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Man who isn't President doesn't die. Is this what passes for Things Happening these days?
I think there's some measure of trolling in spirit here, but maybe some real insight too, just hiding. I see the argument, history not changing, no matter how fine the margin, is still history not changing. Trump got a pic that's getting him 100 million votes (re. my now-Over @ 105), but how's that +15MM votes and ~+3 states won (I'd take the over on 42.5) going to change his presidency vs one where he wins by a lesser margin? If a conspirator comes forward and says the attempt was orchestrated through USSS, Trump would have historic mandate, but that's a discussively comical magnitude of "if", and ifs aren't happenings.
It also makes me think of the other, other "great historic" picture of Trump: on the DMZ with Un.
In a different timeline this might have been a picture historically comparable to those of Nixon with Mao, and with Deng. But as good as the pic is, Trump left office, Nork's back to belligerent insularity, nothing happened. I wonder if I caught some psychic headwinds, I've been playing Dishonored (no kill total ghost ofc) the last couple days, and as I was walking yesterday around noon I fell down a Wiki hole reading about Korea's tumultuous more-than-20th century. Assassinations, coups and cults. Korea marched on, it's a tech, cultural and athletic powerhouse. One of their recent presidents was impeached, tried, sentenced to prison in 2018 and pardoned and released in 2021. Is that a happening? I don't know, how much did Korea change? The first woman in East Asia to be popularly elected as head of state, ending in scandal and prison, and how many people outside of Korea know? Not many, doesn't seem like Korea even felt the bump. So was it really a non-happening?
I'm not being coy. If "happenings" require a moment where a country is on the fulcrum and a decisive action forces the lever, maybe they are rare. (I'll use "moment" from here forward because "happening" is too slangy.) Was JFK's assassination such a moment? If it was federal actors, could you really say their moment was killing a President? They had to get to that point. So was it the conspiracy? But that doesn't come ex nihilo, they had to know they could conspire, so was the moment when the federal government changed so actors within could foment ideas of killing an adversarial Executive? Well when did those conditions arise? FDR? Where did that tyranny originate? Was he a communist? For the sake of this point and this point alone assume he was. So when was the moment? His swearing-in? Or was it being shown it could work, so the October Revolution? But was that a moment, or was it the long consequence of the Communist Manifesto and Marx? Well what was the moment in Marx's life? And what precipitated that moment?
"Nothing ever happens" is interesting to me, but even not reduced as I've done, so saying yes, JFK's assassination was a moment, the October Revolution was a moment, it's interesting to me because it's still necessarily a very holistic reading of history. In that there is a sensibility; holistically, Obama's election wasn't a moment, so many moments preceded and produced the America of 2008 and he was in the right place at the right time. Trump likewise, so many decisions were made and moments happened before he ever ran, before he was the nominee and the victor. Holistically these are really the long outcomes of the thoughts and actions resultant from the psychic ebbs and flows of the masses and any particular moment, even a very loud one, might be nothing, and it's not until much later that we know. Yeah, right now we don't know. We can't know. I like the zen of "Nothing happens until it does." There might be wisdom in it, "Don't rush to history."
Tom Crooks rushed to history. He grazed Trump, killed a supporter, died after catching a bullet or several to the head, and nothing happened. Maybe.
That's only part of the equation, though. The electoral consequences don't matter that much, but the ballot box isn't the only box in play here - Crooks used the cartridge box, and people notice that. It remains to be seen how that's going to play out in the dance of lawfare and lunatics, but it's not ideal.
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To the extent that history is just a series of interesting photographs (or, I should say, a series of photographs that 105IQ historians think are interesting enough to command the attention of what they think average people are), sure, this is history. A hundred years from now, bored teenagers will read about it on the 22nd century equivalent of cracked.com. Because they certainly won't read about Trump's meagre achievements. The people of the future will write history, not us. And chances are, they'll value very different things to us. "Making history" is what - putting on a performance, a show, for the benefit of alien, unborn observers.
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Former President running for a second term gets shot in the head and survives.
When former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated, it was front page news everywhere, and he hadn't held the office for years.
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He was shot in the head, and lived.
I would say that in common conversation the similarly common phrase "grazed by a bullet" is equally as concise and far more accurate.
Sure, but in response to, "Man who isn't President doesn't die," a phrase that was as true today as it was yesterday as it will be tomorrow, how else can I respond except with technically correct maximalism?
The fact that anyone was shooting at him at all is news in its own right. The fact that but a twitch and a cross breeze his head would be pulp in Pennsylvania is another thing altogether.
Grazed by bullet at least admits he was shot at, but the Once and Future President was shot at by some CIA wind-up toy. That deserves something more.
Something like,
He was shot in the head, and lived.
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I suppose the ear is the head, but it still seems misleading.
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose.
Head shoulders knees and toes.
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Obviously yes. By far the leading candidate for president was almost shot through the head
What does it take to impress you compared to this wild news?
Things actually happening, not Things Almost Happening.
Oh, I'll add, I think the person in the crowd who actually died is news. One person dying is more important than DJT having his picture taken.
This reasoning didn't work for Sideshow Bob either.
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You don't get half a point for almost scoring, amirite?
Except in horseshoes.
(and hand grenades, as the saying goes)
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A bullet went through his ear. Donald Trump was an inch away from being shot in the face on live tv.
Looking at pics of his ear I suspect it was glass or some other fragment. There's hardly any actual tissue damage.
The teleprompters were intact after the shot. This theory doesn't hold, unless you have evidence for some other source of broken glass?
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The flying bullet has been captured in a picture just before it hit trump.
I think that photo captured the first shot, which missed Trump, just after it passed behind his head. Trump also said he heard a whizzing sound right before he was hit. It may have been his reaction to that first miss which saved him from a clean head shot on the second attempt.
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Just after, actually, assuming it's the picture where the bullet is on the right side of the picture.
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The glass fragment from a teleprompter is the stupidest cope I have ever seen. What angle of shot has glass flying PERPENDICULAR from the OTHER side. Trump faces the camera, a teleprompter is there, the shot comes from the right and everyone turns to the right. Please tell me what magic teleprompter in front of Trump can be shot so that the direction of shot comes from that other side.
Stop repeating the desperate cope of dangerhairs trying to downplay this. It was an assassination attempt, a bullet clipped his ear. This theory doesn't pass the smell test or reality test and anyone repeating it has their baseline credibility lowered in turn.
In the early hours it wasn't that crazy as it's not uncommon for some addresses to be made behind various glass screens, and the blood pattern made it look like it could have been a glass fragment, but since then as it's I think clear he wasn't meaningfully surrounded by such protection it's dumb to still repeat such if you've been updated or looked more closely. I think it's now clear the blood was actually from dripping down his face while on the ground rather than a spray from shrapnel.
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I've already encountered 'It's a false flag so Trump gets elected in a commie plot to bring the revolution' in the wild.
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Have you seen the 'Trump has friends in Hollywood, this was all faked via special effects to boost his popularity' takes yet?
I've seen 'its all AI', which is automatically false because there aren't photos of trump with a billion plastic bottles turned into rocketships by african kids yet.
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There isn't much tissue damage because it missed
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Trump posted to Truth claiming it was a bullet wound. Watching the video it seems the most likely explanation—reaching for his ear is the first thing he does, only gunfire can be heard over general din, and I don't see how glass could have reached him in the middle of the huge platform.
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Looks to me like a through-and-through with a small caliber round on the upper part of the right ear near his skull.
It looks like thetes damage to both the front and back of the top of his ear (swear I used to know the words for the bits...)
If it's a bullet wound, it's one for the history books.
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Don't tell me about things that almost happened.
Things that really happened include "culture war temperature just spiked". That's an update regarding P(Boogaloo) and the related P(WWIII).
How is it an update regarding P(WW3)? It’s very unlikely to have been a state actor, that’s not how they would approach this kind of thing.
Oh, I'm not suggesting a state actor had Trump shot. The issue's that, as I said, P(Boogaloo) and more generally P(chaos in USA) is related to P(WWIII), because the USA is load-bearing in the world order.
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America goes up. Pax Americana can't be maintained while America is busy committing messy suicide. All over the world, people make their moves.
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What a bizarre comment.
Saturday night comments are more likely to be drunk trolling. Totally not speaking from experience of course.
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You're joking, right?
No. This is drama, not things happening.
The real joke is this stupid fucking discourse. Trump got a "cool" photo taken. That's news? Could give him a boost in the polls. That's not news, that's conventional wisdom, repeated. Republicans are already complaining about Biden's "bullseye" comment. Already, this non event is just more discourse fodder.
I honestly think there's nothing to discuss or learn here. Of course, it's also fun to say Nothing Ever Happens.
You may be seriously underestimating. Only from the most literal-minded, nothing-unless-quantifiable perspective is this a non-event. A former president and current presidential contender came within inches of having his head blown apart on live television. (If he had been killed in such a macabre display, presumably that would have been "something happening" in your view?)
To be sure, what you suggest about how it will all become, and is already becoming "discourse fodder" is true. That doesn't take away from the historical nature of the event. Presumably you acknowledge there are a lot of unanswered questions?
Yes, if Trump had died, that would have mattered. Not in of itself, but because someone else would be the next President and presumably do things differently. But he didn't! He's not seriously hurt. He might get a cool scar out of it.
Assassination attempts aren't unusual. If anything the lack of serious attempts to kill DJT is unusual.
I don't think this event is historical. It will at best become a piece of trivia.
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We've found the one person on the planet who doesn't have an opinion on Donald Trump.
I do have an opinion on DJT and this assassination, but I don't want to share it - it's counter to consensus reality. You would probably just disparage it. And, like the ending of Game of Thrones, having an opinion on it doesn't make it important!
I'd like to say that just because you have a contrary opinion does not make it more probable that it is true, and that a universal confused/derisive reaction to the shape of your non-pinion should probably incite some self-reflection on your own take on things.
Do you know what an opinion is?
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You've been posting on and off about how unimportant this is for 3 hours and haven't been deterred by the uniformly disparaging responses you've been getting. Why not just share your opinion?
What else should I do? It's Sunday afternoon, I'm bored and slightly depressed. This is light entertainment and stimulation, like playing a video game. That's why you're here, that's why everyone's here. Why is it that people need to know, now, exactly who fired the shot? If you really wanted to know... Wait 72 hours and you'll find out. Instead people are scouring photographs and speculating online. Because it's entertainment! How many people went to CNN to get mad about them using the wrong words to describe this non event? Because the event and the reaction and the discourse are entertainment - they wanted to feel mad, not to get information.
Why share my opinion? I've opened on Trump before, it makes no difference. I'm just adding to a mountain of shit.
Well, stop it.
This place is literally for sharing opinions, and posting repeatedly "This is unimportant" and "I have an opinion but I won't discuss it" has now become obnoxious. If you have something to say, say it. If you don't, then go play video games.
Right, clearly this place is now for consensus building and pushing people to have the same opinion and agree. If you think it's wrong of me to think, say, that Trump is ugly, then fine, I'll fuck off, because you're not going to debate me into thinking otherwise. And quite frankly a mod should have better sense than to operate as an enforcer of public opinion.
My opinion on Trump is that opinions on Trump don't fucking matter. When I don't vote in the US, does it actually matter if I find him to be likable? My opinion is that this event doesn't matter, beyond the sad death of two people and perhaps the increase in security at Trump events in the future. Those are legitimate opinions to hold, you just don't like them because it goes against the consensus here.
No one is telling you you can't say Trump is ugly. I'm telling you not to drop contentless-posts and troll. If you want to argue that an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate is literally a Nothing, then go ahead and argue that, but just posting over and over that it doesn't matter and everyone who thinks it matters is dumb and It's All So Tiresome is not contributing anything to the discussion. No one cares about your personal ennui.
I really wish I had a dollar for every time we hear this whine.
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Surprise, surprise: Trump is a fat, ugly, crude slug of a man, crooked, has terrible policies even from the perspective of the Right.
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Oh he's got an opinion all right. First (ex)president since Reagan wounded in an assassination attempt, but it's somehow a nothing-burger.
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A very strange troll?
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