Searching For a Different Perspective on the Trump Assassination Attempt

The usual suspects are piling on.

I considered not addressing the shooting in Pennsylvania, because (a) like everyone, I don’t have all the facts, and (b), I assumed it would be covered immediately - and ad nauseam - from every conceivable angle, such as to make any further observations superfluous and redundant. Like clockwork, however, the extremes have taken over the discourse.

I’ve tended to lean Republican throughout my life, more so as I’ve gotten older and the Left has drifted into La-La-Land, while the Right has begun embracing alternate lifestyles which I’ve always supported despite not being a member myself. I’ve always thought to live and let live as long as you’re not hurting anyone or asking me to pay for it.

The response to the assassination attempt, however, has only magnified the outrageous way politics has skewed our sense of reason and independent thought - on both sides.

Disregarding the many horrifying statements wishing he had been killed (fodder for another article entirely), many on the Left have come up with any notion, however silly or far-fetched, to prevent allowing Trump to look good. “It was staged”, “He turned his head because he knew it was coming”, and the latest, from Joy Reid, implying that surviving it was no different than Biden surviving Covid.

A staged shooting that left two people dead and more wounded? A turned head timed at the exact moment a shot is fired, trusting the suicidal shooter to aim in precise anticipation of where only the ear would be hit, for minimum damage with maximum effect? A strong and fearless response (like him or not) to a near-death assault compared to a vaccinated and boosted man not succumbing to COVID? Anything, please, just so long as his polling doesn’t go up.

And they seem to really believe it. Follow the leader, right into the abyss.

The religious Right equates Trump’s luck to divine intervention. I’ve seen countless statements insisting that “God’s hand turned his head”, “God made the shooter miss”, and that Trump was “Touched by the hand of God” - because presumably, God is a Republican. Really? Though I have my issues with contemporary Democrats, that belief doesn’t really jive with him making everyone “in his image” and loving all his children equally.

These people seem to really believe it, too.

I know it’s not for us to question him, but why just Trump? Does God not want to be bothered intervening in the hundreds of thousands of other murder attempts around the world each year? We could say it’s because Trump’s presence will affect countless others, making him more important on a grand scale, but that doesn’t explain the many untimely deaths (by murder or otherwise) that have befallen great leaders throughout history.

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My issues with organized religion (not faith - the two are often mutually exclusive) have been well documented. I wrote an entire article about it, so I won’t repeat myself here. But the selective nature of when and where folks apply it to life events is astonishing. I can’t believe God is watching over us when something lucky happens but is off playing canasta when bad things occur.

Both sides have even tried to pin the shooter on the other side. “He was a registered Republican!” “He donated to Biden’s campaign!” What was his motivation? We don’t know. Try that on for size.

The only rational responses I’ve seen have come from Centrists and the moderate Right. Politically, they tend to support Trump on policy, while not drinking the Kool-Aid that he’s some faultless demigod. They’d like to see his platform executed, but preferably by someone less divisive, who could better sway those whose minds are closed by their irrational hatred of Trump. Getting your way is better than getting the progressive way, but national harmony is better than both.

These folks - I like to refer to them as rational human beings - dispense with conspiracy and religious theories in an effort to accumulate facts. And they know enough, when those facts haven’t yet been established, to keep their mouths shut. Could there have been a conspiracy, as many have suggested, that our leftist government, the intelligence agencies, Zelensky, a hostile foreign power, LGBTQ+ activists, pro-choice activists, or George Soros, was behind the assassination attempt? I guess anything’s possible - it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened - but why immediately go there?

We have become so divided as a country that we’ll do or say anything to disparage, or even destroy, our perceived opposition. Nothing is beneath us - we have no more shame. A tree falls in the forest, and it’s either an illegal migrant criminal or a fascist white racist who must have chopped it down. Hate to break it to everyone, but more times than not, it was just an old tree.

At this point, my view is also the most boring. Since nothing so far has pointed to any of the extreme explanations, and unless and until something definitively does, I’m falling back on Occam’s Razor - the simplest explanation is also the most likely. 

And at this point in time, it would appear that Trump just got lucky. Sometimes, that’s all there is to it.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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