The first pinned post can be found here:
https://lemmy.world/post/17530961
That’s where all the engagement and comments can be found, and I’d encourage everyone to participate there.
The reason for THIS post is to direct everyone there.
I’m getting multiple reports that some people can’t see it for some reason. Could be Federation, could be they blocked the user who posted it.
Here’s hoping you all can see THIS one and move over to where everyone else is engaged.
Urban warfare is well known to be incredibly complicated for this reason. There’s just too many buildings (and even if there’s just one building: too many windows a shooter could be looking out of).
We’re lucky that this punk-ass kid wasn’t a trained marksman. 300 meters isn’t an easy shot, but its something a trained person would do regularly with an AR-15 and the right equipment. (Even on the first shot: today’s rangefinders are very good and its not so hard to compensate for bullet drop and other effects).
In any case, the range and difficulty of the shot makes it unlikely that this kid was going for anything aside from a straightforward assassination attempt. You’re just aiming for center-of-mass at these ranges.
FTFY
Lucky.
A martyred Trump only makes the MAGA movement bigger and stronger than ever before. Trump is just a symptom of this problem, and I worry about the coming years. I look forward above and beyond just one 78-year-old loser dumbass.
The MAGA threat is here and persistent. Its better for us that MAGA is still coalesced around Trump today and that we can still fuck up Trump’s reputation / ideology before he dies.
But actually killing Trump? That gives the movement the momentum they need to carry on for decades. A grazed piece of glass on Trump’s ear is fine. We can still politically work with this, though the MAGA has gained an edge this week in politics, this sort of thing can be forgotten before the election (much like Pelosi’s hammer attack or Gabby Gifford’s headshot).
Trump will likely milk this situation for all that its worth and exhaust the oxygen in the room.
The real issue is that Democrats haven’t solidified upon a plan yet. I suggest we either support Biden fully or we push for Harris. The sooner we push for a choice the better things are for our votes.
I genuinely think that this failed assassination attempt will end up helping Trump in terms of his chances.
If he had gotten killed, they’d swap in someone like DeSantis, and at that point the calls to replace Biden with Harris or Newsom or Whitmer or whoever else would become overwhelming, because DeSantis would wipe the floor with Biden - and DeSantis isn’t that good of a debater, nor is he terribly charismatic. If it was one of those vs DeSantis, I think the average low-info moderate-conservative-curious vote would be a LOT more likely to be swayed away from DeSantis.
Of course it does.
But a Martyred Trump is even worse. I’m happy we got the better of the two bad options. All we gotta do is turn Trump into George Wallace, a racist fuck who lost an election despite an assassination attempt.
Then, we forget about Trump… but always remember that the racists are out there. Without a martyr, the movement will disappear over time. They’ll be trying to turn Trump into a martyr moving forward, even though he survived. Alas, things don’t quite work like that.
With any luck, more neonazis come out of the woodwork and people get reminded at how ugly Trump’s supporters are.