Former President Donald J. Trump, while speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was shot by an assassin’s bullet: a bullet that came (literally) within an inch of killing him. Had the wind been slightly different, or had Trump inclined his head slightly differently, the bullet – which clipped his right ear – might well have ended his life forever. Only God knows what might have happened after that. With any luck, only God will ever know.
What we do know, however, is that President Trump’s response is now an instant icon. In a photo captured by Associated Press chief photographer Evan Vucci, Trump stands defiant amidst the scrum of Secret Service agents, one fist clenched in the air, blood streaming down his face as his mouth opens in a leonine roar. Above his head, the American flag flies, upside down: an immortal signal of protest and distress. It was the move of a seasoned leader who knows that in times of crisis people need reassurance, and he gave it. Amid the chaos, Trump stood strong, let the people know he was still there, unflinching, ready to face whatever came his way, and everything that will come his way. And the people stood and cheered, bolstered by the knowledge that Trump was leading the charge and that they could depend on his endurance.
Moreover, while this photo is the stuff of Renaissance painters, video of Trump’s response, in which he can be seen pumping his fist repeatedly and shouting “fight” as the crowd chants “USA,” will also enter the annals of history, to say nothing of a million memes. Already, people are remixing it with audio from 50 Cent.
To comment on a moment like this is always difficult, not because there is nothing to say, but because the obvious questions and observations seem small next to the reverence demanded for its historicity. Nevertheless, we will try. To start with, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump – for that is what this was, according to both the Secret Service and FBI – poses a number of troubling questions, and even moreso, the more we learn about it.
What we know so far is that the culprit (about whom, more in a second) was somehow able to climb onto the roof of a structure which even a dim bodyguard should’ve recognized as a potential sniper’s nest, and then get off multiple shots, one of which managed to tragically strike and kill one of the rally attendees: former Butler County fire chief Corey Comperatore. Needless to say, our prayers will join in unison with the millions who recognize this man as the innocent victim of senseless, cowardly political violence. But we also have to wonder, why was he put in that position? How did this happen? How did the Secret Service let this happen?
It’s not as if they were without warnings. Footage from an interview between reporters at the BBC and another rally attendee who spotted the shooter in the act of climbing into his nest indicate that local police were told about him and ignored the warnings. Though in fairness, they may have assumed that this “warning” was, in fact, about a secret service agent assuming the position in order to stop potential shooters.
Which brings us to the person who really ought to face questions: Secret Service director Kimberly A. Cheatle. And Cheatle has a lot of questions to answer.
Firstly, shortly after the incident, allegations began to circulate that the Secret Service had denied funding for more extensive protection for Trump’s detail, despite fears that something like this might happen. Is this true? If so, then Cheatle must not only resign, but questions must be asked about her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Even assuming, as we must without further evidence, that the shooter acted alone, conscious negligence in protecting a disfavored presidential candidate is a scandal which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must be held to account for, if such a scandal does, indeed exist. It is not as if the idea was unheard-of among Democrats. Prior to this incident, House Democrats had already floated bills stripping Trump of Secret Service protection. Now we know why. Some of them clearly wanted something like this to happen.
But that alone does not account for a larger issue. That is to say, as Blackwater founder Erik Prince tweeted after the incident, “the fact that [US Secret Service] allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.” That is to say, even taking lack of funding or resources into account, stopping an attempt like this should’ve been basic advance team 101 stuff. We must know from the Secret Service how they prepared the scene, what security precautions they did take, why they diverted resources from Trump’s rally to a Jill Biden event (according to RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree), and why the shooter was able to so easily hoodwink them. Especially considering who the shooter is.
Oh yes, about that. As confirmed from the FBI Saturday night, the shooter – who was killed at the scene – is one Thomas Matthew Crooks of Butler, Pennsylvania. And who is Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man who nearly brought down a former (and possibly future) leader of the free world? Is he a trained assassin? Ex-Special Forces? Perhaps a former NAVY Seal?
Ha. No. Admittedly, as presidential assassins go, Crooks is a bit of a cipher, but what we do know so far is this: he’s a dweeby 20-year-old kid who donated $15 to ActBlue when President Biden was inaugurated, appeared as an extra in an ad for Blackrock, and yet was apparently a registered Republican in Pennsylvania. Though given that Pennsylvania is a closed primary state, one wonders if he only assumed that registration in order to vote for Nikki Haley and troll the man who he would later attempt to kill. However, while his motives remain a stubborn and frustrating mystery, we do think we can say this: he was clearly mentally ill and without any apparent combat training. Not the sort of person, in other words, who the Secret Service should have had trouble preempting. Yet they did. How? And why?
However, whatever the answers to these questions, and heaven knows how many others which will doubtlessly emerge the more we learn about this situation, we think there is one fairly safe bet coming out of this: President Trump will almost certainly be the 47th President of these United States. The last such attempted assassination attempt – against President Ronald Reagan in 1981 – caused Reagan’s approval rating to spike by double digits. Trump, given his instantly iconic response, seems very likely to benefit from a similar bump, especially given that this occurred practically on the eve of the Republican National Convention, when Americans will presumably be reminded of it day and night. What’s more, we suspect, this incident will partially quiet the Democrats’ rapidly growing civil war over whether President Biden is fit for purpose. Not because he is, but because when you’re walking into a meat grinder, why waste time running a candidate with an actual future? Better to run the old, sacrificial lamb who’s past his prime.
But more than these mundane considerations, a reckoning is clearly in the works for the irresponsible and craven Leftist culture which made an act like this not merely a possibility, but an inevitability. Already, those who compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, or prophesied the “end of democracy” if he was elected, or engaged in histrionic fantasies about an incipient American dictatorship being cooked up in the bowels of the Heritage Foundation through Project 2025 are facing long overdue accountability for their overheated and underthought rhetoric. And the responses have been revealing.
Some, like the calumnious and effeminate Twitch streamer Destiny, tastelessly tried to equate this incident to January 6th, while dancing on the grave of the one dead victim by labeling him a sympathizer with treason who “caught a stray.” Those people should be shoved back under their rocks and, ideally, deprived of internet access for the sake of America’s collective sanity.
Others, mostly #NeverTrumpers, have insisted that they’re still well within their rights to call Trump a threat to democracy, because they at least aren’t okay with him being shot. The disingenuousness and moral narcissism is stunning, when you consider that these same people often insist Trump is a threat to democracy precisely because of his rhetoric. In their minds, his rhetoric is responsible for January 6th. Yet now that their rhetoric may have inspired something even worse, they’re allowed to claim that their intentions place it above reproach? Nonsense. And so, too, is any claim that Trump is a threat to democracy. He’s not. He never was. What he is, is a threat to the sniveling, prissy oligarchy which hides behind the fig leaf of “democracy” to mask its power lust.
And finally, there are those -- who we will not dignify by naming them – who have only one complaint about this incident, expressed best by two words which trended – in all caps – after the shooting: “YOU MISSED.” And to those people, we say, yes, he did, thank God, and so did you. You missed. You came for Trump and you missed. You came for America and you missed. You came for democracy itself, while disingenuously pretending to save it (as all communists do), and you missed. But we won’t. And come November, and its nearly inevitable result, everyone like you will be in the crosshairs, not of madmen who get lucky, but of a nation tired of being rotted from within. And we are quite sure that this time, because you missed, President Trump will not.
