7mo ago

Trump rally: American politics enters a dark and dangerous new chapter

www.bbc.com Trump rally: American politics enters a dark and dangerous new chapter

The illusion of security and safety in American politics – built over decades - has been dramatically shattered.

A spray of bullets may have only grazed Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, but they killed one rally attendee and critically wounded two others.

They have also torn through the 2024 presidential campaign, damaging the social and cultural fabric of the nation. The illusion of security and safety in American politics – built over decades - has

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Now they know what it's like to go to school in this country.
- i want to hug you & never let go.

I hate that this is the new narrative, like violence against political opponents is a new thing in this country. Obama survived MULTIPLE assassination attempts. Bill Clinton and George Bush both survived multiple assassination attempts. Sectarian violence has been a thing in this country since its inception. The fact that the secret service failed to do their due diligence at policing the buildings surrounding Trump's latest rallies doesn't somehow mean that sectarian violence has reached some momentous peak. It simply means that people didn't do their jobs properly. Maybe because, like, why would they? I know that if I was a secret service agent assigned to the duty of watching after Trump, I wouldn't be particularly committed to the task. Maybe they felt the same way.
Edit: Here's the NY Times image of the vicinity surrounding the Trump rally. Why the fuck wasn't that place watched by the Secret Service? Any competent agency looking to protect someone would have 100% had agents watching that building.
- Did the secret service allow this? In the TMZ video of the return fire, it looks like the sniper on the roof was already aiming at the shooter well before he shot. And only after he shot did the sniper take him out.
  Maybe coincidence...but seeing this level of incompetence from the secret service makes this whole thing seem very very fishy.
  
  Did anyone even scatter when the gunfire went off? Thats a lot of shots. From the clips I've seen they stare.
  
  The secret service are cops and ACAB holds as true as it always does.
  But if the secret service had shot first it would be a VERY different news story. And while all the youtubes about how amazing the secret service are from former SS officers who now run private security firms talk about their training and planning... politics is their first priority. An SS officer who pulls out an uzi to protect a fallen president is one thing. An SS officer who pulls out an uzi to unload on someone who "might have a gun" is a very different story.
- I feel like there's a difference between stopping and assassination plot and stopping an assassination attempt.
  
  Sounds like this kid did it all on his own. Harder to stop a plot when you don't tell anyone.
  
  I mean, sure. There were plenty of both.
- Trump chose his secret service detail based on loyalty, not competence.

This article and ones like it rub me the wrong way. Yes I get that this is the first time someone shot at a presidential candidate in a long time, but it's far from an escalation in violence. A 'lone wolf' shooter actually feels like a step back from the violent republican horde that swarmed Congress on Jan 6 at the behest of Trump.
- Yes, this. Virtually everyone condemns this and shooting at a (Republican) candidate has zero systemic support. Meanwhile, the right still has not stopped gaslighting about, lying for, and outright supporting the insurrectionists (and the related coup attempt).

I'm not sure who this illusion of security and safety existed for prior to this? I'm Gen X - but the hangover of all the assassinations that came before my time lived on, even before the attempt on Ronnie Raygun. John Lennon was shot dead. Bud Dwyer committed suicide on live television. There were pre-Columbine school shootings of course, but that one really made an impression on Gen X and millennials for sure (to the point that earlier ones almost seem to have been memory-holed). Then there was 9/11 and it seemed like everything and everyone was a potential target - and in some cases, that was literal (Beltway sniper).
And for a few decades now, kids are run through drills to prepare for an active shooter on the grounds of their schools.
There are times when I'm at a major public event, or just shopping at a big box store, or a convenience store, or even just driving around...and wonder about the possibility of an active shooter. And I bet I'm not the only one. I don't let it consume me....but thoughts arise.
The stuff I mentioned above covers things that happened at impressionable ages for every generation from Boomer down to Alpha, and any Greatest Generation still alive also have watched all this and it's not like they are impervious to it. So I'm not sure who is living in this comfortable bubble...

Give me a break, we've been in this dark chapter since Regan. It's just middle class settlers are being effected now.
- People have been taking shots at political figures since the beginning of this country.
  This is nothing new.
  
  Yeah 4 have been assassinated. It’s statistically one of the deadliest jobs in the country at a little under 10% assassination rate
- The poor are being affected severely. The rich are even being affected; they benefit from it. You're not wrong about Reagan though. If I had a time machine I'd go back and kill him in his sleep after he was finished with his military career... In Minecraft.

The chapter is not new, it's just recent. The bad old 60's are back,
- The GOP wants the 60s to come back, but apparently they don't get to pick and choose what that means.

ive been telling yall electoralism cant stop fascism....
please organize.
- You first
  
  i do, now u

This is the best summary I could come up with:
A spray of bullets may have only grazed Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, but they killed one rally attendee and critically wounded two others.They have also torn through the 2024 presidential campaign, damaging the social and cultural fabric of the nation.
Already, there have been some bipartisan calls for a cooling of rhetoric and national unity.Within hours of the incident, President Joe Biden – Trump’s likely opponent in November – appeared before cameras in Delaware to make a statement to the press.“There is no place in America for this kind of violence.
He cut short his weekend at the beach and is returning to the White House late Saturday evening.But the violence has also quickly filtered into the bare-knuckle partisan trench-warfare that has characterised American politics in recent decades.
Some Republican politicians have laid the blame for the attack on Democrats who have employed dire rhetoric about the threat they say the former president poses to American democracy.“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Ohio Senator JD Vance, who is reportedly on the shortlist to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick, posted on social media.
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s assassination attempt.”Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign manager, said that “leftist activists, Democratic donors and even Joe Biden” need to be held accountable at the ballot box in November for “disgusting remarks” that in his view led to Saturday’s attack.Democrats may object, but many on the left used similar language to describe the culpability of right-wing rhetoric in the months before the 2011 near-fatal shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Arizona.
Security protocols will be tightened, and the protests – and counter-protests – near the site could be accompanied by a new sense of foreboding.Meanwhile, an even brighter national spotlight will shine on the party’s nominee when he takes the stage on Thursday night.Images of the former president, bloodied, with an upraised fist are sure to become a rallying point in Milwaukee.
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 339 words. Saved 51%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Yet another dark and dangerous chapter

Read Zero Dark Thirty. Pretty good glimpse at how the secret service wins and loses.

If Joe "Cadaver" Biden didn't loss yet, with this thing Donald "Martyr" Trump will win..
- Wasn't loss? Did AI write this?
  
  I like how they edited it to "didn't loss" after your comment.
  
  AI would do a better job.
- A more conspiratorially minded person could come to the conclusion that Republicans were behind the whole assassination attempt, to make the Toupee appear strong and to turn the media's attention back to them.
  
  I don't think Trump would get a part of his ear ripped off voluntarily.. his ego it's bigger than the Eiffel tower.
- Braindead comment.
  
  Trump is going to milk this so hard. It's going to be an annoying 4+ months of hearing how he took a bullet for America and shit about "the left's assassination attempt".
  You could only hope that in the moment after he came to terms with the fact he is such a piece of human waste that someone almost blew his fucking brains out. That he'll rethink his whole life.
  But he won't, and now the fascist militias that back him are going to turn it up.

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