As a both sides media personality, Scott should now go through all of DJT's social media feeds and express outrage and disgust at each and every call to violence. That should occupy him until the election in November and give us some respite from the stupidity.
I would very much like to not have a month of history happen every weekend any more, this is exhausting.
When someone I know opined that the shooter MUST have political motives, I did tell them not necessarily. I'm old and remember when Reagan was shot by a guy trying to impress an actress, so people do all kinds of weird and deranged and violent things to get attention and become internet-famous.
I agree that the pearl-clutching from the R side is rich, considering they've made excuses and jokes about political violence for years. They have no standing to criticize anyone and I wish they'd all just shut up.
Yep. To be honest I did spent a couple minutes Saturday evening thinking about how unbearable the political and media climate would be if it turned out that the shooter was a Democrat.
I agree that the shooter could very well not have had a political motive. The one thread (other than access to guns) that I see running through many of these mass shootings is that the shooters themselves do not survive. It’s as if they want a guaranteed plan to get killed and settle some personal grudge with society while they’re at it.
I will say here what I've said on other substackers' posts. Most of us here are decent, truth seeking people who are cautious about jumping to conclusions when there are few facts publicly available. We don’t want to join the conspiracy theorists. But something is rotten in Denmark. It is only natural to wonder if a chronic liar and fabulist is spinning a new production for the gullible public, relying on the willing media to amplify it. Who thinks about their shoes when they’ve just been shot? Who directs the Secret Service to stand down while they stand up, face bloodied, and fist pump while yelling “fight! Fight! Fight” under an American flag? All those years on The Apprentice taught Donald the value of a convincing reality show moment. I await facts, but I have many questions.
I also have a lot of questions about the Secret Service response and security lapses more broadly but it does seem like Congress is in bipartisan agreement about having hearings. My default assumption is that there was no political conspiracy at play here and I think that view is consistent with what we've learned about the shooting so far.
Of course that's the default assumption. But there's so much we haven't learned. Aaron, you know better than most that so-called "bipartisan hearings" in Congress are usually a clown show on the Republican side, with Democrats trying to be responsible and conscientious. And it doesn't matter how much clear-cut evidence is presented (think about the Jan 6 hearings), the MAGA Republicans are going to be shouting baseless accusations while they are blindfolded with their fingers in their ears to any of it.
I wondered the same thing. Evidently he was on his HS rifle team but was remembered as being a “comically bad shot”. I don’t go in for conspiracy theories. But something about this incident just feels a little too contrived. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
I hope that one of the items covered by the ensuing investigation covers the seemingly inappropriate closeness the SS agents protecting Trump have with him, and possibly his ideology. Allowing him to pose for that photo when there is no way they could have known there was no further threat is not their job.
Thank you for the additional input. I am disappointed by the repetitive, amplifying of the same statements by the media, accepting all at face value, showing the "iconic" photo several times every hour. Other than questioning why the shooter was able to do what he did, I hear very little of a questioning nature.
Nail on the head you hit it well Aaron. Trump wants violence. He has proven that time and again. He incites. He lies snd incites. We must resist this call BUT we must respond daily and loudly in the face of this with rationality and truth. He will use this attack. We can use it too. He brought this on to himself ( and his supporters who took the hit). What goes around comes around. He gave a NRA speech this February promising to get rid of Biden gun regulations. The shooter was a registered Republican. The violence is originating from the right and Trump. Bannon in jail now is in waiting - he’s another guy with his fist in the air along with Trump. “fight, fight”. That’s the vision.
When Trump insisted on raising his fist in the air and shouting “fight, fight, fight” in the context of an incredibly violent act and an angry shocked crowd of devotees, it certainly wasn’t a plea for peace and calm.
Not only that, but according to one person on my Democrats Abroad Germany chat group, she contacted the DNC to say she had heard rumors that Bidens delegates were going to be or could be given away, and she felt they should poll/survey people before doing such a thing. They then told her they had heard from no one except the people who are complaining about Biden. As a teacher, I do not believe anyone benefits when you reward the rule breakers by giving them what they want. Secondly, I don't believe you should punish the people who went out and voted in the primaries and picked a candidate to try to entice people who did not get it together to do that. Thirdly, my 19-year-old daughter says there is no candidate super attractive to youth, although she worked the first campaign in high school, and has joined Democrats Abroad and votes, and does not even know about the ruckus created by the debate because as she told me, "No one young watched the debate and no one young reads the papers or Substacks. If you want to get the message across you should use Tiktok." So, while she does not speak for everyone, she does have the pulse of her generation, as do her cousins who are 20, 23 and 27. They are all voting for Biden even though one is upset about Gaza. I believe knowledge of Project 2025 is going to replace that anger with a fear. Fourth, I suggest if you want to back a candidate that you chose and voted for, you should let the DNC know by contacting them. I emailed them this morning.
OMG, the rumor mill never stops! Thanks for the insight from your daughter. When I was in my 20s, I was politically engaged but *not* in electoral politics. Reagan's election in 1980 woke me up. I realized that though you may not get much of what you want, you can prevent bad things from happening. And that is the situation we're in now, only worse.
I agree. I am upset about the Republicans twisting the situation and Dems having to tiptoe around the accusations, and upset that Judge Cannon dismissed the stolen documents case, by claiming that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was illegally appointed. Seeing the right wing take over our government and run roughshod with the Constitution makes me more determined than ever to block as much of the noise as possible, and focus on learning more about Project 2025 so I can share it. Here is what Andra Watkins of How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life Substack posted today. https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/why-project-2025-matters-now-more?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
You watched all of Trump’s other rallies? There isn’t enough brain bleach in the world for me to attempt that.
The juxtaposition of Biden’s Detroit speech and the Trump shooting whipsawed me. I thought Biden had found the perfect arc of messaging, with his many accomplishments followed by biting attacks on Trump and finishing with his plans for his next term. Although others are free to continue to criticize and mock Trump, I think Biden will tone down that middle section until the impact of the shooting dies down, very possibly as soon as Trump says something horrible at the RNC convention. Meanwhile, Democrats and normal independents should focus on the corrosive effects of all the guns and hatred that has infected the fascist Republican Party. In Detroit Biden promised an assault rifle ban next term - he should send one to Congress this week. Someone suggested naming it after Donald Trump.
I totally agree that Biden's speech on Friday was his most effective attack on Trump yet and really boosted my morale about his ability to win this thing. And you're right to be skeptical that the big game Trump and company are talking about "unity" will survive first contact with the RNC.
In my opinion, the only thing autocrats, aka bullies, understand is violence. The only thing Trump and Bannon and Christian nationalists, and MAGA republicans want is violence. Eventually we will have to meet them with violence in return. The courts won't save our democracy, the Democrats won't save our democracy, only we, the people, can do this. The people will fight and it will be violent and we will win. My only consolation, as of today, I can write this opinion without fear of being imprisoned. I doubt that will be true if Trump wins the election. So I do hope an underground counter revolution to the 2025 mandate and the planned Republican violence is seriously getting organized within our country. The chances of this far right takeover becomes more of a certainty with this assassination attempt. It will boost Trump to the white house by feeding his victim-hood narrative. I'm staying in this country and I will be fighting back. I will gladly become a home to hide persecuted immigrants and I will gladly fight for the return of the government to its rightful 3 branches of government, it's rightful separation of church and state, its rightful access to legal abortion and family reproductive healthcare, and its rightful oversight of corporations by experts and scientists (instead of judges). I hope to see this happen within my lifetime which means, over the next 20 years since I am 67 years old and I doubt I will live much longer than that.
What I think is that I have been worried about Biden and Kamala getting shot, and now I am more worried about it. Jeff Stein from The Spy Talk Substack says that Secret Security Chief Kimberly Cheatle should be fired or better yet, resign.
However, wondering how that will help to get better coverage at the RNC and later on at the DNC, unless they wisely always have someone in house who they feel could be a good interim while they search, and perhaps that person is also a candidate. I came into this concerned, because I moved to Germany where I mainly live to avoid the ever escalating gun shooting. Covid was a particularly gruesome time in my community, but I had already decided that I was a frog in boiling water and I was springing out. Now my daughter is going to university abroad and suffers a lot less from depression than her friends back in the USA, who are mostly in some stage of being in therapy. I also know that Prof. Kathleen Belew's book has given me some tools for examining what is going on with youth shooters, in her book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. A must read, especially for journalists so that they understand what they are covering. I am currently reading Strongmen by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, where she has discussed attempts to overthrow Fascist leaders or assassinate them, and what happens when these plots go wrong. More typically than outright shooting the plotters as happened here, they usually capture them and interrogate them so they find out what was behind it. There is an assumption that every shooter leaves enough information behind to figure out what was going on, but that is just speculation. I am also concerned that the Fascist Republicans will turn this around and use it as a call for revenge on Biden, as they are already doing. I also am concerned that both Democrats will allow the fascist propaganda that is now spewing forth to silence them. Today, a day that people should be countering Trump's messages, with fact checking and information about Project 2025, both the Dems and the Press are afraid to say anything. They have not learned lessons from the Republicans in owning your stuff. We the people should however. If you are not reading Project 2025, you should at least be talking about it with someone who has or read summaries, and opinion pieces on it. From what I have read so far, I see that its implementation would not only destroy the USA (ie would not want to raise a child or a plant in the US any more), and will destroy the planet too, either just as fast, or slower than the USA. Here is a link to someone who has been reading it since January. Andra Watkins has a Substack devoted to Project 2025. It is called Why Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/
Linda -- thanks for your thoughtful comments. My wife and I agree with you that it is a dicey time to raise kids in the US these days. My kids don't know it yet but the stakes for them are so high this November. I fear a second Trump presidency would set us back decades and make their lives worse.
That leaves 130 place to go to that are less violent and quite a few that are relatively safe. Things have been getting better under Biden. Let us hope we can hold the White House and take back the Congress with Dems, so that some meaningful gun legislation will be passed. To start with we need to go after the Supreme Court, which has staged a judicial coup against our constitution. I support AOC in trying to impeach members of SCOTUS.
It was great! First time seeing EW&F and they were really fun. Admittedly my mind was wandering and thinking about the news for most of the night, but that was inevitable. In hindsight it was nice to have a reason to not be at a computer and to have something fun to do.
You reap what you sow keeps playing in my mind two days out. What happened Saturday represents our country - violence to solve an issue, unfounded comments on the news and social media to explain the violence that occurred. In a way, I hope there is no manifesto found on the shooter's computer. The randomness of his act should stick in the craw of every person in this country, even the Republicans. Unfortunately, the only thing that will result from this shooting is more blaming, name calling, and no action on anyone's part to do anything about it.
I will be avoiding the news this week. Between the convention and the shooting, speculation will abound. I'll stick with Public Notice and Talking Points Memo to get the grounded view of what's happening.
Yesterday, Joyce Vance said: "Political violence is never the answer. In America, we settle those differences at the polls. That's why the Big Lie and January 6 were wrong and unAmerican. Violence is not the path forward."
While "political violence is never the answer." it is foolish to ignore this pattern in our country. I was a teen when JFK was assassinated in 1963, a young adult in 1968 when MLK Jr. was shot and RFK were killed, and a married mother of two when Ronald Reagan was shot - all lasting memories. I grew up in a time of massive unrest across our nation: the Vietnam war and antiwar protests, the women's movement and birth control, the counterculture and flower children, the civil rights movement, political assassinations, and so on. It seems as though someone was always protesting something.
We didn't have police brutality, mass shootings, massive crime, or Donald Trump. I think of him as a caricature of Frankenstein with dyed orange hair, sprayed on tans, and a big screw in his neck that says "Made in Russia." This minor injury suffered by Trump does not bring tears or cries of horror, but I am sure he will be out there screaming to the whole world that he survived an assassination attempt. He loves to be the "victim."
When Trump was our President, violent crime, murders, and hate crimes rose by 30% (FBI records). "He now FALSELY claims US crime stats are going up. Most went down last year including a massive drop in murders." (CNN, Daniel Dale, July 2024) This is a man who preaches violence, then professes ignorance. Our whole country and the entire world watched him on TV as he instigated the January 6th insurrection - yet he denies it. He stands at political rallies and says "there will be a bloodbath if he is not elected," - well now he as a taste of what that may mean. The bottom line is that "while our citizens believe that we are a land of laws, order, and justice - our country has the 28th highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world out of 195 countries. This is 340 times higher than the United Kingdom." (NPR)
While our Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal." this lie of American equality has set a countrywide standard of dishonesty and deceitfulness for generations of Americans. Jefferson believed these words, but was not capable of grasping the servitude, bondage, and ugliness of the 600 human beings he enslaved.
We can teach our children to believe that violence is not the answer, while to survive in America - whether the streets of our cities or the rural areas in the west - brutality and violence are everywhere. Every single state in the U.S. has laws to prevent excessive and unwarranted use of force against an individual or group. Yet police brutality is found across our nation - and George Floyd is just one example. In fact the whole world protested against police brutality in the United States after Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin.
If we want our society to stop feeding off hatred and violence, then they must have a substitution that will satisfy their souls. Every time Donald Trump stands at a microphone, his speeches are filled with detestation, hatred, abhorrence toward others. Half our country are ready and willing to vote for this man. Hatred is a tool used in brainwashing to convince individuals and groups to act out violent crimes: Charles Manson's cult committed nine murders; Jim Jones told his group of 900 people to drink poisonous KoolAid and they all died; and Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murders who slaughtered over six million humans. Then there is Trump - a man who has convinced many in our nation to vote for him while his speeches are filled with detestation, hatred, and violence. He talks of a bloodbath if he is not elected, and January 6th was an example of Hitler incarnate - violence to prevent our democracy from working.
There is a really clear relationship between political hateful speeches and mass murder or other criminal behavior. The words and writings about hatred, murder, violence, etc does not mean a thing unless it is backed up by action. Biden is the ONLY President in recent times to garner investments for crime prevention and intervention strategies. Crime across our country has dropped by 50% under his presidency.
So let's not just talk about unlawfulness, violence, and crime. If we are going to save our democracy, we must choose our leaders more carefully.
Thanks Elizabeth, you packed a lot of information into your thoughtful comment here. Appreciate you sharing, and agree that problems in America deeper than the presidency (though Trump's election was certainly a symptom of it).
There is little to discuss. Trump and his followers are the threat we have seen or read reported about. The fact there are people in our current Congress who are trying desperately cloud that reality in their drive for power is disheartening. They already have their foot in the door as we watched play out in the 118th Congress. Look at a list of public and private laws passed over the last 2 decades and it is in the hundreds each session. This session so far has totaled less than 50. This fascist take over has already begun but the public is not listening.
The key question is whether the NYT and the "responsible" media continue their "too old and look, a gaff" assault on Biden or shift to a "too much violence and it's all Democrats." You know, "just asking" front page above the fold newsitorials about identifying authoritarians as authoritarians incites violence.
After all, they have a rubber stamp "Dems in Disarray" Word macro.
Since Trump gets a dementia free pass, (or paragraph 22 of a Biden is old article) why shouldn't Republicans get a free pass for advocating violence.
As a both sides media personality, Scott should now go through all of DJT's social media feeds and express outrage and disgust at each and every call to violence. That should occupy him until the election in November and give us some respite from the stupidity.
Well said!
I would very much like to not have a month of history happen every weekend any more, this is exhausting.
When someone I know opined that the shooter MUST have political motives, I did tell them not necessarily. I'm old and remember when Reagan was shot by a guy trying to impress an actress, so people do all kinds of weird and deranged and violent things to get attention and become internet-famous.
I agree that the pearl-clutching from the R side is rich, considering they've made excuses and jokes about political violence for years. They have no standing to criticize anyone and I wish they'd all just shut up.
Yep. To be honest I did spent a couple minutes Saturday evening thinking about how unbearable the political and media climate would be if it turned out that the shooter was a Democrat.
People forget that Gerald Ford had two attempts on his life. Both by mentally unstable people.
I agree that the shooter could very well not have had a political motive. The one thread (other than access to guns) that I see running through many of these mass shootings is that the shooters themselves do not survive. It’s as if they want a guaranteed plan to get killed and settle some personal grudge with society while they’re at it.
I will say here what I've said on other substackers' posts. Most of us here are decent, truth seeking people who are cautious about jumping to conclusions when there are few facts publicly available. We don’t want to join the conspiracy theorists. But something is rotten in Denmark. It is only natural to wonder if a chronic liar and fabulist is spinning a new production for the gullible public, relying on the willing media to amplify it. Who thinks about their shoes when they’ve just been shot? Who directs the Secret Service to stand down while they stand up, face bloodied, and fist pump while yelling “fight! Fight! Fight” under an American flag? All those years on The Apprentice taught Donald the value of a convincing reality show moment. I await facts, but I have many questions.
I also have a lot of questions about the Secret Service response and security lapses more broadly but it does seem like Congress is in bipartisan agreement about having hearings. My default assumption is that there was no political conspiracy at play here and I think that view is consistent with what we've learned about the shooting so far.
Of course that's the default assumption. But there's so much we haven't learned. Aaron, you know better than most that so-called "bipartisan hearings" in Congress are usually a clown show on the Republican side, with Democrats trying to be responsible and conscientious. And it doesn't matter how much clear-cut evidence is presented (think about the Jan 6 hearings), the MAGA Republicans are going to be shouting baseless accusations while they are blindfolded with their fingers in their ears to any of it.
I wondered the same thing. Evidently he was on his HS rifle team but was remembered as being a “comically bad shot”. I don’t go in for conspiracy theories. But something about this incident just feels a little too contrived. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2024/07/15/suspected-trump-shooter-remembered-by-rifle-team-member-as-comically-bad-shot-what-we-know-about-thomas-matthew-crooks/
I hope that one of the items covered by the ensuing investigation covers the seemingly inappropriate closeness the SS agents protecting Trump have with him, and possibly his ideology. Allowing him to pose for that photo when there is no way they could have known there was no further threat is not their job.
Thank you for the additional input. I am disappointed by the repetitive, amplifying of the same statements by the media, accepting all at face value, showing the "iconic" photo several times every hour. Other than questioning why the shooter was able to do what he did, I hear very little of a questioning nature.
Nail on the head you hit it well Aaron. Trump wants violence. He has proven that time and again. He incites. He lies snd incites. We must resist this call BUT we must respond daily and loudly in the face of this with rationality and truth. He will use this attack. We can use it too. He brought this on to himself ( and his supporters who took the hit). What goes around comes around. He gave a NRA speech this February promising to get rid of Biden gun regulations. The shooter was a registered Republican. The violence is originating from the right and Trump. Bannon in jail now is in waiting - he’s another guy with his fist in the air along with Trump. “fight, fight”. That’s the vision.
When Trump insisted on raising his fist in the air and shouting “fight, fight, fight” in the context of an incredibly violent act and an angry shocked crowd of devotees, it certainly wasn’t a plea for peace and calm.
Trump wants and has wanted violence. This is clear and must be repeated. He is unfit for that high office.
I'm still not clear what/who the crowd was to fight. The shooter?
I wish my friends would stop saying stuff like "This means Trump won the election." They need to STFU and get to work.
Not only that, but according to one person on my Democrats Abroad Germany chat group, she contacted the DNC to say she had heard rumors that Bidens delegates were going to be or could be given away, and she felt they should poll/survey people before doing such a thing. They then told her they had heard from no one except the people who are complaining about Biden. As a teacher, I do not believe anyone benefits when you reward the rule breakers by giving them what they want. Secondly, I don't believe you should punish the people who went out and voted in the primaries and picked a candidate to try to entice people who did not get it together to do that. Thirdly, my 19-year-old daughter says there is no candidate super attractive to youth, although she worked the first campaign in high school, and has joined Democrats Abroad and votes, and does not even know about the ruckus created by the debate because as she told me, "No one young watched the debate and no one young reads the papers or Substacks. If you want to get the message across you should use Tiktok." So, while she does not speak for everyone, she does have the pulse of her generation, as do her cousins who are 20, 23 and 27. They are all voting for Biden even though one is upset about Gaza. I believe knowledge of Project 2025 is going to replace that anger with a fear. Fourth, I suggest if you want to back a candidate that you chose and voted for, you should let the DNC know by contacting them. I emailed them this morning.
OMG, the rumor mill never stops! Thanks for the insight from your daughter. When I was in my 20s, I was politically engaged but *not* in electoral politics. Reagan's election in 1980 woke me up. I realized that though you may not get much of what you want, you can prevent bad things from happening. And that is the situation we're in now, only worse.
I agree. I am upset about the Republicans twisting the situation and Dems having to tiptoe around the accusations, and upset that Judge Cannon dismissed the stolen documents case, by claiming that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was illegally appointed. Seeing the right wing take over our government and run roughshod with the Constitution makes me more determined than ever to block as much of the noise as possible, and focus on learning more about Project 2025 so I can share it. Here is what Andra Watkins of How Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life Substack posted today. https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy/p/why-project-2025-matters-now-more?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Ditto -- thanks for that link!
You watched all of Trump’s other rallies? There isn’t enough brain bleach in the world for me to attempt that.
The juxtaposition of Biden’s Detroit speech and the Trump shooting whipsawed me. I thought Biden had found the perfect arc of messaging, with his many accomplishments followed by biting attacks on Trump and finishing with his plans for his next term. Although others are free to continue to criticize and mock Trump, I think Biden will tone down that middle section until the impact of the shooting dies down, very possibly as soon as Trump says something horrible at the RNC convention. Meanwhile, Democrats and normal independents should focus on the corrosive effects of all the guns and hatred that has infected the fascist Republican Party. In Detroit Biden promised an assault rifle ban next term - he should send one to Congress this week. Someone suggested naming it after Donald Trump.
I totally agree that Biden's speech on Friday was his most effective attack on Trump yet and really boosted my morale about his ability to win this thing. And you're right to be skeptical that the big game Trump and company are talking about "unity" will survive first contact with the RNC.
My only contribution and advice on this topic comes from Trump himself. As he said after the Iowa high school shooting, “Let’s Get Over It.”
Trump a victim of his own rhetoric.
Now MAGA R’s looking to stifle legitimate criticism and to glorify him now. Criticism of TFG’s record and Project 2025 is appropriate.
In my opinion, the only thing autocrats, aka bullies, understand is violence. The only thing Trump and Bannon and Christian nationalists, and MAGA republicans want is violence. Eventually we will have to meet them with violence in return. The courts won't save our democracy, the Democrats won't save our democracy, only we, the people, can do this. The people will fight and it will be violent and we will win. My only consolation, as of today, I can write this opinion without fear of being imprisoned. I doubt that will be true if Trump wins the election. So I do hope an underground counter revolution to the 2025 mandate and the planned Republican violence is seriously getting organized within our country. The chances of this far right takeover becomes more of a certainty with this assassination attempt. It will boost Trump to the white house by feeding his victim-hood narrative. I'm staying in this country and I will be fighting back. I will gladly become a home to hide persecuted immigrants and I will gladly fight for the return of the government to its rightful 3 branches of government, it's rightful separation of church and state, its rightful access to legal abortion and family reproductive healthcare, and its rightful oversight of corporations by experts and scientists (instead of judges). I hope to see this happen within my lifetime which means, over the next 20 years since I am 67 years old and I doubt I will live much longer than that.
What I think is that I have been worried about Biden and Kamala getting shot, and now I am more worried about it. Jeff Stein from The Spy Talk Substack says that Secret Security Chief Kimberly Cheatle should be fired or better yet, resign.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146613169
However, wondering how that will help to get better coverage at the RNC and later on at the DNC, unless they wisely always have someone in house who they feel could be a good interim while they search, and perhaps that person is also a candidate. I came into this concerned, because I moved to Germany where I mainly live to avoid the ever escalating gun shooting. Covid was a particularly gruesome time in my community, but I had already decided that I was a frog in boiling water and I was springing out. Now my daughter is going to university abroad and suffers a lot less from depression than her friends back in the USA, who are mostly in some stage of being in therapy. I also know that Prof. Kathleen Belew's book has given me some tools for examining what is going on with youth shooters, in her book, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America. A must read, especially for journalists so that they understand what they are covering. I am currently reading Strongmen by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, where she has discussed attempts to overthrow Fascist leaders or assassinate them, and what happens when these plots go wrong. More typically than outright shooting the plotters as happened here, they usually capture them and interrogate them so they find out what was behind it. There is an assumption that every shooter leaves enough information behind to figure out what was going on, but that is just speculation. I am also concerned that the Fascist Republicans will turn this around and use it as a call for revenge on Biden, as they are already doing. I also am concerned that both Democrats will allow the fascist propaganda that is now spewing forth to silence them. Today, a day that people should be countering Trump's messages, with fact checking and information about Project 2025, both the Dems and the Press are afraid to say anything. They have not learned lessons from the Republicans in owning your stuff. We the people should however. If you are not reading Project 2025, you should at least be talking about it with someone who has or read summaries, and opinion pieces on it. From what I have read so far, I see that its implementation would not only destroy the USA (ie would not want to raise a child or a plant in the US any more), and will destroy the planet too, either just as fast, or slower than the USA. Here is a link to someone who has been reading it since January. Andra Watkins has a Substack devoted to Project 2025. It is called Why Project 2025 Will Ruin YOUR Life. https://project2025istheocracy.substack.com/
Linda -- thanks for your thoughtful comments. My wife and I agree with you that it is a dicey time to raise kids in the US these days. My kids don't know it yet but the stakes for them are so high this November. I fear a second Trump presidency would set us back decades and make their lives worse.
Aaron--I wish you luck raising your children safely. Vacationing in places that are less violent is not hard, because the USA falls at place 131 on the global peace index. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/GPI-2023-Web.pdf
That leaves 130 place to go to that are less violent and quite a few that are relatively safe. Things have been getting better under Biden. Let us hope we can hold the White House and take back the Congress with Dems, so that some meaningful gun legislation will be passed. To start with we need to go after the Supreme Court, which has staged a judicial coup against our constitution. I support AOC in trying to impeach members of SCOTUS.
How was the concert?! Love EW&F.
It was great! First time seeing EW&F and they were really fun. Admittedly my mind was wandering and thinking about the news for most of the night, but that was inevitable. In hindsight it was nice to have a reason to not be at a computer and to have something fun to do.
You reap what you sow keeps playing in my mind two days out. What happened Saturday represents our country - violence to solve an issue, unfounded comments on the news and social media to explain the violence that occurred. In a way, I hope there is no manifesto found on the shooter's computer. The randomness of his act should stick in the craw of every person in this country, even the Republicans. Unfortunately, the only thing that will result from this shooting is more blaming, name calling, and no action on anyone's part to do anything about it.
I will be avoiding the news this week. Between the convention and the shooting, speculation will abound. I'll stick with Public Notice and Talking Points Memo to get the grounded view of what's happening.
Thanks, Aaron, for all you do. I appreciate it.
Really appreciate the kind words, Barbara!
You could not have made your point more clearly, or correctly. And the people who’ve commented are right as well. Ugh!
Yes you are right on all counts.
Yesterday, Joyce Vance said: "Political violence is never the answer. In America, we settle those differences at the polls. That's why the Big Lie and January 6 were wrong and unAmerican. Violence is not the path forward."
While "political violence is never the answer." it is foolish to ignore this pattern in our country. I was a teen when JFK was assassinated in 1963, a young adult in 1968 when MLK Jr. was shot and RFK were killed, and a married mother of two when Ronald Reagan was shot - all lasting memories. I grew up in a time of massive unrest across our nation: the Vietnam war and antiwar protests, the women's movement and birth control, the counterculture and flower children, the civil rights movement, political assassinations, and so on. It seems as though someone was always protesting something.
We didn't have police brutality, mass shootings, massive crime, or Donald Trump. I think of him as a caricature of Frankenstein with dyed orange hair, sprayed on tans, and a big screw in his neck that says "Made in Russia." This minor injury suffered by Trump does not bring tears or cries of horror, but I am sure he will be out there screaming to the whole world that he survived an assassination attempt. He loves to be the "victim."
When Trump was our President, violent crime, murders, and hate crimes rose by 30% (FBI records). "He now FALSELY claims US crime stats are going up. Most went down last year including a massive drop in murders." (CNN, Daniel Dale, July 2024) This is a man who preaches violence, then professes ignorance. Our whole country and the entire world watched him on TV as he instigated the January 6th insurrection - yet he denies it. He stands at political rallies and says "there will be a bloodbath if he is not elected," - well now he as a taste of what that may mean. The bottom line is that "while our citizens believe that we are a land of laws, order, and justice - our country has the 28th highest rate of deaths from gun violence in the world out of 195 countries. This is 340 times higher than the United Kingdom." (NPR)
While our Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal." this lie of American equality has set a countrywide standard of dishonesty and deceitfulness for generations of Americans. Jefferson believed these words, but was not capable of grasping the servitude, bondage, and ugliness of the 600 human beings he enslaved.
We can teach our children to believe that violence is not the answer, while to survive in America - whether the streets of our cities or the rural areas in the west - brutality and violence are everywhere. Every single state in the U.S. has laws to prevent excessive and unwarranted use of force against an individual or group. Yet police brutality is found across our nation - and George Floyd is just one example. In fact the whole world protested against police brutality in the United States after Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin.
If we want our society to stop feeding off hatred and violence, then they must have a substitution that will satisfy their souls. Every time Donald Trump stands at a microphone, his speeches are filled with detestation, hatred, abhorrence toward others. Half our country are ready and willing to vote for this man. Hatred is a tool used in brainwashing to convince individuals and groups to act out violent crimes: Charles Manson's cult committed nine murders; Jim Jones told his group of 900 people to drink poisonous KoolAid and they all died; and Hitler converted an entire peaceful nation into mass murders who slaughtered over six million humans. Then there is Trump - a man who has convinced many in our nation to vote for him while his speeches are filled with detestation, hatred, and violence. He talks of a bloodbath if he is not elected, and January 6th was an example of Hitler incarnate - violence to prevent our democracy from working.
There is a really clear relationship between political hateful speeches and mass murder or other criminal behavior. The words and writings about hatred, murder, violence, etc does not mean a thing unless it is backed up by action. Biden is the ONLY President in recent times to garner investments for crime prevention and intervention strategies. Crime across our country has dropped by 50% under his presidency.
So let's not just talk about unlawfulness, violence, and crime. If we are going to save our democracy, we must choose our leaders more carefully.
Elizabeth From Democracy to Democrazy
www.democrazy2020.org
Thanks Elizabeth, you packed a lot of information into your thoughtful comment here. Appreciate you sharing, and agree that problems in America deeper than the presidency (though Trump's election was certainly a symptom of it).
There is little to discuss. Trump and his followers are the threat we have seen or read reported about. The fact there are people in our current Congress who are trying desperately cloud that reality in their drive for power is disheartening. They already have their foot in the door as we watched play out in the 118th Congress. Look at a list of public and private laws passed over the last 2 decades and it is in the hundreds each session. This session so far has totaled less than 50. This fascist take over has already begun but the public is not listening.
The key question is whether the NYT and the "responsible" media continue their "too old and look, a gaff" assault on Biden or shift to a "too much violence and it's all Democrats." You know, "just asking" front page above the fold newsitorials about identifying authoritarians as authoritarians incites violence.
After all, they have a rubber stamp "Dems in Disarray" Word macro.
Since Trump gets a dementia free pass, (or paragraph 22 of a Biden is old article) why shouldn't Republicans get a free pass for advocating violence.