or brain worms or whatever retro diseases are en vogue among anti-vaxxers.
But tell us how you really feel.
It's funny, I actually agree with you on a handful of these things and I voted for the guy.
But your aesthetic revulsion to Trumpism (kid rock, "macho" military, RFK Jr=Gargamel, "disrespecting our allies") marks you as a class enemy. The way you talk about those things just drips with disdain, you sound like you think half of our country should probably be disenfranchised.
Your indignation that our hallowed and immaculate institutions are being profaned (Harvard, SCOTUS, NATO, UN security council, justice system) is also rich. I'm sure you'd be glad if we went back to 2010, when Harvard was unassailable, our activist judicial system was too sacrosanct to criticize, and NATO was supported by the right as an expression of America's military might. Back when the rubes didn't even know what was being done to them. Things were easier then, eh?
Your attitude is a large part of why Trump is able to retain power despite being an arrogant, distateful, reactive bully with no strategy. I would rather have what we have now than go back to 2010 because I don't want people like you, people who have contempt for me and who gaslight me when I point out the ideological project that pervades our institutions (see Neutral vs Conservative), to have power over me anymore.
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