This will radicalize MAGA even more - as if that were even possible. I don’t know what it will do to the election. I think Biden was in trouble regardless, after his awful debate.
What we will see though, if Trump is elected, is more political prosecutions. Trump was already of the mindset to go after his enemies. This will make it even worse.
The Left in America is in for a rough 4 years, if not longer. Project 2025 is coming. A vindictive Trump is coming. SCOTUS is stacked against the basic rule of law. And this shooting just reinforces all of that. Right-Wing America will be enraged, and I personally think there will be areas of this country where being anti-Trump is not safe. I can tell you where I live, it’s Trump country, and this will just make it even moreso.
Reflecting on another July assassination plot 79 years ago, megalomaniacs tend to find survival as both vindication and energizing of their worst instincts.
The perpetrator(s) may well have calculated that this target would more readily set off the desired civil war than would one on the Left.
If so, an alternate explanation is that Democratic Party officials are torn between the political science evidence that negative campaigning fails, and the perceived need to energize campaign contributors who believe in it.
Another explanation is possible from a different kind of research: Republicans need to energize the base because they have a low turnout problem in recent cycles. This is even an explanation for Trumpism. In the Bush era, Republicans needed to avoid panicking the Democrats, for fear they would actually vote. Now the Republicans need to rile up their lazier base.
Here’s one way this could slightly help the Biden campaign. The Secret Service is going to push hard against big candidate appearance events, especially outdoor. This will lessen the chances of Biden exhausting himself. Fewer events, fewer gaffes. Also, Biden’s brand makes it possible for him to reduce his negative campaigning. Trump’s brand requires it.
Seeing all these observations that this won’t help Trump win the election reminds me of similar opinions expressed in 2016 when they were sure Trump would lose because of the resurfaced “grab 'em” interview.
This makes Trump a hero and virtually immortal. If being a convicted felon 34 times over won’t keep him from seeking the presidency, this certainly won’t. He’s going to be seen as an inveterate symbol who overcomes overwhelming odds to achieve his goal, and a further reason for all boundaries to be pushed, no matter how entrenched they are in our society. Plus, it achieved his number one goial: IT GOT HIM RATINGS.
I think folks that are predicting this won’t help the Trump campaign are engaged in some pretty strong wishful thinking.
Trump’s entire brand for this election is revenge. They stole 2020 from him, they are using “law fare” to take him out, they have tried to remove him from ballots in some states, etc. Liberals have stolen the country, are ruining it, and are using every tool they have to keep “real Americans” from taking it back.
This event could not be more perfect for enforcing and amplifying that message. And it happened to produce perfect imagery as well.
Trump can (and already has) double-down on the message of “taking back the country from the liberals that are ruining it”, while simultaneously calling on unity and a tamping down of extreme rhetoric. It will be very hard for the Biden campaign to paint MAGA as the extremists when it’s Trump that literally took a bullet.
I think this certainly increases the (already quite high) chances that Trump is elected. And it definitely increases the likelihood of extensive purges once he takes office.
Really the only possible way this doesn’t help the Trump campaign is if he has some sort of physical or mental collapse as a consequence. I find that unlikely.
So where we are this morning: Feeble Joe vs the Bloodied American Fighter. This is what low-info voters will think.
The heavily-meme’d slack-jawed wide-eyed image from the debate vs iconic steely-eyed fist-raised-in-front-of-the-American-flag image from yesterday. This is what low-info voters will see.
The victim of gun violence/a political assassination attempt vs the party in charge that let it happen. This is the simple message that I’m afraid low-info voters are going to be hit with.
These are going to be the images, messaging and general national vibe the Democrats and Biden are going to be going up against now. Things have gone from bad to worse for the good guys in a matter of 24 hours.
Yep. Throw in an incumbent who has a hard time stringing together a few sentences, and we’re looking at a very bad election outcome in November. I pray I’m wrong. But doubtful.
Yes, and it’s even worse than that: this incident plays directly into his two (baffling) superpowers in building his cult of personality.
The first is his constant perception of victimhood, which he is able to express in a way that, somehow, wins the loyalty of like-minded people, who perceive Trump as an extension of their own victimhood.
The other is his ability to project an image of strength, despite the fact that he’s a soft-headed dipshit who folds in the face of real power (cf. his shrunken body language next to Putin).
The Photo plays into both of his superpowers, and vengeance is the first item on the menu.
Last night Trump has written, “It’s incredible that such an act can take place in this country.” He wasn’t saying that 4 days after the Uvalde mass shooting. Instead, he spoke at the NRA Convention. He also didn’t say that after a Capitol police officer was killed on Jan 6th. He didn’t say anything for over 3 hours while his supporters were beating Capitol security and tearing up the Our Country’s Capitol while attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He finally told them to “Go home in peace.” And told them he loved them. Now the Jan 6th insurrectionists have their own version of the National Anthem which he plays at his rallies. Where were his incredulous feelings on Jan 6th? His riotors were out for the blood of Nancy Pelosi and were chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” But Trump didn’t find that incredible that it could be happening in American then! After Jan 6th, Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy all condemned Trumps calling for his supporters to march to the Capitol and to “Fight like Hell or they weren’t going to have a country to fight for anymore.”
We’re also now facing calls for national unity. At the exact time Biden needs to be goin’ ham on his stupid ass over Roe and Project 2025 and his felonies, anything seen as an attack on the poor victim will only hurt Biden worse. So damned if he doesn’t, damned if he does.
Most attempted murders aren’t made against a person who has a crowd’s attention. I think pumping his first in the air was a perfectly normal thing for a person in Trump’s situation to do. You sometimes see athletes do the same thing as they’re being dragged off the field after an injury. They’re doing it to signal to everyone they’re all right.
Ashli Babbit voted for Obama. We live in strange times.
Trump PTSD is likely to take the form of survival euphoria. His message is elevated to:
‘God has saved me - me - me!, to save America’
The raised fist is the new image of the campaign. Shooting off a candidates’ ear is the greatest piece of political theater since the burning of the Reichstag. Trump is the luckiest man in the world.
There is no question that it is a powerful propaganda image and plays into even the belief that God is looking out for Trump as a Chosen One with a bullet just a small fraction an inch away from having blown his brains out.
So sure, all of those who have already been panicked and sure the race was definitely lost with Biden as candidate, or would be if he dropped, can be even more absolutely sure of it now, infinity times infinity sure!
I’m still less sure. I’m expecting that the models that place him as the three to one favorite to win now will be at the same odds two weeks after the D convention. For low information and low likelihood to vote voters November is a lifetime away.
These are the cards Team Biden (and more sure it will remain Team Biden now) are dealt; the question the team will have is how to play the hand from here. They will want to take some control over the narrative.
So … if you were in charge, how would you play the narrative?
Step aside and let Trump overplay his hand. He will have an early peak. In November voters will choose between an Elmer Gantry lunatic and an aging experienced statesman. I believe the majority will make the correct decision.
The MAGAsphere embraced violence as a means to enforce their political will on January 6, 2021. We’ve been told by the architects of Project 2025 that it will be a bloodless American Revolution just so long as we all go along with it. I hate to say it, but we’re already dealing with a political party that is perfectly fine with using violence to get what they want.
