This is going to be a sort of combo post covering two issues that have come up. The first is obviously the assassination attempt on former President (and current candidate) Trump. The second is the thought/idea that both candidates are “disastrous” choices and either will harm the country irreparably. The TL/DR for this post: 1) Had the assassination attempt succeeded we all would be in a world of hurt right now. More than you can possibly imagine. 2) No, the candidate choices are not both disastrous for the country. Only the choice of Biden or any other Dem candidate will be disastrous at this point. You have an obligation to pay attention whether you like it or not.
Let’s look at the assassination attempt and some of the responses to it along with likely scenarios should it have been successful. Assassinations of national leaders, or even candidates, or local leaders (Mexican cartels kill off a lot of mayors in order to maintain control of particular towns) creates a leadership vacuum. And as we all learned in science classes, nature abhors a vacuum. Somebody will step in and it likely will not be who you want nor expect. Assassinations are designed to create chaos and imbalance and provide an opening for a “savior” to come in and restore order out of the chaos. Problem is that order is usually harsh, extra-legal (outside the normal legal system), and rarely, if ever, retreats.
If Trump had been killed on Saturday, there would have been much rejoicing on the left, as disgusting people tend to celebrate death. And, no I’m not exaggerating. Just go look at all the horrific comments people made on X. These people are thoughtless drones with evil intentions. Yes, evil. A man did die on Saturday, and he died because he literally took a bullet for his wife and daughter. Think about that for a minute.
If Trump had been killed, this country would have exploded. Is that what you’re hoping for? What do you think will be the result of something like that? Corey Comparatore not only took a bullet for his wife and daughter, he took it for all of us. We all owe this man and his family big time.
There’s been a lot of chatter around the fact that the assassin was a registered Republican and therefore it’s reasonable to assume the assassination attempt was staged, or somehow shows that not even Republicans like Trump. These so-called conclusions are complete bullshit. First of all, in states without an open primary (like PA) it is common for people to register as the other party in order to try to manipulate the primary outcome and then switch back to vote for their actual party’s candidate. What’s telling about this assassin is that he donated to ActBlue, a Democrat political action committee (PAC). Tell me again about the shooter being a Republican?
The assassin was not functioning in a vacuum. He was not a “lone wolf” acting out of his own hallucinations. He was encouraged by all the comments over the last four years and ramping up over the last few months that Trump needed to go. Joe Biden even said on Saturday morning, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.” Other Democrats along with CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other media outlets have argued since 2016 that Trump poses an existential threat to democracy, that he’s a fascist, that even if he isn’t all that, he’s a man with poor character and a bad human being (never mind that everything they smeared him with in 2020 and earlier has turned out to be manufactured hoaxes). Do you seriously think that with all that floating around, some deranged individual wouldn’t, in the (paraphrased) words of Henry II (corrected), want to rid us of this meddlesome man? Also, please point me to actions of Trump’s that are actually fascist in their nature. As always, I’ll wait.
To the people objecting that Biden didn’t mean literally putting Trump in a bullseye, let me ask you… did you believe that Sarah Palin literally put a target on Gabby Giffords by using a bullseye to mark the Congressional races to look out for? Because if you make the argument that remarks or brochures made by a prominent Republican led to the attempt on Giffords’ life, why are you not making that same argument with regard to Biden’s and others remarks regarding the need to “get rid of” Trump? I’ll wait while you try to come to terms with your hypocrisy.
Make no mistake about it – we’d be living in a very different world right now had the assassin been successful on Saturday.
Let’s move on to the “both candidates will be disastrous for the country” argument. I think it’s clear why another four years of Biden would be disastrous. Go look up the numbers for inflation, job loss (remember, the majority of those jobs that Joe hyped are nothing more than recovery from the COVID shut down. Those are NOT new jobs. A good economy creates NEW jobs, it doesn’t just recover previous jobs). Biden has dementia, his staff (including his “loving” wife) pumps him up on all kinds of drugs before he’s allowed out in public. The debate showed more clearly than ever to the entire country his inability to function properly. This country will truly become a banana republic if the Biden cabal is allowed to run things for another four years. The likelihood of recovering from that is slim to none.
So, Trump. Why would he be disastrous? Please tell me. Oh, right Project 2025 which will create the next best thing to a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale,” right? That’s pretty funny. I started reading Project 2025 (FYI, it’s 922 pages). Yeah, yeah, I know, but once a poli sci prof, it scars you for life. Anyhoo… it is nothing more than a series of job descriptions for the staff positions, including Cabinet secretaries, that make up the Executive Office (those offices who report directly to the President) and the qualifications necessary for someone holding one of those positions. It’s also a series of recommendations for reducing government size and government waste. It’s almost the same thing that has been put out for decades by different groups. Including, I might add, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Remember that picture of them standing on the White House lawn surrounded by towers of paper? They were doing a photo op to support the Reinventing Government project.
From Wikipedia: “The National Partnership for Reinventing Government was a U.S. government reform initiative launched in 1993 by Vice President Al Gore. Its goal was to make the federal government “work better, cost less, and get results Americans care about”. The initiative aimed to streamline processes, cut bureaucracy, and implement innovative solutions.”
Project 2025 reads almost the same. In addition, Project 2025 is a 922-page doorstop published by The Heritage Foundation (I know, their address is the ninth circle of Hell), and not official policy. Again, you’re fine with Democratic presidents taking on the recommendations of whatever liberal think tank, but if a Republican president looks at recs from a conservative think tank we’re absolutely headed for some dystopian future? Why is that, aside from your knee-jerk hatred of anything that questions policies you supposedly like?
If your argument against Trump is that his administration is bad for minorities, ask yourself why so many minority voters are supporting him? And why are so many minority voters abandoning Biden? Could it be that these individuals are cognizant of policies that are actively harming them? Could it be they are tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic Party? Could it be they are tired of losing agency to the Democratic Party? Tired of being treated like children? Why do Democrats hate conservative black politicians so much?
I’ve rambled enough. Do yourself a favor and look at news sources other than CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, or The New York Times. I urge you to check out sites such as Real Clear Politics which will give you a variety of sources, some of which will conflict with the world view you’ve curated.
I know a lot of people don’t like thinking about politics, especially when politics becomes bad enough to interfere with everyday life. Unfortunately, we’ve been cursed to live in interesting times and sticking your head in the sand and despairing of all your choices without looking further, is no longer an option. I know where you’re coming from, but from where I stand, the Democrats have created a government that is much more intrusive into our private lives and that’s something I really don’t want more of.
For the next few years we ALL have to pay attention, close attention, to those whom we elect to office. We have an obligation and we’ve been avoiding it in the last several decades.
It’s time to step up and take on our obligations as citizens.
We live off and make decisions based on sound bites. And then we adhere – without reflection – to these decisions.
On another post a person was supporting extremism – because his extremist beliefs were ok. Apparently my moderate beliefs qualified him to label me as racist and homophobe.
The art of dialogue and compromise has been lost, I believe, on both sides.
My fear about having Biden win is exactly what you stated; some secretive group will be running the country as a puppet master for Biden.
My fear about Trump is he is so polarizing. Hopefully this tragedy will have him reflect and reach across the isle, pulling the left and the right together.
Hopefully optimistic.
It’s not Trump who is polarizing.
It’s the democrats. They’re the ones who have been doing all of it.
I keep wondering what secretive group *has* been running the county these last 3.5 years.
I believe it was divine intervention that saved us on Saturday from a terrible calamity. If Trump had been assassinated I think all the safeties would have been released and we’d be in a shooting war where no one would be safe, certainly not any politician on either side.
I concur.
Trump was not polarizing, he was, maybe is, basically a moderate to center Democrat of thirty or forty years ago.
The polarization is modern Democrats, so oriented now to immediate Party Truth that they cannot communicate with, or persuade, people who do not think in a Party Truth way.
The Democrats lost their minds because HRC was the king feminist, and lost to someone ‘unclean’ by virtue of not being current Inner Party. Feminists have for decades been the cult of getting the king feminist’s ambitions officially rubberstamped.
Obama beat HRC, but was inner party. She was mad, but willing to accept that loss. But, on the way, Trump sucked up to her by repeating some anti-Obama messaging on her behalf. Obama was petty and vindictive, and later needled Trump about it. Trump had a grudge, and sought revenge.
Republicans have had decades to poison the public against Hillary, with rumors, because she is a very transparent political actor, and we knew she would try again. Trump ran against her as revenge.
The Democrats had less than two years to poison the public against Trump, and could not catch up.
She screwed up. She lost. She could not cope with losing, and took the Democrats insane with her. (Maybe they were already insane, but presenting as sane.) So by the 2018 election, the Democrats were doing things that were normally understood as too extreme for partisan political ends. State elections in off cycles are /not/ usually about the President. ‘But Trump’ is an excuse for tactical abnormalities, not the real cause of those abnormalities.
If the Democrats in 2020 had been a bit less extreme in 2020 about trying to be rid of Trump, they would be pretty much done with him now.
As is, political capital is spent. For what end?
My suspicion that current Democrats have catastrophically misread Republican voters, catastrophically failed to understand how to persuade Republican voters, and have catastrophically failed at this point by way of a) not convincing us that Trump is very unusual compared to Clinton, Obama, and Biden b) not convincing us that their chances in tactics are appropriate to Trump’s degree of unusual.
Effectively abandoning persuasion, and accidentally picking force alone is only not a mistake if the people who are dissenters to your views, and who are alien to your views are very very few.
I don’t recognize that quotation from Elizabeth I, but it sounds a lot like the question asked by Henry II about Becket: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
A minor correction, with apologies. It was not Queen Elizabeth I who talked about the meddlesome man, but Henry II talking about Beckett the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Yeah, I realized that after I posted but my point was the idea behind the quote.