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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   3335 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What have your personal public conversations about the Trump shooting looked like?

I feel like everyone around me has barely mentioned it outside immediate family and friends. It's like everyone just backed off, left wingers and right wingers are giving fewer zingers. The closest I've gotten to having a real conversation about it was at a gun store, explaining why I wanted something in stock with a reference to "you know, everything going on..." Which he nodded to acknowledge and said something like yeah it's crazy.

The general sentiment among my mostly PMC liberal friends is "you have to admit that photo is fucking sick, right?" Lots of expressing grudging respect for Trump's personal courage.

My coworkers have been absolutely gushing over it. Discussing the coverage, acting astonished at how it happened, etc.

One of them went and bought an AR “before prices go up.” Not that he hadn’t been thinking about it anyway. But we chat about shooting, so we talked over the details here, too.

It’s amazing how many of them have suddenly become security professionals, especially regarding drones.

One of them went and bought an AR “before prices go up.” Not that he hadn’t been thinking about it anyway. But we chat about shooting, so we talked over the details here, too.

Do we work together? I'd been lollygagging on that purchase for years and finally pulled the trigger.

I suppose it's always possible, but if we had the same line of work, I suspect it would have come up by now.

I guess you meant Americans? For me, it was like "Have you heard there was assasination attempt on Trump? - Yes" and that's all

I was with friends when it happened and someone got an alert on the phone when it did. It had a kind of meme vibe to it. It was like “Trump survived and assassination attempt, brief looking at the news followed by — so anyway — and back to previous conversations.” 2024 is already so weird, we all just seem to roll with whatever happens at this point. I used to have bingo cards as a joke, next year I’m making an actual bingo card.

I talked with my boss at work about it. We work at a non profit that does libertarian policy, so it's not strange to talk politics. Both out feelings were "holy shit we just narrowly dodged a civil war".

Among neighborhood dads group which is very politically mixed, it was a somewhat similar and very sober tone. We quickly started using humor to cope. None of us with little kids want a civil war to kick off.

Some combination of people acknowledging "well that almost happened..." in hushed tones while a few disappointed leftists go "how fucking lucky is this guy?!" and wish the shooter had succeeded or cope by claiming it was staged.

A few general condemnations of political violence. One "this is the dems' fault for calling trump a fascist", which mentioning the guy's apparent conservatism and google searches about the time of dem events didn't really help dispel. One "I wish he'd gone for Biden and it landed, then we'd have a better candidate!"

One "I wish he'd gone for Biden and it landed, then we'd have a better candidate!"

We got another candidate!

My favorite reply from a relative: “this is the first time I wish Trump leaned further right”. Comedy knows no political aisle

That's actually pretty funny.

My girlfriend's immediate response was "it was staged" and refusing to elaborate further. Likewise a lefty friend of mine.

My wife as well, which is interesting as she has almost no views on US politics, though she is probably influenced by mainstream media's Never Trump bias (and obviously just hearing words that come out of his mouth sometimes). Other than that a friend back home messaging me that he knew it would happen (though actually he had said "they" will assassinate him if he is elected.) Mostly I've not interacted face to face with any Americans since the shooting for various reasons.

Mostly I've not interacted face to face with any Americans since the shooting for various reasons.

Is there any demand for decorative European garden hermits in your neighborhood? Because right now that job sounds a lot more appealing than being in the US.

A far amount of my colleagues-turned-friends over the past decade are former military. Many joined post 9/11 not out of lofty ideals of "duty" but very visceral feelings of "let's fucking murder terrorists." In a sentence, these are guys who are permanent George W. Bush supporters. To that end, many are a little light on Trump because they see him as a blowhard and kind of jackass. They've voted for him twice but aren't MAGA.

The timber of those conversations changed pretty drastically after the assassination attempt. It's the exact same vein as 9/11 - "they" (whoever that is) came for our guy. Even if we weren't totally in love with him (much like a lot of these dudes have never and will never go to Manhattan) he's still our guy. So, fuck you, unnamed "they"!

I have a lefty Coworker, and the only way I could get him to give up the Teleprompter glass cut hypothesis was showing him multiple pictures of the Teleprompters not being broken on an article on Snopes about same.

Whereupon he fell back to the blood pellet or palmed razor cut theory.

I was confused at what the point of these theories even was. What, if he'd been shot at and the bullet missed by a foot and only managed to wound him with shrapnel, that would suggest that the security was basically fine or the attempt wasn't a big deal? As a point of curiosity, I get it, but I don't understand how the motivated reasoning for the teleprompter theory got to whirring.

If he was hit by glass, then that leaves open the possibility that it was staged. No one would ever stage being shot in the ear at long distance.

As opposed to staging getting hit by a glass projectile in the ear at short distance?

I think they know that “Trump was shot and survived” makes him seem much more badass than the alternative “Trump was hit by flying glass when one of his supporters was shot and killed.” The former puts him in the same league as Teddy Roosevelt and Andrew Jackson and has the potential to make him much more popular.

I think you're exactly right about the underlying motivation. But, as Walterdim's post makes clear, reframing "flying glass" to 'shrapnel" is so trivial that a lot of people are going to do it without even thinking. And if "flying glass" sounds less badass than "bullet", "shrapnel" is arguably even more badass.

This theory would require that the shooter was in on it and was directed to just shoot into the crowd rather than aiming at Trump.

Of course, we do have that photo of the bullet in flight before it hit Trump. One could argue the shooter was aiming near Trump, but why risk accidentally killing him? There's definitely no way anyone could have imagined that photo beforehand.

And why would the shooter follow directions on a suicide mission?

It really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

It's a very similar vibe to when a rival sports team gets a great young player.

I suppose Donald Trump is sort of the Joe Burrow of the Republican Party.

A running bit among my friends and I when we go to trivia is joke team names based on dark humor of whatever the week's event was. We tossed a few around for fun, but decided they were all too classless to actually use. That's not terribly uncommon for us, we've previously discussed joke names like, "Merry ChristHamas" with the whole bit being maximally inappropriate naming, but we only put them down if they don't seem like they would cause sincere offense from a reasonable person. This wasn't actually a conversation about the event, but it perhaps provides a little bit of a view on whether it's a topic that's just so completely off limits that no one would make a crack about it. This is a group that's pretty normie left, but knows that I'm... well, not that.

So what are examples of names/events that MADE the cut? So we can place Trump in the hierarchy.

We cleared Houthis Blowing Up Fish after one of their attacks (more fun when said aloud with the same cadence as Hootie and the Blowfish). Biden Debate Prep Team also made its way through, which is probably a little spicier than it sounds in a city where most people were distraught by the outcome. So, more serious than Houthi piracy and Biden appearing senile, roughly on par with 10/7-adjacent joking.

Perfect triangulation points.

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