I can’t say I’m surprised. Choosing Vance was very dumb and it’s the kind of dumb I didn’t expect from Trump whose feral instincts are usually better than this: MILWAUKEE — With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons. The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump. That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in. “Don Jr. and Eric went bats— crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News. “They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said. Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate.
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The editor of the New Yorker wishes that someone would step forward and express the nation’s despair as eloquently as Robert F. Kennedy did after the assassination of Martin Luther King. I don’t know. After all, it was just a few months later that the assassin’s bullet found him. These threats are not quelled with poetic words and I don’t know if our society is even capable of hearing such things right now. I think it’s more important not to forget what brought us here. As Remnick writes: What must be said, contrary to the rhetoric of Vance, Scott, and Abbott, is that Trump has, to say the least, done little to calm or to unify the country he once led and is campaigning to lead again. Unfortunately, it is hard to recall a public voice in living memory who has done more to arouse the lowest passions that so often percolate within individuals and the greater society. Even as one expresses genuine relief that Trump escaped a worse fate on Saturday (and sympathy for the family of the spectator at the rally who was killed), it is legitimate to describe what Trump and his rhetoric have meant to the country.
Tragedy and false equivalence The press is already “both-sidesing” the response to the attempted assassination on Saturday evening. The New Satesman announces “The alarming rise of BlueAnon,” a left-wing counterpart to the QAnon movement. Liberals flooded the web with conspiracy theories about the shooting within minutes, announces the Washington Post, with speculation that the act was staged. (Yep, that occurred to me upon hearing the news too, but I wouldn’t blast the web with it.) Suddenly, there’s BlueAnon? Among “major” leftist influencers? That’s news to me (Washington Post): The shooting threw into overdrive a phenomenon dubbed “BlueAnon” — a play on the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon — that refers to liberal conspiracy theories online. As more Americans lose trust in mainstream institutions and turn to partisan commentators and influencers for information, experts say they are seeing a big uptick in the manufacture and spread of BlueAnon conspiracy theories, a sign that the communal warping of reality is spreading well beyond the right.
According to Brady United 327 people are killed with guns every day in the United States. Over one million have been shot in the last decade. There are more civilian owned firearms than there are people here. America is awash in gun violence and it’s so ubiquitous that we only raise our heads once in a great while when the body count is shockingly high or the victims are particularly vulnerable, like elementary school children. But this weekend we all looked up sharply when a lone sniper shot at Donald Trump and grazed his ear, killed a spectator and wounded two others. These shootings are all horrific but this one was particularly shocking because America’s history of political assassinations is very long and we are living in one of our acute periods of political violence, whether from religious terrorism or unbalanced people who are radicalized on the internet. There have been attempted assassinations and violent threats against members of congress, the judiciary, the media and election officials in recent years and now the current Republican nominee for president, who also happens to be a former president as well.
Senator Mike Lee, ladies and gentlemen: Somebody get him a cigarette. This convention is going to be like one of those ecstatic religious revival meetings. They’ll all be speaking in tongues before it’s over. Let’s not forget President U.S. Grant who commanded the Union Army or the father of our country George Washington. And many, many more. Not one of them had the pampered richie rich life of Donald Trump, even the ones born into money. His hammy fist bumping as he’s hustled off the stage by a phalanx of secret service agents is the exact opposite of “tough.” The whining about finding his shoes is before they did it was much more indicative of his true self.
“My view on this has been very clear. It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It’s whether a child should be allowed to live even though those circumstances of the child’s birth is inconvenient or a problem to the society.” This is absurd! Trump VP Pick JD Vance calls rape an "inconvenience" When asked about not allowing women to have an abortion when they are the victims of rape or incest, his response is disgusting. It's as if he's a character from the Handmaids Tale. “My view on this has been… pic.twitter.com/Fv8nbhfsbI — Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) July 15, 2024 Clearly, Trump has decided to just say “fuck it, I’m going for it.” He thinks he can just bulldoze his way into the White House with little resistance because Biden whiffed in the debate. We’ll see about that. A lot more women than men vote in every election. Even more will vote this time.
Yes, they aren’t explicitly killing their opponents. But I think we all understand what kind of cos play this really is. We don’t know why this gun nut kid tried to kill Donald Trump yesterday. They literally can find nothing that explains his motive, at least so far. So he could just as easily be hearing voices or trying to impress Taylor Swift. We really have no clue. So all the remonstrating over the left allegedly violent tone is premature, at the very least. And if this was some kind of political act, let’s just say that kid who was obsessed with guns was likely more influenced by that garbage above than anything the “woke” trans hippies are doing.
The streets are lined with camera crewsEverywhere he goes is newsToday is differentToday is not the sameToday, I’ll make the actionTake snapshot into the lightSnapshot into the lightI’m shooting into the light – from “Family Snapshot”, by Peter Gabriel In the wake of the horrific 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre, I wrote: “Now is not the time to talk about [insert gun-violence related meme here] .” We’ve heard that before; predictably, we’re hearing it again. But there is something about this mass shooting that screams “Last call for sane discourse and positive action!” on multiple fronts.
Telling the truth is not incitement “I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell,” President Harry Truman once said. The Trumpist right is catching hell over the truth about Project 2025. Vox: Roughly two hours after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) blamed President Joe Biden. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance, the odds-on favorite to be Trump’s vice president, wrote on X formerly known as Twitter). Vance was not alone. Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) wrote that “Joe Biden sent the orders.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote that “Democrats wanted this to happen.” Former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said something similar. So did Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC). All of this happened Saturday night, before we knew a single thing about the shooter’s identity or motive.
Axios declared that Trump became president today. Again. He’s “pivoted” : Uh huh. Earlier today Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case . Yep, she did it. Here’s the Great Uniter’s response: It didn’t even last the morning. The good news is that this will break the short-lived truce that inexplicably forced the Democrats to become punching bags for the wingnuts to accuse them of inciting violence. Fun fact: Cannon was appointed by Trump after the election when Mitch McConnell forced through a bunch of unqualified nominees to the federal bench, a very rare occurrence. It was especially hypocritical considering that he wouldn’t allow Merrick Garland to be confirmed more than 8 months before the election in 2016 saying that it wasn’t proper for an outgoing administration to fill such a seat until the people had spoken. (He did the same with Amy Coney Barrett.) The gravedigger of democracy just threw another pile of dirt on the coffin.