I agree that it’s far from guaranteed that Trump wins the election, but what happened yesterday could only help and not hurt him. And he was already polling pretty strongly pre-shooting. So maybe this bumps his winning chances up from 60% to 65% or something.
With the GOP convention about to start up I doubt it will be possible to measure an increase in his support separate from the typical “convention bounce”. I also expect the rhetoric at said event to be a full on spewing of hate toward Democrats and President Biden. More than normal because of this happening. I doubt that will appeal to anyone other than the MAGAts. In fact it will likely turn off a decent portion of independents.
I have a similar fear but hope that sanity will prevail.
It’s a nice thought but sanity seems to be in ever-dwindlilng supply the last few years.
Depends which models you follow, but several already had it roughly at 75% currently. Silver-less 538 running 50 50 but others … not.
Probably not going to get much worse than that. @Crane had supposed that this might have Trump overplay the hand and backfire, and could be.
Has Trump given any live comments yet?
Nice thoughts are all I have to hang on to at the moment.
But I agree with your sentiment about the dearth of sanity.
I honestly wonder how this very near death experience will impact Trump. As has been noted, he’s not a normal person.
With his messiah complex he may more completely buy into that God is protecting him as Chosen One, and become even more delusional. Or the brush with death could have him re-evaluating what the hell he has signed into. This is a man who dodged military service and considers those who put their lives at risk as chumps after all.
Discussion of motivation of this incident. Mods, please create a new thread if you deem it appropriate.
In the US, this is the case. In Europe, political is more common than crazy. So we can’t rule out political.
Note that Trump sent out an email saying there was going to be a huge announcement yesterday, with the usual incendiary rhetoric. So it sounded like he was promising (ha!) a VP announcement. There’s a section of the far-right that wants Flynn slotted in as VP and needless to say they are nuts. But they have representation among the convention delegates, and members in PA, according to Seth Abramson. As I stated upthread, the FBI agents searching the accused’s living quarters need to keep an open mind. When the crazy get organized, it’s political.
I know MIchael Crichton is almost as far from a credible source as can be, but I recall one of his books mentioning the psychology that narcissists often suffer less PTSD than average people because they aren’t as prone to the same self-reflection after a crisis that a normal person would.
Trump may think he’s invincible and consider the missed shot to be proof of that - that, even if he doesn’t believe in God, that somehow the powers that be are shielding him from harm and so he might not fear being in public again for a speech the way an average person would.
(Edit, nvm, I think I misquoted what Crichton was saying. But still, it may be true.)
I’m going with that. He is too much of a narcissist to back-off. This will be proof to him that he is awesome. Captain Bone Spurs can now tell a war story. He’s bled for this country now.
Moderating:
This is the thread for discussion that falls outside of what are factual updates about what happened.
If you want a more narrow focused thread, please feel free to start one.
And he has a chunk of voters who do see him in Christ-like terms. But he becomes so delusional as to begin to express a self-belief of that in other than code? What impact would that have?
As I’ve said elsewhere, IMHO he will experience PTSD reactions and will be in complete denial about them-- about what they are and what they mean. He will continue to bluff and bluster outwardly, but what little internal framework he has will ultimately crumble. The man has no core values except his own imagined superiority. He has nothing to fall back on-- no philosophy, faith, behavioral guidelines, principles, ethics, moral code, no personal or family loyalty-- he is an empty, hollow shell. This brush with death will cause him to experience the utter paucity of his internal life. Although he won’t understand what he is experiencing-- it will just feel like terror, standing on a bed of marbles on a moving surface in a storm. He sure as hell won’t “re-evaluate” anything, at least not in any meaningful way. I’m curious and interested in watching him fall apart in real time.
You give Trump too much credit.
I think this will feed into his narcissism.
The man has never been reflective in his life. He has no internal monologue. He simply has no capacity to reflect on this.
I have no doubt he is inherently a coward. Deeply so. And he cannot perceive that in his self image.
This will only embolden him IMO.
Burchett was flanked by two rifles on Sunday while he spoke to Fox News about the shooting of the former president.
Burchett also said Democrats had been “spewing this vitriol.”
“I mean, comparing Trump to Hitler, just the all of it, it’s, it’s just, it is a manifestation of what they brought upon us,” he insisted. “It is not the Republicans’ fault.”
Of course it isn’t! The inherit and blatant threats that Republicans make by brandishing firearms are just in our imagination!
It did not seem to move the poll needle much, and in fact 538 has shown Biden improving. The newer Joe is energized.And now- that idea has dropped off the headlines.
and a gun nut of the first order.
Absolutely. But not everyone gets it- I got shot at- no PTSD i could detect. My Dad got shot at a lot during WW2- no PTSD I saw.
Trump and his father were active supporters of Norman Vincent Peals’ Christian ministry. What is relative to this situation is that reality in Peals’ Christianity is what you imagine it to be. You can create reality by always acting on the world as you wish it to be. That is Trumps’ behavioral guideline. It’s worked well for him so far. A euphoric messiah is likely.
Damn I’m good. Or they’re incredible predicable.
Like many I watched last night thinking ‘this doesn’t seem real.’ It was all a little too perfect: the candidate, not hurt much but with blood on him; the shooter immediately dead.
I kept hearing Angela Lansbury’s voice:
Do I think Donald Trump would agree to any plan that could mean the slightest chance of him getting hurt? NO. NEVER.
Do I think that people around Trump would set up a plan that would leave him only slightly hurt, but with a new narrative, complete with heroic images, sufficient to inspire less-dedicated voters to get out there and sweep Trump into the White House with the biggest landslide in American history? Well…yes.
We need an investigation. We need it to be thorough and comprehensive. We need to know who the shooter has been in contact with in recent days and weeks. We need to know why and how an easily-manipulated 20-year-old was able to get on a rooftop within firing range of a rally podium. We need to know what ammunition was in his gun, and the angle of every projectile that hit the murdered man, the gravely-injured, and anything else on that stage (whether Trump’s ear or the teleprompter).
Am I saying that Trump’s handlers would have been happy to have Trump seriously wounded or even killed? Well–the former, possibly. He could still be ushered into power, with his inner circle getting even greater power than if Trump were fully healthy.
The latter: no. That’s why I’m curious about the ammunition and the angles. Did the kid have a real chance of hitting Trump with deadly force?
I’ll concede that the whole thing might be what it appears to be: a lone wolf who simply got lucky by encountering epically lazy-or-incompetent security at a rally. But I remain gob-smacked by how lazy-or-incompetent they were. We desperately need a full investigation to rule out other possibilities.
If this is something other than chance–if Trump’s inner circle had something to do with it–would be a gamble for them. But making it all but certain Trump would win in November might make the gamble worthwhile.
We really need to know how it was that the kid could climb up on that roof and stay there long enough to shoot. Could that really have happened by chance?
Maybe. But a big part of his luck may be that powerful people want him in the White House again.
Movie quote: