This a very insightful piece. I am curious about the reactions of American presidents who have been attacked, particularly Reagan. How does his reaction compare to Trump (and others in this piece).
Brady Bill banned assault weapons, high capacity magazines etc. When the Brady Law expired, we started to see more and more mass casualty shootings. It is interesting to me that no media is discussing gun reform very much. More news about blaming the local cops and the Secret Service. At the same time city police chiefs have been warning that the real risk is the amount of guns, easy access to purchase them, or in this case, acquire from parents for kids to borrow or acquire and commit murder/suicide.
And don't forget, some Republicans immediately blamed the female Secret Service agents as incompetent DEI hires. The head of the Secret Service is a woman and she's been severely criticized because she's a woman. I don't mind any criticism based on the facts of this assassination attempt, but I do mind the ones implying and saying the problem is because she's a woman. In case you need any more reasons to know that Republicans are misogynistic.
100%. Of all the failures, the first is the easy access to so many high powered, high capacity guns. It’s unfair to criticize all the police failures. Sure, there are security mistakes by people ( and there will always be people that make mistakes in all walks of life). To me, blaming her, blaming the agents on scene, blaming the local cops…it’s all a distraction from the real cause. Too many military guns that are just too damn easy to acquire. Take 2022, 40 million unit sales in that 1 year alone. Business is booming for the gun industry. Profits over public safety. In a country, plagued by an epidemic of violence, an epidemic of young male loneliness, an epistemological crisis. Each adds up to destabilizing our country.
Misogyny is a major aspect of fascism, so the GOP being misogynistic, is another data point showing that they are fascists. Fascism is all about turning back the clock to a more primitive era.
But George Wallace didn't. He was a Democrat running as an Independent, a racist whose appeal was mostly among young male whites. His popularity took a nosedive and he got only 8% of the votes.
True! Unfortunately Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. In the racist and sexist views of the time he was considered “ tainted ”and unfit for office bc he was ever after considered
“ not masculine though” and to be able to stand tall for America. He tried to counter this by saying “My body may be gone but my brain is great.”( paraphrased )
Once he realized his ambitions were gone he returned to state politics had a religious conversion experience where he spent the next 50 years apologizing to the Blacks of the South and asking for forgiveness for the seeds of hatred and division he sowed against them. Please watch the PBS docu:
George Wallace: Stettin’ the Woods on Fire. Yr 2000
It is my understanding based on readings I've done that Reagan viewed his survival as a sign that he still had work to do, to wit, taking down the Evil Empire.
Reagan gave an iconic "Tear down this wall speech" and led a nation that for 30+ years under presidents of both major parties STOOD UP to the USSR. Standing up is not taking down here. To say the prisoners in the gulags and the Russian general population who knew how unsustainable their corrupt system was and needed Reagan to "take down the Evil Empire" is an insult to common sense. Reagan gave a good speech, the USSR collapsed in on itself, the West cheered, We won the Cold War. This hegiography is misplaced.
Whatever. I am not going to quibble about semantics or get into a pissing match about the history of US foreign policy or Soviet history. What I recall is that Reagan believed he had been spared so he could bring about an end to the Soviet Union. That's the part that's germane to this piece. And "Evil Empire is a term Reagan used to refer to the Soviet Union.
I find it interesting that this piece doesn’t mention Hitler’s actions following von Staffenburg group’s attempt on his life. Hitler descended far deeper in to paranoia afterwards, and the descriptions of the meat hook hangings of many he found to be or thought to part of the plot are particularly gruesome. The one alternate moment, allowing Rommel to commit suicide so that a hero of the Wehrmacht would not become an embarrassment to the regime was, of course, a batant exception.
Similar purge events are happening in Russia with their Generals and defense contractors since Pygozhin coup attempt of the Defense Ministry.
Shoigu is re-assigned to a new post and purge has been going on and the key witness in the bribes and corruption charges that Pygozhin alleged. And another former General under Timur is set to testify in the case, but winds up dead. It sure is interesting now, how after Pygozhin is killed in that plane crash for accusing the def ministry of corruption, that now corruption is being enforced on the military, but the key witness from Dagestan. Why is it that the witness from an ethnic minority in Russia is the key witness and winds up dead, but the cause of death and where he died is not disclosed. Its a purge of the military, Pirgozhin's accusations are being followed up on by Putin's camp. Kinda destabilizing's to the military and other oligarchs.
Two other high ranking oligarchs are so found dead. "There have been a number of unexplained deaths of prominent Russians since the war broke out, including Pavel Antov, 65, a Russian politician who criticized Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and Ravil Maganov, 67, the chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil."
Arrested Generals and ministers of defense:
Dep Def Minister Timur Ivanov (also a general)
Lt Gen Vadim Shamarin
Lt Gen Yuri Kuznetsov
Major General Ivan Popov
Arrested for bribes and corruption and then found dead or just found dead....
Gen Magomed Khandayev ( was set to testify about corruption, but was found dead)
Igor Kotelnikov ( accused of bribery and then found dead)
Yes. Hitlers' doctor was giving him so many drugs. I feel like in some senses he killed him because the drugs he gave Hitler sounded like quackery to me. Treating mania or depression is still not evolved now, so I can wonder what he was giving him then. Hitler was hiding out with depression a lot of the time. The suicide for depressives is going to happen, if not well treated.
Not sure why his shoes were off but it would be interesting to know why. Was he that scared? He looked like a scared, angry old man. While going out you could see a big bald spot on his head which tells us how carefully they manage him. It must take hours to get his hair and makeup right.
The shooter evidently comes from a right wing family. Neighbors said they've seen trump signs in the yard. I've read reports of over a dozen guns found at the house. All his friends said he's a republican and conservative. I'm not sure we'll ever get to the truth.
Jeff Tiedrich has seen suggestions that there is a group within MAGA who are disenchanted with Trump. They see him as far too centrist. Trump is no longer fulfilling the demands of their extreme nationalist white supremacist misogynistic agenda. If true, Crooks could have seen himself as simply acting as a true MAGA loyalist.
I saw one report on the day of the assassination attempt that messages were deleted from telegram where right wingers hang out. They were deleted right after the attempt but that disappeared quickly.
It is obvious that there is a group in the Republican Party. They can go on screen and say rah, rah, rah, sis boom bah for Trump, but they are not going to vote for him. Their votes are fortunately private as are ours. Wondering about Pence, and Haley. She is being a good girl and may be rewarded with a position in the administration, but Pence isn't going to get one, and I don't think he is voting for the man that tried to have him assassinated unless he is really filled with self loathing. I don't think he is. The people that just quit their seats may not be voting for Trump. We now have heard that the Nazis, Klan, and other White Supremacist groups do not like JD Vances wife, and not too many people are going to be happy with tanking the entire public education system to put the US in third world status either.
Also, AOC has a message and I think that it should be shared with everyone that you know who is doubting the Biden-Harris ticket. Please share this. https://youtu.be/hKOYyEjLCHI?si=BEp6KI837zCGIhir
Unfortunately, we have already had our “shock moment” or our "Reichstag Fire" more than 20 years ago - 9/11.
What followed was the massive increase in state surveillance, the violation of established norms and international laws (torture, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, etc.), and mendacious, unjustified, aggressive wars supported by both parties.
Societies and governance are held together by norms and once these are violated, the cornerstone is removed, and the path to authoritarianism accelerates until the warnings eventually become blinking red lights as we see today.
I'm glad that you are focusing on the assassination attempt today. I just retranslated Hitler's address to the German people after the assassination attempt by Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators on July 20, 1944 (almost exactly 80 years ago to the day). Of particular interest to me is the invocation of Vorsehung = Providence, which was the way the Nazis got around the concept of God. This invocation places the intended victim in a context of something much larger, of the Eternal. They are the Chosen Ones. Authoritarians like Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, and Erdogan know how to milk that. The question is: How do we deal with that effectively. Below is the link to my translation:
Very interesting re: staging by the Nazis. To date no proof has surfaced attesting to the truth of that fact?. I will read your translation in a different light- now that you have uncovered was denied for years.
You are right; I should have written "may have staged." But there's no real evidence that Marinus van der Lubbe set the fire alone; among other things, he was almost completely blind. A lot of people at the time dismissed the story, and quite a few historians question the story completely.
But none of it really matters: The Nazis used the fire as a pretext to get Reich President von Hindenburg to issue the "Reichstag Fire Decree," which took away many civil liberties and was the beginning of the Nazi "seizure" of power.
This is the real problem: the opportunity to use some incident as a pretext for dictatorship.
Trump’s behavior after the attack reminded me of how he allegedly behaved in “the beast” on 1/6 to the secret service agents wanting them to drive him to the capitol.
Wow, Ruth! This was a very informative article. I'm guessing that trump's behavior was more instinctual, rather than learned, because he doesn't read. I am also baffled by the Secret Service giving in to him. When I saw the video of the event, though, I was surprised that the audience didn't seem to be shaken by the shooting. The ways of a strongman are totally alien to me. Thank you for the education you provide for us.
thank you, Ruth - words like 'unity' and 'change', the later lavishly employed by Obama can mean anything; quoting Anne Frank, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again" I too, believe that when most people hear the words, unity and change, they assume i.e., project their fondest wishes for a kind of unity that I imagine, i.e., has room for diversity and a kind of change that respects civil liberties but those are my projections. MAGA's unity is not spacious, their notion of change is to the tune of political violence encapsulated by Trump's call to fight. i, too, am vulnerable to being both vulnerable and cynical; please see:
(“One nation under God with Liberty and Justice for All”),
the tragic, tribal cult of MAGA disintegrates,
once and for All.
Trump had entrusted his Tribe of bag men, charlatans, suckers and sycophants with his life as well as his fortune.
On Jan. 6, he ordered his crew to take down the mags; he was confident any guns or weapons being carried at the rally weren’t targeting him (no qualms for others).
For years he has stiffed venues, vendors, police and other officials, notorious for unpaid bills. He has drained fundraising pacs to cover huge legal expenses, lied to and grifted off his followers and defended the NRA’s stance on making military grade weapons available to the public amidst the tragedy of lone wolf, mass shootings, most notably ignoring shootings of hunted down school children.
Now that the chickens have come home to roost, his first instinct is to seize the opportunity to exploit his close call for a photo op his campaign can manipulate as an attack by Democrats- the same rivals wisely calling for lowering the temperature on political speech and offering concern for the safety of the same individual who mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi.
Never has cutting corners, by staging rallies in open air spaces, hawking Trump memorabilia in weather from sweltering to freezing, mattered. His rallies spare little concern for his followers’ comfort and wellbeing or the legitimacy of the press. His personal safety being the primary consideration, up to now they have imagined Trump invulnerable if not immortal. A colossus, straddling the nation with the determined tilt of his strong man jaw. A Maga god, at the very least, blessed. The embodiment of right-wing fever dreams; the vessel of Christian nationalism and constitution-gutting authoritarianism. The twinkle in Putin’s eye as long as Maga’s alternate universe persists with eyes wide shut.
For all the hate and fear he’s stoked with evil cunning, for all the exploitation, with its endless stream of useless, fabricated ideas, souvenirs of his evil media genius; for the chaos of deceit, he stands alone but not solely responsible for undoing rules, values, traditions woven through our history of an aspirational greatness well beyond authoritarian reach.
By selfish design, Trump has made himself and the GOP, indeed, our democracy vulnerable. Nothing seemed to hinder his urge to satisfy his enormous ego and bottomless greed. A sane person realizes when his lucks run out. Trump deduces the opposite.
Once the they’d found his shoes, “Fight, fight, fight!,” he exhorted the crowd, fist pumping the air through the Secret Service shield wall. Victim. Martyr. Hero.
The crowd was thrilled! Images of Maga’s wounded hero, washed “in the Blood of the Lamb,” were being monetized from the moment Trump hit the deck. By the time he was pulled to his feet, cameras rolling, the assassination attempt had become a golden opportunity to ride public sympathy all the way to the election and his bank. Someone else was killed. Others grievously injured. A narrow escape, within an inch of his life. Safe!?
I don’t think so. It only takes the first shot to break the spell of impregnable.
Trump is vulnerable to the disaffection of the citizens he disrespected with constant grift and lies. He is responsible for his attempts to destroy our nation, our democracy, our peoplehood, poisoning the body politic with calls for vengeance and retribution and identifying our country through the lens of his narcissistic malice and persecution complex. Remorseless, unaccountable, entitled, lawless. Under the legal umbrella of the Supreme Court he has yet become the target for a disillusioned Republican.
It never occurred to him that winning immunity cannot keep him safe from disappointed diehards of a cult not so uniformly enthralled after all. A Trumper shot and was killed immediately. Trump bled into a campaign meme. A supporter is dead. Others seriously wounded. The public is shocked but not surprised. It was the seemingly inevitable violence we all fear, and campaign season has just begun.
Karma, or in Biblical terms, “you reap what you sow,” he seems delighted to test fate.
If you think he’s learned his lesson think again: No sane person reacts like this to a bullet whizzing by his head:
Sociopaths like tRump view themselves as demigods. No demigod needs a course correction because their self image is one of perfection. They don't learn lessons. He will continue down his road of lunacy.
Trump is acting like Hitler post-Valkyrie. He said that God was with him. Margie Three-Toes regurgitated the same blather. Then Adam Schiff pulls his bone head move. It's a Hell of a thing when the Dems do Trump's dirty work for him.
"shock events can give sitting authoritarian leaders the excuse to do things they’ve wanted to do anyway, like securing their hold on government and silencing the opposition."
Read Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation's and GOP's radical platform already calls for removing tens of thousands of civil servants and experts from all the federal agencies with MAGA radical loyalists. As the Federalist Society has done with the Judiciary, Project 2025 seeks to do in the executive branch. Even if there are "spoils" laws ( we have gone through this before early in our countries history), those laws will be ruled, "unconstitutional" by the judiciary.
Thank you. Very hard to live through. Any hope the media will call out the lack of medical substantiation for the claims of bullet grazing, etc. as Michael Steele and a few other persons have noted-?
Those unfamiliar with strongmen might have found it strange that Trump’s priorities after being wounded by the shooter were not to flee to safety, but instead to tell the Secret Service agents to “wait, wait” so he could put his shoes on, expose his face, arm, and hand to the cameras and crowd, and deliver the fist pump and “fight, fight, fight” message that created an iconic image. In doing so, he also reassured millions of his devoted followers that he was okay and whatever happened they should carry on the battle.
Why the Secret Service allowed him to do these things, in violation of any conceivable security protocols for such moments, is another story. . .
"On August 24, 2023, after being indicted on racketeering and related charges, Donald Trump, former president of the United States, voluntarily surrendered himself to authorities at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, where a mug shot of him was taken."
"In the photograph, Trump, wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and a red tie, glowers at the camera in front of a gray backdrop. His face is lit from the side and from above.[1] It is the first and thus far only police booking photograph of a U.S. president.[1][2][3] After its publishing, the mug shot was used on merchandise by Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, in Internet memes, and featured on various media reports worldwide."
Why did the authorities at the Fulton County Jail allow Trump to turn a mug shot into a first-rate piece of propaganda? When I have my picture taken for my driver's license or passport, the instructions the photographer gives me on how to pose are meant to yield a completely neutral expression. The Georgia mug shot doesn't even have the iconic height scale next to Trump's image!
"how to capitalize on calamity.....an essential strongman skill". And how!
Trumps instant voluble sneering and fist pump "Fight, Fight Fight" told me he had very much "what if-ed" this exact scenario many times before it actually happened.
An essential strongman skill, indeed.
Also, Trump STILL not allowed 3rd party medical report of details of injury.
Ruth, in the 1968 presidential race, Alabama governor George Wallace was shot and paralyzed in the attack. Do you see any parallels between his campaign, which was pushing segregation and racism, and Trump's? I was a child then but remember the incident clearly.
Trump is so similar to Wallace that it's almost like he's channeling him.
Yes, once he was confined to a wheelchair he was considered
“tainted goods “and no longer a viable candidate for Pres. despite claiming his body was gone but his brain was sharp( paraphrased ). Back in those sexist, racist days in his wheelchair, he was thought of as “ unmasculine” and not fit to “Stand up for America”. Defeated he returned to the South, had a religious convergence experience and spent the next fifty years seeking forgiveness to the Blacks for the hatred and division he sowed. One white, doyen of Southern power, upon seeing him in a wheelchair said,
“Why, he ain’t even titty hi!”
In my research work on the American religious experience of the second half of the 20th C
(Fr Coughlin, sister Mary Mills etc) I found surprisingly evidence that ppl want a strongman religious leader well trained in
Muscular Christianity”. Nothing else will do. Women have made in roads but it’s slow going.
All this is documented in the yr 2000 PBS docu: “George Wallace:
Settin’ the Woods on Fire.” Bet Trump says something tonight
( RNC speech) about his
“ religious experience” after being shot. We shall see!
PS…Wallace tried to compare himself to FDR but it didn’t work!
This a very insightful piece. I am curious about the reactions of American presidents who have been attacked, particularly Reagan. How does his reaction compare to Trump (and others in this piece).
After Reagan’s assignation attempt, he won the election by a landslide!
Brady Bill banned assault weapons, high capacity magazines etc. When the Brady Law expired, we started to see more and more mass casualty shootings. It is interesting to me that no media is discussing gun reform very much. More news about blaming the local cops and the Secret Service. At the same time city police chiefs have been warning that the real risk is the amount of guns, easy access to purchase them, or in this case, acquire from parents for kids to borrow or acquire and commit murder/suicide.
And don't forget, some Republicans immediately blamed the female Secret Service agents as incompetent DEI hires. The head of the Secret Service is a woman and she's been severely criticized because she's a woman. I don't mind any criticism based on the facts of this assassination attempt, but I do mind the ones implying and saying the problem is because she's a woman. In case you need any more reasons to know that Republicans are misogynistic.
100%. Of all the failures, the first is the easy access to so many high powered, high capacity guns. It’s unfair to criticize all the police failures. Sure, there are security mistakes by people ( and there will always be people that make mistakes in all walks of life). To me, blaming her, blaming the agents on scene, blaming the local cops…it’s all a distraction from the real cause. Too many military guns that are just too damn easy to acquire. Take 2022, 40 million unit sales in that 1 year alone. Business is booming for the gun industry. Profits over public safety. In a country, plagued by an epidemic of violence, an epidemic of young male loneliness, an epistemological crisis. Each adds up to destabilizing our country.
Absolutely. It's all about the money, people are collateral damage.
Misogyny is a major aspect of fascism, so the GOP being misogynistic, is another data point showing that they are fascists. Fascism is all about turning back the clock to a more primitive era.
But George Wallace didn't. He was a Democrat running as an Independent, a racist whose appeal was mostly among young male whites. His popularity took a nosedive and he got only 8% of the votes.
True! Unfortunately Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. In the racist and sexist views of the time he was considered “ tainted ”and unfit for office bc he was ever after considered
“ not masculine though” and to be able to stand tall for America. He tried to counter this by saying “My body may be gone but my brain is great.”( paraphrased )
Once he realized his ambitions were gone he returned to state politics had a religious conversion experience where he spent the next 50 years apologizing to the Blacks of the South and asking for forgiveness for the seeds of hatred and division he sowed against them. Please watch the PBS docu:
George Wallace: Stettin’ the Woods on Fire. Yr 2000
It is my understanding based on readings I've done that Reagan viewed his survival as a sign that he still had work to do, to wit, taking down the Evil Empire.
Reagan gave an iconic "Tear down this wall speech" and led a nation that for 30+ years under presidents of both major parties STOOD UP to the USSR. Standing up is not taking down here. To say the prisoners in the gulags and the Russian general population who knew how unsustainable their corrupt system was and needed Reagan to "take down the Evil Empire" is an insult to common sense. Reagan gave a good speech, the USSR collapsed in on itself, the West cheered, We won the Cold War. This hegiography is misplaced.
Whatever. I am not going to quibble about semantics or get into a pissing match about the history of US foreign policy or Soviet history. What I recall is that Reagan believed he had been spared so he could bring about an end to the Soviet Union. That's the part that's germane to this piece. And "Evil Empire is a term Reagan used to refer to the Soviet Union.
I find it interesting that this piece doesn’t mention Hitler’s actions following von Staffenburg group’s attempt on his life. Hitler descended far deeper in to paranoia afterwards, and the descriptions of the meat hook hangings of many he found to be or thought to part of the plot are particularly gruesome. The one alternate moment, allowing Rommel to commit suicide so that a hero of the Wehrmacht would not become an embarrassment to the regime was, of course, a batant exception.
Similar purge events are happening in Russia with their Generals and defense contractors since Pygozhin coup attempt of the Defense Ministry.
Shoigu is re-assigned to a new post and purge has been going on and the key witness in the bribes and corruption charges that Pygozhin alleged. And another former General under Timur is set to testify in the case, but winds up dead. It sure is interesting now, how after Pygozhin is killed in that plane crash for accusing the def ministry of corruption, that now corruption is being enforced on the military, but the key witness from Dagestan. Why is it that the witness from an ethnic minority in Russia is the key witness and winds up dead, but the cause of death and where he died is not disclosed. Its a purge of the military, Pirgozhin's accusations are being followed up on by Putin's camp. Kinda destabilizing's to the military and other oligarchs.
Two other high ranking oligarchs are so found dead. "There have been a number of unexplained deaths of prominent Russians since the war broke out, including Pavel Antov, 65, a Russian politician who criticized Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and Ravil Maganov, 67, the chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil."
Arrested Generals and ministers of defense:
Dep Def Minister Timur Ivanov (also a general)
Lt Gen Vadim Shamarin
Lt Gen Yuri Kuznetsov
Major General Ivan Popov
Arrested for bribes and corruption and then found dead or just found dead....
Gen Magomed Khandayev ( was set to testify about corruption, but was found dead)
Igor Kotelnikov ( accused of bribery and then found dead)
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/europe/russian-minister-timur-ivanov-detained-bribery-intl/index.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1we4qgd688o
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/07/15/russia-grants-house-arrest-to-general-on-fraud-charge-a85721
https://www.newsweek.com/magomed-khandayev-russian-official-defense-ministry-dead-1923108
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/putin-army-general-who-key-33199768
Yes. Hitlers' doctor was giving him so many drugs. I feel like in some senses he killed him because the drugs he gave Hitler sounded like quackery to me. Treating mania or depression is still not evolved now, so I can wonder what he was giving him then. Hitler was hiding out with depression a lot of the time. The suicide for depressives is going to happen, if not well treated.
He should have paid heed to that old saw, “Be careful what you ask for; you may get it."
Not sure why his shoes were off but it would be interesting to know why. Was he that scared? He looked like a scared, angry old man. While going out you could see a big bald spot on his head which tells us how carefully they manage him. It must take hours to get his hair and makeup right.
The shooter evidently comes from a right wing family. Neighbors said they've seen trump signs in the yard. I've read reports of over a dozen guns found at the house. All his friends said he's a republican and conservative. I'm not sure we'll ever get to the truth.
Jeff Tiedrich has seen suggestions that there is a group within MAGA who are disenchanted with Trump. They see him as far too centrist. Trump is no longer fulfilling the demands of their extreme nationalist white supremacist misogynistic agenda. If true, Crooks could have seen himself as simply acting as a true MAGA loyalist.
I saw one report on the day of the assassination attempt that messages were deleted from telegram where right wingers hang out. They were deleted right after the attempt but that disappeared quickly.
Yes and the conspirators are saying it’s the best staged event of the century!
This would jibe with attacks by Nick Fuentes and others on the extreme right fringe on J.D. Vance's South Asian wife.
It is obvious that there is a group in the Republican Party. They can go on screen and say rah, rah, rah, sis boom bah for Trump, but they are not going to vote for him. Their votes are fortunately private as are ours. Wondering about Pence, and Haley. She is being a good girl and may be rewarded with a position in the administration, but Pence isn't going to get one, and I don't think he is voting for the man that tried to have him assassinated unless he is really filled with self loathing. I don't think he is. The people that just quit their seats may not be voting for Trump. We now have heard that the Nazis, Klan, and other White Supremacist groups do not like JD Vances wife, and not too many people are going to be happy with tanking the entire public education system to put the US in third world status either.
Also, AOC has a message and I think that it should be shared with everyone that you know who is doubting the Biden-Harris ticket. Please share this. https://youtu.be/hKOYyEjLCHI?si=BEp6KI837zCGIhir
Unfortunately, we have already had our “shock moment” or our "Reichstag Fire" more than 20 years ago - 9/11.
What followed was the massive increase in state surveillance, the violation of established norms and international laws (torture, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, etc.), and mendacious, unjustified, aggressive wars supported by both parties.
Societies and governance are held together by norms and once these are violated, the cornerstone is removed, and the path to authoritarianism accelerates until the warnings eventually become blinking red lights as we see today.
I see the JFK assassination as Part I of our "Reichstag Fire" and 9/11 as Part II.
I'm glad that you are focusing on the assassination attempt today. I just retranslated Hitler's address to the German people after the assassination attempt by Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators on July 20, 1944 (almost exactly 80 years ago to the day). Of particular interest to me is the invocation of Vorsehung = Providence, which was the way the Nazis got around the concept of God. This invocation places the intended victim in a context of something much larger, of the Eternal. They are the Chosen Ones. Authoritarians like Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, and Erdogan know how to milk that. The question is: How do we deal with that effectively. Below is the link to my translation:
http://www.kfkronenberg.com/Hitler_and_Providence_Speech.docx
One other thing: It now appears that the Nazis staged the Reichstag fire themselves.
Very interesting re: staging by the Nazis. To date no proof has surfaced attesting to the truth of that fact?. I will read your translation in a different light- now that you have uncovered was denied for years.
You are right; I should have written "may have staged." But there's no real evidence that Marinus van der Lubbe set the fire alone; among other things, he was almost completely blind. A lot of people at the time dismissed the story, and quite a few historians question the story completely.
But none of it really matters: The Nazis used the fire as a pretext to get Reich President von Hindenburg to issue the "Reichstag Fire Decree," which took away many civil liberties and was the beginning of the Nazi "seizure" of power.
This is the real problem: the opportunity to use some incident as a pretext for dictatorship.
Kenneth, that you for your clarification. Well said! L
Thank you for the translation. Very interesting.
Trump’s behavior after the attack reminded me of how he allegedly behaved in “the beast” on 1/6 to the secret service agents wanting them to drive him to the capitol.
Wow, Ruth! This was a very informative article. I'm guessing that trump's behavior was more instinctual, rather than learned, because he doesn't read. I am also baffled by the Secret Service giving in to him. When I saw the video of the event, though, I was surprised that the audience didn't seem to be shaken by the shooting. The ways of a strongman are totally alien to me. Thank you for the education you provide for us.
thank you, Ruth - words like 'unity' and 'change', the later lavishly employed by Obama can mean anything; quoting Anne Frank, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again" I too, believe that when most people hear the words, unity and change, they assume i.e., project their fondest wishes for a kind of unity that I imagine, i.e., has room for diversity and a kind of change that respects civil liberties but those are my projections. MAGA's unity is not spacious, their notion of change is to the tune of political violence encapsulated by Trump's call to fight. i, too, am vulnerable to being both vulnerable and cynical; please see:
https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/-gullibility-and-cynicism-2022-01-09
Monday, July 15, 2024
Unity vs Division: Choose Wisely
As Democrats consolidate
(“One nation under God with Liberty and Justice for All”),
the tragic, tribal cult of MAGA disintegrates,
once and for All.
Trump had entrusted his Tribe of bag men, charlatans, suckers and sycophants with his life as well as his fortune.
On Jan. 6, he ordered his crew to take down the mags; he was confident any guns or weapons being carried at the rally weren’t targeting him (no qualms for others).
For years he has stiffed venues, vendors, police and other officials, notorious for unpaid bills. He has drained fundraising pacs to cover huge legal expenses, lied to and grifted off his followers and defended the NRA’s stance on making military grade weapons available to the public amidst the tragedy of lone wolf, mass shootings, most notably ignoring shootings of hunted down school children.
Now that the chickens have come home to roost, his first instinct is to seize the opportunity to exploit his close call for a photo op his campaign can manipulate as an attack by Democrats- the same rivals wisely calling for lowering the temperature on political speech and offering concern for the safety of the same individual who mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi.
Never has cutting corners, by staging rallies in open air spaces, hawking Trump memorabilia in weather from sweltering to freezing, mattered. His rallies spare little concern for his followers’ comfort and wellbeing or the legitimacy of the press. His personal safety being the primary consideration, up to now they have imagined Trump invulnerable if not immortal. A colossus, straddling the nation with the determined tilt of his strong man jaw. A Maga god, at the very least, blessed. The embodiment of right-wing fever dreams; the vessel of Christian nationalism and constitution-gutting authoritarianism. The twinkle in Putin’s eye as long as Maga’s alternate universe persists with eyes wide shut.
For all the hate and fear he’s stoked with evil cunning, for all the exploitation, with its endless stream of useless, fabricated ideas, souvenirs of his evil media genius; for the chaos of deceit, he stands alone but not solely responsible for undoing rules, values, traditions woven through our history of an aspirational greatness well beyond authoritarian reach.
By selfish design, Trump has made himself and the GOP, indeed, our democracy vulnerable. Nothing seemed to hinder his urge to satisfy his enormous ego and bottomless greed. A sane person realizes when his lucks run out. Trump deduces the opposite.
Once the they’d found his shoes, “Fight, fight, fight!,” he exhorted the crowd, fist pumping the air through the Secret Service shield wall. Victim. Martyr. Hero.
The crowd was thrilled! Images of Maga’s wounded hero, washed “in the Blood of the Lamb,” were being monetized from the moment Trump hit the deck. By the time he was pulled to his feet, cameras rolling, the assassination attempt had become a golden opportunity to ride public sympathy all the way to the election and his bank. Someone else was killed. Others grievously injured. A narrow escape, within an inch of his life. Safe!?
I don’t think so. It only takes the first shot to break the spell of impregnable.
Trump is vulnerable to the disaffection of the citizens he disrespected with constant grift and lies. He is responsible for his attempts to destroy our nation, our democracy, our peoplehood, poisoning the body politic with calls for vengeance and retribution and identifying our country through the lens of his narcissistic malice and persecution complex. Remorseless, unaccountable, entitled, lawless. Under the legal umbrella of the Supreme Court he has yet become the target for a disillusioned Republican.
It never occurred to him that winning immunity cannot keep him safe from disappointed diehards of a cult not so uniformly enthralled after all. A Trumper shot and was killed immediately. Trump bled into a campaign meme. A supporter is dead. Others seriously wounded. The public is shocked but not surprised. It was the seemingly inevitable violence we all fear, and campaign season has just begun.
Karma, or in Biblical terms, “you reap what you sow,” he seems delighted to test fate.
If you think he’s learned his lesson think again: No sane person reacts like this to a bullet whizzing by his head:
https://variety.com/2024/politics/news/donald-trump-im-supposed-to-be-dead-first-interview-assassination-attempt-1236072041/
Sociopaths like tRump view themselves as demigods. No demigod needs a course correction because their self image is one of perfection. They don't learn lessons. He will continue down his road of lunacy.
Trump is acting like Hitler post-Valkyrie. He said that God was with him. Margie Three-Toes regurgitated the same blather. Then Adam Schiff pulls his bone head move. It's a Hell of a thing when the Dems do Trump's dirty work for him.
"shock events can give sitting authoritarian leaders the excuse to do things they’ve wanted to do anyway, like securing their hold on government and silencing the opposition."
Read Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation's and GOP's radical platform already calls for removing tens of thousands of civil servants and experts from all the federal agencies with MAGA radical loyalists. As the Federalist Society has done with the Judiciary, Project 2025 seeks to do in the executive branch. Even if there are "spoils" laws ( we have gone through this before early in our countries history), those laws will be ruled, "unconstitutional" by the judiciary.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Yours is the most helpful, insightful article on this subject since Saturday‘s tragedy.
Thank you. Very hard to live through. Any hope the media will call out the lack of medical substantiation for the claims of bullet grazing, etc. as Michael Steele and a few other persons have noted-?
Ms. Ben-Ghiat writes:
Those unfamiliar with strongmen might have found it strange that Trump’s priorities after being wounded by the shooter were not to flee to safety, but instead to tell the Secret Service agents to “wait, wait” so he could put his shoes on, expose his face, arm, and hand to the cameras and crowd, and deliver the fist pump and “fight, fight, fight” message that created an iconic image. In doing so, he also reassured millions of his devoted followers that he was okay and whatever happened they should carry on the battle.
Why the Secret Service allowed him to do these things, in violation of any conceivable security protocols for such moments, is another story. . .
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There's a precedent for this:
"On August 24, 2023, after being indicted on racketeering and related charges, Donald Trump, former president of the United States, voluntarily surrendered himself to authorities at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, Georgia, where a mug shot of him was taken."
"In the photograph, Trump, wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and a red tie, glowers at the camera in front of a gray backdrop. His face is lit from the side and from above.[1] It is the first and thus far only police booking photograph of a U.S. president.[1][2][3] After its publishing, the mug shot was used on merchandise by Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, in Internet memes, and featured on various media reports worldwide."
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mug_shot_of_Donald_Trump
Why did the authorities at the Fulton County Jail allow Trump to turn a mug shot into a first-rate piece of propaganda? When I have my picture taken for my driver's license or passport, the instructions the photographer gives me on how to pose are meant to yield a completely neutral expression. The Georgia mug shot doesn't even have the iconic height scale next to Trump's image!
Thank you for essay Professor.
"how to capitalize on calamity.....an essential strongman skill". And how!
Trumps instant voluble sneering and fist pump "Fight, Fight Fight" told me he had very much "what if-ed" this exact scenario many times before it actually happened.
An essential strongman skill, indeed.
Also, Trump STILL not allowed 3rd party medical report of details of injury.
Ruth, in the 1968 presidential race, Alabama governor George Wallace was shot and paralyzed in the attack. Do you see any parallels between his campaign, which was pushing segregation and racism, and Trump's? I was a child then but remember the incident clearly.
Trump is so similar to Wallace that it's almost like he's channeling him.
Yes, once he was confined to a wheelchair he was considered
“tainted goods “and no longer a viable candidate for Pres. despite claiming his body was gone but his brain was sharp( paraphrased ). Back in those sexist, racist days in his wheelchair, he was thought of as “ unmasculine” and not fit to “Stand up for America”. Defeated he returned to the South, had a religious convergence experience and spent the next fifty years seeking forgiveness to the Blacks for the hatred and division he sowed. One white, doyen of Southern power, upon seeing him in a wheelchair said,
“Why, he ain’t even titty hi!”
In my research work on the American religious experience of the second half of the 20th C
(Fr Coughlin, sister Mary Mills etc) I found surprisingly evidence that ppl want a strongman religious leader well trained in
Muscular Christianity”. Nothing else will do. Women have made in roads but it’s slow going.
All this is documented in the yr 2000 PBS docu: “George Wallace:
Settin’ the Woods on Fire.” Bet Trump says something tonight
( RNC speech) about his
“ religious experience” after being shot. We shall see!
PS…Wallace tried to compare himself to FDR but it didn’t work!
That should be religious conversion experience in my Wallace response! Sorry L
It was 1972.
So that makes a difference somehow?
Not really. That's when it happened. In Maryland, I believe.