Dammit, wrong thread.
I don’t know but I’m not convinced one way or the other by screenshots of party registration being passed around on Twitter.
That’s not snark, just a statement. I see people claiming the NY Post had confirmed he was a registered Republican but then the actual NYP article doesn’t say anything.
ETA WaPo mentions that he was a registered Republican.
It isn’t proof but it, along with the Demolition Ranch t-shirt, certainly points a bit to the right, politically speaking.
Anyone can buy a t-shirt on the internet.
Now I see guesses that he was mad Trump wasn’t hardcore enough on abortion. Which would track.
So his solution was a post-birth abortion? If you can’t beat 'em, join 'em I guess.
He doesn’t need to make a direct accusation; he has stock rhetorical techniques to do that indirectly, something like:
And some people are saying it was Joe that ordered the shot. That’s what the people are saying. Was it Joe? That’s what all the people are saying.
Biden should respond that if he wanted to kill Trump it would have happened and Trump would not be there to talk about it anymore. The Supreme Court just made it legal for Biden to do so.
Remind Trump that Biden could order his Secret Service detail to kill him…legally. See how much Trump freaks out when he thinks about that.
And he would’ve been immune!
For example, in the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama, which was dramatized in the film Captain Phillips. What wasn’t dramatized was the part where snipers from DEVGRU fired from the rear deck of the USS Bainbridge into the lifeboat that was being towed about 30 yards back. This was in rough waters and at night. Three snipers, three shots, three instant kills. They do not miss.
Courtesy of Twitter;
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? (Revelation 13:2-4)
It’s going to give Trump a short-term boost for sure but the long-term effects are uncertain. It’s likely the Republicans will overplay their hand and make all sorts of wild accusations which won’t help them. Also there are still four months to go and news cycle have become inherently faster. While this shooting will still matter on election day it will not be nearly as large as it appears today.
As for Biden this will probably help him. At the very least it changes the story and breaks the momentum of the effort to remove him which already has stalled a bit after his OKish press conference. He will also look like a judicious statesman which will help him.
It will be harder to attack Trump as a threat to democracy though that is a line of attack which is actually not working that well. Biden’s best hope is to double down on economic populism as his main narrative with abortion as the second line of attack and the shooting may well nudge him in that direction.
I think I am getting the references and point here but I am not sure. Rather me guessing can you make it clear what this quote is about in relation to the attempt to assassinate Trump?
True, it’s no joke and the symptoms can be serious. But the symptoms you list apply to a normal person. Trump is the furthest thing from “normal”. His gigantic ego and narcissism and propensity for denial probably make him immune from any of these symptoms. A normal person shaken after nearly being killed does not do a victory fist-pump afterwards. His acolytes will see it as a sign of “strength”, but it’s not strength any more than Hitler shooting himself was a sign of strength: it was a sign of mental derangement in a power-mad lunatic.
Whatever this event might do to move the political needle, which is probably not much, what it will definitely do in spades is exacerbate Trump’s maniacal quest for vengeance against his perceived enemies once he regains power. Aided by the Supreme Court, this will be a reign of tyranny like no other in American history.
It’s a reference to the Beast (as in the Mark of the) in Revelation, specifically a verse where John describes the people worshipping it after it is healed of a fatal head wound, which Rapture theologists like to use as one of the prophecies that will foretell the coming of the Antichrist.
I.e. the poster was saying, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that Trump fits the Left Behind crowd’s criteria for being the Antichrist.
Ah! I got it was biblical but not the exact reference.
Thanks.
I should clarify that I meant it will help him keep the nomination. Obviously the general election is a whole other story. Incidentally the gun-control angle will also be interesting to watch and could be another opportunity for Biden to strike a statesmanlike pose in the aftermath.
My instinct is that this tips the election to Trump.
I’m not arguing for voters changing their minds, or undecideds breaking toward Trump, or anything like that. For me it’s about motivating the true believers.
Trump’s success has always been about bringing people to the polls who don’t otherwise turn out. Those new voters won him the election in 2016, and in 2020 Trump got more votes than any previous presidential candidate (and lost only because Biden got more still).
Trump’s support has been softening over the last year. There is a permanent core of insane cultists who would throw their own children into pits of broken glass to vote for him, but surrounding that is a penumbra of iffier voters who, according to many polls, have expressed uncertainty about supporting Trump in the wake of the verdicts against him, plus his whiny me-me-me rally messaging. It’s not about the candidate they favor; it’s about whether they bother to vote. Without those maybe-voters, Trump cannot win.
This incident will re-energize the people who previously voted for Trump. That image with the fist and the blood and the flag is just too iconic, too powerful. This is a kick in the ass to previous Trump voters, including those who have been exhausted and discouraged by the endless cycles of unpleasant news (and Trump’s incessant begging for money). This re-solidifies his previous turnout.
… At exactly the same time support and likely turnout for Biden is softening badly. The anti-Trump core will of course be motivated to vote, but just like with Trump’s base, there’s another layer of people who previously voted against Trump who look at the last four years and (rightly or wrongly) don’t see Biden as the “warrior for democracy” they thought they were supporting, and they’ll stay home.
In a tight election like this, it’s not about changing minds. Anyone who argues that it’s silly to believe a failed assassination will turn a Biden voter into a Trump voter is missing the point. Of course that’s silly. It’s entirely about who shows up on the day.
And my feeling is that this will do a lot to pull Trump’s previous voters back to the polls, while Biden enjoys no such corresponding benefit (and indeed is weak on this aspect), and it’s that which will make the difference.
Postscript: The above is, of course, debatable, and like I said, it’s just my instinct. What I’m more confident about is that the next few months are going to become really ugly and violent and bloody. I would say I’m very happy to be an expat, except I literally just sent my kids on a flight to visit their grandparents in the US for the summer, and I’m feeling a nasty knot of fear for their safety. America has been spiraling the drain as a western democracy for a while, but this is a dramatic escalation and acceleration. I won’t relax until my kids are back here in Europe.
I think that is the unanswerable question.
There are threads here discussing Biden’s apparent “slowness” and Trump gets a bump as a strong guy who survived an assassination attempt.
The Biden camp has a bigger problem now.
My earlier supposition is that the main thing this event will energize is Trump’s hateful vindictiveness once he gains power. Anyone who in his view has ever tried to cross him – judges, prosecutors, journalists – will be put in the same bucket as his would-be assassin and will be targets of potentially unprecedent persecution, protected by the recent SCOTUS immunity ruling.
I’m skeptical that it will move the needle very much on poll standings, but I agree that it may increase turnout in Trump’s favour, and if it does change the standings, that’s more likely to be in Trump’s favour, too. It’s ridiculous, but voters aren’t driven by logic. Those morons chanting “USA! USA!” as Trump was being led off the stage are incapable of understanding the deep irony of chanting support for the only industrialized country in the world where the sort of thing they just witnessed could happen, and routinely happens. They may as well be chanting “we love gun violence!”.
Og help me, I laughed.