I began writing this piece, about what I remember from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016 and how it presaged our current era of political violence, before what is being called an “assassination attempt” on former president Donald Trump happened on Saturday evening. After the news broke, I paused. Was this appropriate?There will of course be endless conspiracies theories around this. (Or, I guess that was already true about five minutes after the shooting was reported.)
Actually, there’s never been a more important time to understand where this came from. It also looks like the shooter was a 20-year-old male registered Republican, but I don’t read too much into that—at 20, many young people are politically unformed, though they have access to guns. I won’t blame an ideology, except for the right wing’s gun worship.
And we’ll never know why the Secret Service, maligned for its event security, let Trump pause after they rushed in to protect him, and stand and raise his fist in a fascist salute. He waved it around maniacally and almost hit the female agent closest to him in the head. Why they let him take a victory lap in a dangerous situation—there could have been other shooters—we’ll never know. [my emphasis] (1)
Joan’s question is a valid one about the performance of the Secret Service. But the answer may just be that they didn’t expect Trump to be dumb enough to pop his head out into plain view in that moment. But the point is, she’s asking a question about the procedures and actual conduct of the Secret Service in a critical moment that was recorded in footage instantly famous around the world. Not everyone will take that approach.
Her piece puts this in the context of the ongoing climate of violence the radical right including Trump has been promoting since he first began running for President in 2015, of which January 6, 2020 was the worst moment so far.
Conspiracy theories (of course!)
It’s important careful about conspiracy theories, specifically “conspiracist” thinking. I don’t know if professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has yet discovered that it was all part of an intergalactic plot and that space-alien lizard people substituted themselves for the Secret Service agents. And various far right sources including the Russian state propaganda operation are surely already blaming George Soros for it.
What may look like an elaborate conspiracy on its face may actually be the result of more mundane failures. Ken Klippenstein observed on Sunday, “Ironically, the most ardent conspiracy theorists who see the CIA’s hand behind everything, and the FBI cheerleaders who think the Bureau is going to save democracy, both share the same assumption: that the national security state is competent.” (2)
A basic critical thinking guidelines is important here, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” And there will be no shortage of extraordinary claims around this.
As Noah Berlatsky notes, “Conspiracy theories offer certainty. But you can’t plan, or act, or offer needed solidarity in an uncertain, changing situation if you’ve already retreated into a web of nonsense.” /3)
And he elaborates:
In that context, peremptorily rejecting official information, and insisting you have already figured out the exciting and validating plot, is very tempting. It appeals to our sense of naïve cynicism—the gullible belief that if you believe nothing reported by mainstream or valid sources, you can never be gullible. Just presume it’s all some scam, and you can dispense with the anxiety of uncertainty. Fool yourself first and you don’t have to worry about anyone else doing it. Sometimes the easiest mark is the mark who’s desperate not to be a mark.Punditman has a helpful summary of various high-profile assassination attempts in US political history in commenting on Joe Biden odd observation, “the idea – the idea – that there’s political violence, or violence in America like this, is just unheard of, it’s just not appropriate.” (4) And he summarizes the need to be cautious about unfounded speculation this way:
Again, I get it. I also, personally, myself do not want to sympathize in any way with Trump; I also, personally, myself am nervous about the future, which is, now as always, notoriously hard to predict. But rushing to despair and/or to conspiracy theories (which are in many cases I think a variation of despair) is both a moral and tactical failure.
It’s a tactical failure for the obvious reason that you can’t act effectively to change the status quo if you’re deluding yourself about the status quo. Convincing yourself that Trump is automatically going to win now, and/or convincing yourself that Trump controls all, even unto the assassination attempts on his person—both of those are essentially calls for hopelessness and surrender. People present arguments and stances like this as bravely anti-establishment. But announcing that the establishment is all powerful isn’t opposing the establishment. It’s declaring you’re giving up because the anxiety and fear of dealing with actual events is too much for you to face. [my emphasis]
This is not to say that when someone starts popping off rounds at politicians, we shouldn’t be highly discerning and skeptical of officialdom and all those involved. For instance, Lincoln’s killing was part of a broader conspiracy. And cottage industries of possibilities engulf the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations, and undoubtedly others..Daniel Drezner, thinking in a similar vein, writes:
I’m always up for a good conspiracy theory, but I tend to wait more than two days. Maybe Oliver Stone is already working on something. More likely he’s waiting to see what comes next in this crazy year.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with verbalizing the first thought that pops into your head when chatting over coffee but when you post nonsense with no basis in reality, all you do is add garbage to an already bursting bin of online rubbish, further polluting the hive mind with biased and poorly sourced conjecture (luckily Punditman has never done that!)
Anyone reporting on American politics and writing the sentence, “The illusion of security and safety in American politics – built over decades - has been dramatically shattered” in the wake of this shooting should not be allowed to write any more U.S. coverage without first taking at least three semesters of undergraduate American history courses. … Three years ago Vice President Mike Pence and the entire U.S. Congress were the target of a violent mob assault on the U.S. Capitol. There were 656 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 and another 261 in the first half of 2024. Seriously, that is the single-dumbest sentence I have read in the 24 hours after the Trump shooting — which is saying something given the idiocies being spouted on social media. (5)
It's almost as if corporate media pundits are often lazy and clueless! Who would have guessed?!
Ruth Ben-Ghiat skips past the conspiracist speculation to how MAGA will try to frame this in the Presidential campaign:
The narrative trajectory for the fall is clear: Trump is depicted as a force for freedom and those who document his crimes and call out his authoritarian agendas are the “fascists.” They are the ones who are dangerous inciters of political violence and are to be blamed for past and any future events.Notes:
These claims are meant to silence analysts of Trump’s own tradition of inciting violence —most spectacularly, the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol— by making people feel it is off-limits to criticize Trump. No matter that the former president had mocked a Democrat who was the victim of another act of political violence, Paul Pelosi, after a Trump supporter bashed Pelosi’s head with a hammer in a failed assassination attempt directed at then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Trump had always told his devoted followers that the “enemies” were not going after him, but rather going after them, and he was “just standing in the way.” This awful assassination attempt will seem to validate that claim, especially since a person attending the rally was killed by the shooter. [bolding in original; my emphasis in italics]
(1) Walsh, Joan (2024): Where Our Current Moment of Political Violence Began. The Nation 07/16/2024. <https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/rnc-political-violence/> (Accessed: 2024-15-07). Paragraph breaks added.
/(2) Klippenstein, Ken (2024): How Secret Service Missed the Trump Shooter. Substack 07/14/2024. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/how-secret-service-missed-the-trump> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).
(3) Berlatksy, Noah (2024): Don’t Spread Baseless Conspiracy Theories About The Assassination Attempt. Everything Is Horrible 07/14/2024. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/rnc-political-violence/ (Accessed: 2024-16-07).
(4) Punditman (2024): A Nation on Edge: Insights into the Attempted Trump Assassination. Punditiman’s Newsletter 07/16/2024. <https://punditman.substack.com/p/a-nation-on-edge-insights-into-the> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).
(5) Drezner, Dan (2024): Ten Thoughts About the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump. Drezner’s World 07/14/2024. <https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/ten-thoughts-about-the-attempted> (Accessed: 2024-16-07).
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