There has been so much in the news the last few days that we’re going to have to divide it up into three posts. Because it’s more than we can process at once.
- What to make of the Trump Assissantion Attempt?
- What to make of Judge Canon’s dismissal of the documents case?
- What to make of J.D. Vance?
What to make of the Trump assassination attempt?
First of all, I didn’t think somebody would ever make a serious attempt. And I certainly didn’t think it would be some whacko lone wolf post teenage 20-something, a kid who was bullied, the kind of guy who normally goes and shoots up a school classroom.
Second of all, how is it possible that the secret service managed not to spot this guy on the roof of a neighboring building? It’s almost enough to make you believe in a conspiracy.
Third of all, I think we can all agree that assassination is not the best way to produce political change. But this is not to say that assassinations do not sometimes produce political change, and sometimes even the kind of political change that the assassin was intending. Case in point: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Rabin was the fifth prime minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, from 1974–1977, and again from 1992 until 1995. A member of the Labor Party, and he was in support of the Oslo Accords. Rabin was assassinated on November 5, 1994 at the end of a rally ; the assassin was Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old far right law student, who had strenuously opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. The Oslo peace process ultimately failed, thereby producing the result that the assassin had wanted.
So much for the theory that assassinations cannot be effective.
Many assassinations do not succeed, of course, because the assassin is not successful. One of the most famous of these is the case of Claus von Stauffenberg, who failed on July 20, 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler. He wasn’t the first, but he was the last person who tried to take out Hitler. As it happens, there were a remarkable 42 attempts on Hitler‘s life, none of which succeeded.
If “God” saved Hitler’s life 42 times so that he could incinerate 6 million, that would be a very strange God indeed.
This kid, Thomas Matthew Crooks, is the new Claus von Stauffenberg. If this kid’s aim had been a little bit better, we wouldn’t have to worry about Trump anymore. I mean, cholesterol should really have done the job on Trump. But it didn’t. Again, we can only speculate about what would have happened if he had succeeded in taking out Trump, but it would have cut the head off of the viper.
Maybe Joe could then have stepped aside and we could have a race between Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris.
Now that would be an interesting race.
As it is, the kid gave Trump a perfect public relations opportunity, by providing a blood-streaked Trump the chance to be photographed raising his fist, reaffirming his image of untrammeled masculinity.
