Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after shots fired at his Pennsylvania rally
Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after shots fired at his Pennsylvania rally
God dammit, they had to fucking miss
Part of me wishes they didn't, part of me wonders who would use his martyrdom to do even worse.
That last part is the terrifying bit, honestly. Trump is an egomaniac with the attention span of a toddler. He's an unguided projectile of spite and vanity.
Imagine someone competent filling his shoes with the unprecedented powers that were recently granted by the supreme court and the rabid MAGA fanbase behind them.
The potential for lasting damage goes (even further) off the scale. I shudder to think what that might actually look like.
Honestly, in the event Biden loses, the best hope the US has is Trump's general incompetence.
Imagine someone competent filling his shoes with the unprecedented powers that were recently granted by the supreme court and the rabid MAGA fanbase behind them.
During the early pandemic, I was 100% convinced he was going to declare a national state of emergency as a pretense for a kind of coup. It would have been easy to have disproportionate military occupation of population centers like NYC, enforcing curfews, enforcing distancing and masking, while generally fomenting unrest through non-military groups. Throw in some old-fashioned resource scarcity by restricting shipping in the name of quarantine and, baby, you have a stew going. Once people are incited to riot, martial law is easy to justify.
Instead, the Republican party doubled-down on the dumbest plan possible - literally betting on the stupidity of their base - to secure political power. The sheer greed, ego, and narcissism in the upper echelon of their leadership has them stepping on their own feet half the time, and I'm convinced we're lucky for that.
It's a good thing the Republican leadership is as incompetent as they are morally bankrupt, but that doesn't mean they haven't managed to stumble their way into pushing the US to the brink of a dictatorship. As the KGB used to say, a lot of them are "useful idiots" which can be orchestrated by careful external manipulation.
This is the same line of reasoning that created the “Allies actually didn’t try very hard to assassinate Hitler, because they realized he was a really bad tactician” conspiracy theories. Basically, the reasoning is that while Hitler was charismatic and had a massive cult following, he wasn’t actually that good at making tactical decisions in war. So the allied powers didn’t really try very hard to assassinate him, because they feared an actual competent ruler who would potentially take his place.
Basically, “never interrupt your enemy when they’re making a mistake.”
I'm not onboard with that conspiracy, as there were certainly attempts on his life throughout his reign. But I do agree with the relevancy of that Sun Tzu quote.
By 1943 Hitler was making such poor decisions it would've actually benefited the Nazi war effort if he had been removed from power.
A head that size is a sniper’s wet dream.
I'm a flaming liberal, but I'm honestly revolted that, as I write this, your comment has a bunch of upvotes and no downvotes.
This man wants to do things that will make me and many people i love dead or suffering. How do you not understand how we could feel this way?
The other man already does, for two years, things that made hundreds of thousands people die, get wounded, suffer, etc.
You are asking how people do not understand that you want Trump to be dead because he might hurt people you love, surely with your empathy skills you will be able to understand how people might hate Biden (and perhaps even want to see him dead as well) for what he did (and continues doing)?
Or is it only sad when the people you love are suffering? The other people do matter, right?
Because if you start justifying these kinds of things, they will eventually be turned against you and next you know it, your own political representative is being shot at because their opponent's supporters are feeling threatened just as you are (whether they are truly justified in feeling threatened or not, doesn't matter).
Democracy does not work with violence.
EDIT: I'm really curious about the downvoters: do you really think murdering your political opponents is justified? The goal is to vote out the fascists, not become fascists.
Because if you start justifying these kinds of things....
Republicans have already been justifying it. It was only days ago that a Republican said [paraphrasing] "theres a revolution already going on and it will be bloodless if the left doesnt interfere".
Republicans have already been justifying the death of BIPoC, trans kids, the queer community, Palestinians and anyone who opposes their genocide.... the list goes on. And its mealy mouthed liberals that always say shit like "oh but we shouldn't start justifying using violence, even in defence" from their positions of privilege.
WTF do you think is going to happen after November, whether Trump wins or not? They have been laying out the justification for using violence for 4 fucking years and you've slept through it, hoping its just some nightmare you'll wake up from.
Democracy does not work with violence.
How do you think your form of 'democracy' was achieved? You ballot box is awash with so much fucking blood that you would piss your pants if you had a tiny inkling. And most of it is from those who your country mercilessly crushed for you to have it. You dont live in a democracy. You live in a military/prison/pharma industrial corporatist state that masquerades in a trenchcoat as a democratic Republic
I'm not sure what you're saying - since they are justifying violence, you should too? That doesn't seem sustainable, unless your goal is a civil war.
EDIT for your edit: I am not from the US so I'm not sleeping through anything, I'm just watching from the sidelines. My form of democracy was actually introduced quite peacefully, all things considered. But that's neither here nor there.
Let's say you're in school, and you're assigned a lab partner and told the requirements of your project and that you need to compromise both individual's ideas to make it happen.
Every time you try to make a suggestion, they immediately say no and suggest something that isn't even graded for the project, and refuses to budge until you compromise. When you don't compromise, they threaten to tell the teacher that you're not compromising. As you try to hold your ground trying to get a good grade for both of you, they just keep doing whatever they want and making more threats to you: they'll take your lunch money, they'll beat you up after school, they'll pop your bike tires, etc.
When you tell the teacher, they tell you to stop overreacting and you need to learn to work with others. After school, your science partner punches you and says you better agree to XYZ tomorrow. You tell the teacher they hit you, and you're told you need to stop exaggerating and learn to compromise and work together. Every day that week, your science partner makes good on each threat after school, and every day you tell your teacher, they tell you to stop exaggerating and learn to play nice.
On the last day, you punch the kid back, really hit him, break his nose kind of punch. And you're punished: the teacher says you shouldn't have resorted to violence, your partner says they were the true victim in the project arrangement, you get a failing grade because everything you compromised on didn't meet the requirements, but your science partner still got an A and wasn't punished for anything he did all week because "the rules don't apply to them the same way, they're troubled/have a lot going on at home/whatever excuse."
That's the current state of US politics: Republicans are justified in any and everything they do because they're "special," but Democrats have to follow all of the rules, all of the time, even when the other side of the aisle refuses to even listen to them or the centuries/decades of legal precedent. And they, the Republicans, still win because that's just how the fucking system works.
Any bloodless revolution is done through an implicit threat of violence. It is just the losing side being smart about how they lose.
I tillegg om du er dansk, vil eg påpeike at Danmark mista eineveldet sitt då dei tapte Napoleonskrigane i 1814, som også var grunnlaget for Noreg sin uavhengigheit og demokratiske grunnlov.
Dude, who are the ones actually shooting at people? You so worried about what might happen that you can't see what's going on right in front of you.
The guy doing the shooting was a registered republican.
Yeah that's an interesting development. I have more questions now than I did before.
Anyone that's said it was a set up has been countered with arguments that to just nick someone ear is statistically impossible but they all treat it that trump is the brains behind the operation.
Now we all know that generally, he's as dumb as a bag of hammers and has cognitive issues (seems to be a second election based on old men with melting brains) so the real power lies behind the throne.
They might have taken the decision to set up a patsy & if he succeeds, ride the sympathy & somehow load all the blame onto Biden. If he doesn't, as we're seeing, trump rides the sympathy wave into the white house.
Another possible theory is that the kid appeared in a black rock commercial a few years ago and as BR have the contract to rebuild in Ukraine, that would be under threat if trump wins (he will pretty much throw them under the bus & let the reaction be his reason to split NATO). BRs main guys brother is Bidens right hand man. Similar to Haliburton with Iraq & it's former CEO being Bush jnrs VP.
To see such massive laxes in Trumps security and people pointing out the shooter to police at least 3 minutes before he fired, raises more questions and leaves it wide open to wild theories.
One thing for definite though: Biden will absolutely lose the election now.
Our "democracy" IS violent, it just isn't the ruling class experiencing the violence. Every day our society is upheld by violence. Violence over seas (231 years of war, support of genocide, coups, and interventions) and violence at home in the form of an increasingly more powerful police state.
This is just the direct forms of oppression like guns, bombs and jackbooted thugs. There are also sanctions that starve people and IMF loans that impoverish people. These all uphold our standards of living, the united states cannot exist with the impoverishment and exploitation of others.
Democracy does not work with violence.
Tell that to every civil rights leader martyred by your so-called 'democracy' you comfortable-assed cracker.
Eh, they are Danish. Settler is the wrong term for them if you are trying to make out a continuity from classical colonialism to neo colonialism, as Denmark did not really have colonies in the classical sense (with one minor notable exception and the domination of Norway through its personal union for 450 years).
Denmark's history as a thriving social democracy in the modern era also makes it less of a perpetrator of the violence spread by modern bourgeoisie democracies than what your comment implies, in my opinion.
Lumping every Western nation together into some imperial core makes it harder to study the material conditions of neo colonialism.
As an example of the point I am trying to make of the importance of studying the material conditions of the global north as well: Denmark-Norway was the first European country to abolish the transatlantic slave trade. The reason for it is obvious, they did not really have colonies to speak of on their own.
Like I give the first, second, or third fuck? Where they're from doesn't change my people's history, or that cracker's place within it. I genuinely see the vast majority of you euros the same, because where they're from doesn't change the fact that they still talk the exact same way the actual settlers that still devil my people do.
That, "oh, this isn't like us", "oh, you need to condemn this violence even though violence is our profit", "oh, this isn't how politics works" and all that other happy cracker horseshit; this tells me white supremacy and habitus has already infected the Nordics-- which were never friends to the Black nation, regardless of who ended their trade in flesh when.
I know who my enemy is. It's any paternalist white from any nation that isn't mine; any paternalist white who fixes their face to try and dictate who my enemies SHOULD be when I know for a fact there's still hella blood on their hands. You do yourself a disservice continuing to run your misbegotten mouth to someone who clearly doesn't have the time or patience for it. 'Cause I'd bet my left eye you aren't Sápmi; but just like an Amerikan cracker, you'll lift their name and their struggle to try and cudgel me and mine with it.
And while I'm thinking about it, you may not be saying the things in quotes, but you're sure as shit bearing the water of a cracker who is! You want me to believe you're on the level? Tell your compatriots to start fucking acting like it.
You are no ally. Cease your correspondence. Death to the West.
It doesn't work if all parties aren't participating in good faith, either. What then?
I don't think that's true. Obviously you need elections that can be trusted (and despite everything I don't think elections results are being tampered with too significantly) but if there are bad faith actors (like Trump) then just... Get people not to vote for such an actor. Should be easy enough seeing as they're a bad faith actor right?
Well no, because people are poorly educated or brainwashed or scared or bigoted or hateful or afraid or all the other reasons that people in the US might vote for Trump. The problem is not Trump, the problem is the people voting for him. That's also why shooting him is a bad idea, it only entrenches his supporters even further (aside from the fact that shooting anyone is generally a bad idea).
Democracy requires nonviolence
HAHAHAHA oh damn my dude go and read any history book.
He's apparently allergic; he won't even entertain the NOTION that he doesn't know his own history.
Political violence ≠ fascism. Violence is what people turn to when they can't achieve what they need by merely talking and voting. Cf. every revolution, ever. Including the American one.
Violence is what people turn to when they can’t achieve what they need by merely talking and voting.
The fact that this is the state of things is the bigger problem. That's the problem that needs to be fixed and sorry, but violence is not the solution to that, it only makes things even worse.
You don't know your own history.
do you really think murdering your political opponents is justified?
You don't know your own history. This is EXACTLY how your governments work; you murder that which jeopardizes your 'experiment' otherwise we'd still have Dr. King, we'd still have Malcolm X, we'd still have Kwame Ture. It's only the last hundred and twenty years that the crackers have tried to whip the righteous desire for vengeance out of the denigrated and put-upon subject of empire.
Killing fascists makes you a fascist?
To crackers, it does; because that's their only defense for the fascism they already uphold, and the only way they maintain their unjust hegemon.
Murdering your political opponents is a fascist tactic.
Lol that minimizes what fascism actually is. Assassinations have happened throughout history, including before Capitalism and before the crisis within Capitalism that created fascism.
Lol
That "lol" is quite unnecessary. There is no need to ridicule me. I would expect better from a mod of a community like this.
minimizes what fascism actually is
I didn't say that is all fascism is, just that it is a tactic within fascism. It can be a part of it. But anyway I don't want to argue what is and isn't fascism, my point is just that political violence and murdering your political opponents does not work with democracy and shouldn't ever be hoped for or wanted, even if it is your political opponent being targeted. I want Trump gone as much as the next guy on the fediverse but I don't want him killed.
That “lol” is quite unnecessary. There is no need to ridicule me. I would expect better from a mod of a community like this.
I dont need to, but I felt like it. I chose restraint and went with "lol" instead of really getting into how ridiculous and chauvinist of an opinion it is.
I didn’t say that is all fascism is, just that it is a tactic within fascism
You said this: "Murdering your political opponents is a fascist tactic."
my point is just that political violence and murdering your political opponents does not work with democracy
I mean the Soviets murdered the hell out of nazis, so there is a counterexample for you. The cubans also murdered the hell out of high level regime collaborators when batista was overthrown. Another counterexample. I'm not advocating for murder within our political system but like, you're not correct.
Fucking lmao you are such a wretched, servile dog. You know NOTHING of western history and make no attempt to prove that you do. Rank anglo ignorati that shouldn't even be regarded at this point beyond ridiculing.
Lol
I dont think you know what fascism means
How you could hate him? I understand. I have a nonbinary kid, and I'm against what he stands for. But advocating for political assassination is just wrong. We don't punish people for crimes they haven't yet committed, and we don't support vigilantism.
We need to vote out fascist Republicans, not kill them.
You know Trump was already president once, right? It's not like it's a secret that he's anti-LGBTQ people.
We Made A List Of All The Anti-LGBT Stuff Trump Has Done As President from 2018, it includes
and their list goes on.
I'm not sure it's possible to get a full picture of everything Trump did wrong, even if you narrow it down to specific topics like LGBT rights. A lot of these things aren't crimes, but that's only because he was the one writing the laws and policies.
And the solution to this problem is to murder him? That is not how democracy works. Besides, the problem is not Trump per se, but the people voting for him. That won't change just because Trump is dead. They will find some other bigoted candidate that will be just as bad if not worse.
People need to be educated and informed and know why it's a bad idea to vote for someone like Trump - that is the only sustainable way to fix things if you ask me. Murder and violence will only entrench people further on either side and drive people to even more extremes.
Oh stop fuckin being precious. That's exactly how settler democracy from Amerika to Germany and back works; you CLEARLY don't know your own history. When you don't like a world leader who told you 'no' at the trade table, the West has him put down. When a world leader proposes divestiture from the petrodollar, the West assaults him in ways you ALL claim to detest with bayonets, then make fucking jokes about it in the days after. When the West need land cleared out for genocidal settlers to put down their stakes, you ALL provide all the weapons in the world.
Amerika's very 'democracy' itself was built on the genocide of Native Amerikans, and slavery of stolen Africans. The hegemon whose comforts, privileges, and treats YOU ENJOY was ALWAYS greased in the blood of the people you ALL consider 'lesser'. I repeat: you don't know your own fucking history.
You mean virtue signalling. That's their cute little phrase for it.
It's easy to do if you just ignore all the inconvenient facts and pretend you're more righteous than others.
I honestly understand all that, and believe it's vitally important that he's defeated. But assassinating political rivals is literally a characteristic of fascism.
It literally isnt: fascism is capitalism in crisis and assassinations have gone on for most of human history, before the development of capitalism in the first place
Power doesn't grow out of a ballot box you comfortable stain
Ah ok trolling. Nevermind. Move along.
Trolling?
It is sad to see this state of the divide in the US. Even if you are against Trump, you're not against him enough unless you want him dead. If you don't want him dead, you must be a troll. What a sad state this debate has reached.
Yea honestly I usually just avoid these kind of threads because any debate just seems pointless when it comes to US politics. I'm just glad I don't live there but it scares me how much their politics matter for the rest of the world when it is such a shit show.
I'm embarrassed about our country's politics, honestly.
I'm embarrassed that I share a landmass with spineless sheepdogs like you
This man wants to do things that will make me and many people i love dead or suffering.
I keep seeing this repeated. What stopped him his first term and where are the corpses of the dead he is responsible for? Legitimately, link me to shit.
Likewise, if his side really were going for an overthrow of the government with the invasion of the senate building, why were there not more instances of gun violence? The republicans are more likely to own guns right? If they really wanted to overthrow shit, why didn't they come strapped? If they came strapped, why was the only police death from a thrown fire extinguisher causing a brain bleed that killed the victim later that night?
There's shit that doesn't add up all over the place, and it bothers me that no one discusses it because they seem afraid to touch anything that might challenge the narrative of Trump's terribleness and Biden needing to be infallible to win. Trump is more than reprehensible enough without hyperbole.
2020 COVID deaths are on his and his sycophants shoulders.
Not his first term but Trump seems ready to let Israel really take its gloves off and probably let the war expand into Lebanon and maybe Iran. Biden hasn't really done shit but at least Israel seems somewhat afraid he might pull funding enough not to expand the war too much, trump will probably just give them a blank cheque.
If they really wanted to overthrow shit, why didn’t they come strapped?
Multiple people had firearms at the 1/6 coup attempt, this is well documented. I'm not sure why they never shot anyone, but it wasn't for lack of firearms.
Do you not realize how terrible it is that he missed? You of all people as a "flaming liberal" should be the most angry. This essentially secures trumps presidency, its the best thing that could have happened to his campaign.
He's not even a liberal, he's just fuckin comfortable.
First of all, that's bullshit. As I said in another thread:
The electorate is viscerally polarized, and very few people are on the fence about who to vote for - maybe some undecided about whether they’ll vote at all. I can’t imagine there are many people who are going to switch from Biden to Trump because of this, or who will even go from undecided to Trump. It makes no sense.
Second, my political activism stops short of murder. Apparently that doesn't go far enough for you. That doesn't make me a troll.
Dont get me wrong, assassinations are stupid and rarely accomplish much of value. No single human is responsible for the state of our society, it is much more institutional than that. Only a dismantling of the current systems could actually inact change. HOWEVER, if trump was murdered I would gloat and I feel no shame in that.
Also them missing is gonna make MAGA people really annoying for a while
It's almost like principles define existential enemies or something, two things you will never understand before you go extinct
Yeah you are definitely a lib alright.
You libs drone all the time in every media how the guy is an enemy of democracy, second coming of Hitler and needs to be stopped for any price. Yet you are "revolted" when someone taken it seriously.
The problem is not Trump, the problem is the people voting for him. Trump should be stopped through educated and informed voting, that's how democracy works.
Unfortunately the US is not known for its education and good unbiased information. But that is the underlying problem that needs to be fixed, and shooting Trump does nothing to fix that and will only serve to replace Trump with someone equally bad (or even worse).
Is that how democracy worked when Sankara needed to go? When Hussein needed to go? When Gaddafi needed to go? When Libya, the once single most prosperous nation on the Motherland, needed to be flattened and turned into a hub for the trade of chattel slaves? I spit on your hand-hiding.
libs don't care about democracy abroad. It doesn't count as democracy if it oppises US economic interests
I think you've landed on the exact reason why my hatred for them is as naked and unvarnished as it is. There's nothing I hate more than a goddamned hypocrite; and Amerika(and her frankly Gomorran allies and vassals) is fucking lousy with deceit and hypocrisy.
Why do you list these three, they didn't govern under democracies? Saddam wasn't operating under a democracy at all, besides a couple of fake elections. Gaddafi had some elements of a democracy, but most power was in his hands with no way to vote him out. Sankara rule started in a coup (or revolution if that's how you want it) and was ended in a coup when he was assassinated.
Deliberate. It's because nobody in the west is a 'democracy' either. Amerika, Britain, Germany, every peckerwood nation attached to NATO or the FIVE-EYES alliance, all oligarchies and vassals to capital; several undergoing transformation into kleptocracies, plutocracies, and blatant kyriarchies. Y'all just murder any world leader who you either have racist tendencies against, or tells you no, and I spit on it. You belong to no democracy. You are no democrat.
Are you saying people should start shooting trump voters instead of trump?
What a way to deliberately misread what I am saying. Obviously not and I won't waste time on such a purposeful bad faith reading of what I said.
Democracy needs to be saved through democratic processes, not a lawless assassination attempt, otherwise it would be disingenious to want to protect it and its values.
I didn't even suggested you people should murder him*, just pointed how calling him enemy of democracy, second coming of Hitler and constantly droning about having to stop him is a call for stochastic terrorism, but you clearly understood it like this so the feedback checks out.
Also lmao fucking hell you call US president election mechanism "democratic"? And i won't comment on US "democratic values".
Wait
you aren't even Usian lmao you absolute clown.*FYI Marxists-Leninists usually think political assassinations are futile adventurism, since it won't change the conditions that created people like Trump. Which won't mean we wouln't be glad if some ghoul get offed.
Haven't seen any prominent lib even use violent rhethoric in connection with pointing out Trump's dangerous plans for his second term, so I was surprised you bring up stochastic terrorism. The fact that Democrats are running a horrible candidate against him just shows that they don't take this seriously at all. Maybe that's what you tried to say in your first message.
I agree that democratic processes have little to do with US politics these days, but are you suggesting you can promote democratic values with anything outside living them (not that US politician do that, but in principle).
And it shouldn't matter where I'm from. The disaster that is the US empires fall is of global interest.
Haven’t seen any prominent lib even use violent rhethoric in connection with pointing out Trump’s dangerous plans for his second term, so I was surprised you bring up stochastic terrorism.
That's precisely how stochastic terrorism works, the big wigs never straight up call for it to have their hands clean just in case, for that they have their tabloids, their agitators, their media heads, their internet trolls. And btw Biden did said they need to put Trump into the bullseye (though he most likely didn't meant it literally, but on the other hand he promised to get rid of Nordstream back in the day and it happened).
I agree that democratic processes have little to do with US politics these days, but are you suggesting you can promote democratic values with anything outside living them (not that US politician do that, but in principle).
In principle i do but i don't see liberal democracy as desirable version of it due to it being in service of the small minority of capitalists and their stooges exploiting workers, and as such the system works exactly according to its values. I just think those real values behind that system are abhorrent.
And it shouldn’t matter where I’m from. The disaster that is the US empires fall is of global interest.
What SUPAVILLAIN said. If you're not part of the abovementioned minority or their stooge you should be dearly interested in end of the US empire.
And it shouldn’t matter where I’m from.
It does. All you and yours do is suckle off the teat of the slavemaster empire; you don't get a seat at the table to discuss how the subjects-of-empire struggling against the nation that established itself off rampant violence and bloodshed should correct their course.
I’m a flaming liberal
tell us something we don't know
why
This comment section is so fucked!
