WHAT A BIRTHDAY PRESENT

Get used to this photo. This is the kind of shot that is “iconic.” It’s going to become The Photo That Defines The 2024 Election. The image of a defiant Trump with blood on his face and fist raised defiantly against the backdrop of an almost upside-down American flag in the background will be immortal. You’re going to see it so often in the next 113 days that you’re going to be thoroughly sick of it.

Look at it and take to heart what it shows: Whatever you have ever said about how he can’t string three words together that make sense (he can’t), I cannot think of too many other people - in fact, I can’t think of any - who would have had the presence of mind to do what Trump did here in the immediate aftermath of having been shot.

That kind of political instinct is why he is as dangerous as he is.

I've now lived long enough to experience a president assassinated, another president severely wounded in an assassination attempt, and a third threatened twice by crazy people with guns; a presidential candidate assassinated, and two others wounded in attempted assassinations.

Trump missed being killed yesterday by the fact he moved his head a few inches as he turned to face away from the sun. The shooter was trying to kill him with a head shot and came very close - an inch more to the left and that bullet could have literally blown his head off with its ultra high speed impact and messy exit. That’s what an AR-15 bullet does.

I've been known to make snarky comments about such a thing happening to Trump, but the fact is that this attempt today heightens the probability that some lunatic MAGA might try to "even the score" by attempting to take out Joe Biden. My thoughtless snark was dangerous because it normalized this shit. So is yours. So is everyone’s. We can’t do that - I shouldn’t have done that - anymore.

We can't allow what's left of our politics be defined by lunatics with guns. Being on the political knife's edge that we are, a success yesterday against Trump or a successful future attempt against Biden could have consequences more consequential and dire - not only for the U.S. but the world - than those that followed Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 110 years ago last June 28.

The would-be assassin has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a community near the event. Early reporting suggests he was a registered Republican, though apparently he also once donated money to a Biden-affiliated organization. As Damian Penny pointed out, for all we know, he may have done this because a UFO landed in his backyard, from which Elvis Presley emerged and ordered him to kill the President. If the two “facts” about his political status turn out to true, they can be seen as evidence of a muddled mind, something all presidential assassins - successful and unsuccessful - share in common.

The usual suspects, both pro- and anti-Trump, have officially declared the 2024 election over and done now due to this incident. That would come as news to Gerald Ford, who survived two assassination attempts in quick succession, one of which - the attempt by Manson Family member Squeaky Fromm - I personally witnessed in Capitol Park in Sacramento, from close enough that the Secret Service interviewed me on the scene about what I might have seen (which was what everyone else saw: “She came out of nowhere!”). Despite both attempts, Ford still went on to lose to Jimmy Carter that November.

Things we can all agree on start with the obvious fact that there is something seriously wrong with the Secret Service. Jesus H. Christ! The shooter was on the tallest structure in the immediate vicinity, the Obvious Place close enough to where Trump was speaking to give an assassin a completely clear shot, and no one had been positioned there to prevent exactly this?! (which I have been told should be Standard Operating Procedure for the Secret Service) People saw him climb onto the roof and pointed him out to police authorities at the time, and no one did anything???!!! This is only the most recent of a long line of fuckups extending through multiple presidential administrations by the Praetorian Guard. If they can’t do the one goddamned thing they were created to do, why are they there??

Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) are planning to introduce legislation to provide enhanced Secret Service protection to President Biden, former President Trump and presidential candidate RFK Jr. after Saturday night’s assassination attempt on Trump. One hopes this is not locking the barn door after the horse is gone.

If there is anything to take away from yesterday’s event, it should make it perfectly clear that absolutely no one can predict one damn thing about The Future five seconds before that moment arrives.

That’s something we can take heart in. It means we can’t wait for some Deus ex Machina event like an assassination, or a legal judgement, or anything, to come along and Solve Our Problem. Trump is obviously not going away as a result of this, and he’s not going to be stopped by any court judgement, or any other external Black Swan event.

If he’s going to be stopped, we are the ones who have to do it.

So I am going to tune out the white noise and this afternoon I am going to join 20 other fellow citizens and I’m going to write 14 postcards to send to voters in Arizona this fall. And then I’m going to do it again next Sunday and the Sunday after that and the Sunday after that. It’s what’s available to be done. And if something else shows up, I’ll do that to.

If we all just do the things that are there to be done, history will be different - whatever it will be - for our having done it.

The one guarantee that’s out there is this: if you do nothing you will certainly get what you do not want.

As Jim Wright says, if you want a better country, be a better citizen.

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