Donald Trump appeared to be shot in the ear as shots were fired at the former president at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump grabbed at the side of his face and blood spattered across his cheek as several popping sounds were heard.

  • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 months ago

    Hiding a small razor blade in a hat or hand is a pretty common pro wrestling trick to fake a bloody injury. Don’t know how much I believe this is a real attack. He seems way to ok with things after an attempted assassination and gets up really fast for no confirmation they caught the shooter.

    I mean it COULD be a real attempt, but I’m a skeptic

      • sinovictorchan@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        This is a open terrorist attack against a privileged rich white man in the Global North who have access to the best security guards of the world. Why should Donald Trump panicked when any attacks against him has more severe consequence than attacks against the disabled people, the poor people, the black people, the Indigenous people who often dies from planned chemical attacks in federal reserve concentration camps, or the attacks against communities of color in the context of Pax Americana anto-terrorist terrorism to kill unproven terrorist suspects?

    • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      9 months ago

      I think shock (not the medical kind, just general) and a lifetime of having a completely warped sense of danger and consequence played roles in his response. Like that video internet monarchies fawn over of the attempted assassination of whichever king of terf island: He doesn’t not flinch because he’s made of holier stuff than us peons, he doesn’t flinch because everything in his life has conspired to fuck his sense of how killable he is.

  • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 months ago

    Who the hell benefits from this other than his fanatics? I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be staged, and I’d be even less surprised if his supporters didn’t care it wasn’t real.

    • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      I don’t disagree with the underlying idea here

      But I would also caution heavily against doubting the simplest explanation: some unwell person, possibly a fallen Trump fan (groyper types angry he supports Israel) or some delusional Biden fan, whatever, just someone mad because Trump does objectively suck shit. Someone who hated him is the most obvious and simplest explanation and should be the assumption unless or until convincing evidence otherwise comes out.

      • stasis@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        Someone who hated him is the most obvious and simplest explanation

        yeah. i’m pretty sure it was someone who wanted to be a hero and thought they were going to save america by shooting trump

      • SadArtemis🏳️‍⚧️@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        I don’t think it’s entirely out of the question that this was a CIA op, like the assassination of JFK probably was. Trump is treading on a lot of toes, after all- with the possibility of “peace with Russia” (not that I think he could succeed against the blob there), or the (also almost certainly unfounded) hysteria around “leaving NATO” (or extorting the other NATO members, anyways) as well as the fact that the Biden admin is absolutely guilty of a whole slew of crimes they don’t want getting dug up.

        Either that, or it was an unwell person, someone who hated him- he’s a very hateable person TBH (though anyone with sense should understand, he’s just as vile as the rest of DC regardless of party affiliation and if anything refreshingly incompetent/not with a death wish for his country).

        The most obvious explanation as you said should be the assumption- but that this happened after he met with Orban (who for all his faults has been genuinely trying to prevent WW3, meeting Zelensky/Putin/Xi and then getting rebuffed by Biden before meeting Trump) stinks to me.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        I ain’t busting out the tinfoil hat just yet, because it’s entirely possible with all the fearmongering of making Trump the antithesis of freedom, that some unwell person might think they’re saving the world by attacking him, but so much of it feels… off. I can’t help but be suspicious. That said, I’ll withhold any final conclusions until experts can investigate and weigh in.

        • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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          10 months ago

          The right wing will be going hog wild for the next… forever… if this turns out to a clear cut assassination attempt as it now appears. Expect weaponization of the term “stochastic terrorism” against the democrat types. And, to an extent, they won’t be wrong. If you call a guy Hitler 2.0 you are kinda telling people to stop that guy. Of course they ddi the same thing with the 2020 election calling it stolen. If you truly believed there was a deep state coup, isn’t it logical to do something maybe like Jan 6? Right wingers are always better at the bad faith messaging though, so, I see absolutely nothing good coming from this. Maybe some good memes.

          • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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            9 months ago

            Unfortunately, I just heard the word going around that someone in the crowd died, so it does definitely appear at the very least real shots were going into the crowd. None of that has been verified, as far as I can tell, but I’m sure we’ll get all the details by tomorrow if not in the next few hours. It’s not looking good either way, sadly. You’re right that the right wing is going to use this for all the mileage it’ll get, stunt or not.

    • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      Pray that it was a bog standard, bluemaga deranged liberal or never-Trumper.

      Anyone else, like an anarchist, an anarcho-vaushist, a DSA meeting attender is going to get the left the entire mail fist of the state. And we won’t even have to wait for Trump. If the person was DSA or doing anarchist posting online Biden will happily expand targeting and criminalization of the left before he leaves office and Trump will expand it a bit more once he gets in office. At least if it’s a brainwormed and deranged liberal or never-Trump Russia-gater Republican the storm over this dies down faster and there’s less hay made of it and a real push to ascribe it to inexplicable mental illness that we can’t hope to understand at which point by the time Trump’s in office he’s probably not thinking about getting commies but about hurting Biden, Obama, the DNC, etc who would be behind putting him on trial as well as getting him shot. Of course either way there’s going to be red meat thrown out to the reactionaries and speculation that it was antifa BUT if it’s confirmed we’re in a world of shit.

      As to who benefits, by surviving Trump benefits. By trying to kill him any true believer, institution loving person who’s full Russia-gate BlueAnon pilled and convinced Trump is literally the second coming of Hitler and will turn 95% great and good USA into nightmare bad USA overnight. One needs look no further than online discourse on twitter, reddit, lemmy world, etc to see plenty of deranged liberals panicking over the state of the race with everyone aware Biden is senile, talking amongst each other about Russiagate hoaxes, how he’s Putin’s puppet, believing NATO is great and that Trump will destroy it, believing in all kinds of other cope nonsense. It’s not hard to see a true-believer in that who got lost in the sauce picking up a gun and fancying themselves a patriot to take him out.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        My only counter is that Trump and his supporters already believe Biden and Dems are in a cabal with communists. If it was some anarchist, he’d still blame Biden as equally; if it were a Dem, he’d blame communists as equally. To Trump and his cronies, it’s all the same. No matter who wins, or who fired those shots, they’ll squeeze harder on us.

        • darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          Yeah but that’s just red meat. When they say communists normally they mean standard liberal democrats. If it was actually an “antifa” type person it will be different in response from the government that it will mobilize at all levels against the left. Whereas if it’s a liberal the mainstream media and FBI aren’t going to call them a communist, they’ll say mentally ill or whatever the standard take is and slowly it’ll fade away.

    • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      I’m wondering about the ‘staged’ explanation too. Points in favor of that I’ve come across from others or can think of:

      • Who insists on stopping to do a fist pump to the crowd after being shot at? Yeah, he’s a narcissist, but still, wouldn’t fight or flight kick in and he’d want to get out of there?

      • He has some history with fake wrestling, right? I’m not sure to what extent off-hand, but the fact he does means he’s not a stranger to “faking” things.

      • The seeming lack of collateral damage if it was a real shooter. That someone would have the discipline of aim to only graze him, but not cause any other damage to anyone. I’m not sure on the logistics of this myself, but it’s something I heard that I’m paraphrasing from someone else.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        I’d also add that his followers absolutely would not stop following him if it turned out he lied here. He could spit in their faces and they would applaud. He has nothing to lose from doing a stunt like this, in fact they might find it endearing.

      • Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        He is a narcissist, above any sense of self preservation. He has bragged about things he shouldn’t, said things he shouldn’t, done things he shouldn’t. All to brag.

        Wrestling doesn’t make bullet sized holes on ears, doesn’t make bullets appear flying on new York times video footage, doesn’t make shots happen, doesn’t kill a spectator.

        There was a collateral death. Allegedly one spectator. Shooter was a bad shot, that’s all.

        • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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          9 months ago

          When I wrote the other comment, I did not have any info on collateral damage and the reactions of the crowd in the clip I saw didn’t seem to suggest evidence of any. If there is indeed a death as a result, then certainly that point doesn’t hold.

  • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
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    9 months ago

    And the US clown show kicks into overdrive. The trapeze artists are flying doing all sorts of backflips while the jugglers are on a unicycle riding the high wire. It’s going to be an entertaining rest of the year if nothing else.

  • fire86743@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 months ago

    I have a feeling that this is only going to piss off MAGA fascists so much that they’ll be open to using more violence to achieve their goals.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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    10 months ago

    footage of the shot, shots are fired at around 8 minutes.

    He looks alright after he gets up, just a little dazed. Doubt he’ll die from this. Could even have been staged, but I recommend waiting for more info before speculating too hard.

  • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Next debate Biden should put some bottle caps on his shoes and occasionally stomp to see what happens.

  • Star Wars Enjoyer @lemmygrad.ml
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    9 months ago

    I won’t discount the possibility that it’s staged, but this one doesn’t ring that bell for me.

    It’s very possible that some liberal with a rifle and a dream thought he’d become a hero. Given the media coverage that Trump gets from the “”“left”“”, it’s most likely that he’s just the victim of someone who lost the mental health battle.

    By all accounts, he had to have been actually injured based on the wound and the blood pattern. More than what a razor blade could do. As well, Trump would’ve needed to make the incision himself. It’s extremely unlikely that he would’ve agreed to do something like this while he’s already leading in the polls and doesn’t need a stunt.

    His reaction is also normal for someone who has just been grazed by a bullet. The first thing our body will do in an extreme situation is fill our brain with adrenaline, numbing pain. It’s well documented that soldiers could be shot more than once in combat before fully realizing what’s happened, this is even more true for grazes. An injury like this won’t be fatal, and won’t cause any long-term damage. His ear will get patched up, and he’ll be back to normal with nothing but a scar and possible mental anguish.

    And I’d like to close with a personal gripe, I’m seeing way too many people who aren’t big into marksmanship not understanding why the shot missed. The head is a target the size of a cantaloupe, and a man like Trump never stops moving. From the noise of the rounds in the footage, I estimate a minimum distance of 150m. That is a damn difficult shot to make, of course it’s going to miss. Then factor in that the shooter took (I counted but could be wrong) three shots. After that first round, it gets significantly harder to keep the rifle on target. The two follow-up shots might as well have been directed at random. Media has made so many people believe that hitting shots like that is easy, but it really isn’t. Please stop with this one.

    • Star Wars Enjoyer @lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      All I’m seeing is people putting themselves into hysterics talking about it on social media, demanding that it has to be staged and his death would be an objectively good thing. And it’s all just people who don’t know what they’re talking about, but refuse to ever shut up.

      The right is going to retaliate for this eventually, but Trump getting off with only a minor injury was the best possible outcome of this. If the injury was serious or fatal, the fascist bandit armies would come out in droves. It would be worse for everyone. Remember a few years ago when the right kept doing terror attacks in progressive spaces? Imagine how much worse that would be if their dear leader was murdered on camera. Liberals really need to stop celebrating the idea of this attempted assassination, all it did was open a door that none of us should want to go through. This is a rallying cry for the right, this is a green light for violence. The far-right will use this event for years to come to justify murders and hate crimes.

      • amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        I don’t know, to some extent this take on it sounds like victim-blaming to me. Not that I’m saying you intend it that way, but like… “best possible outcome of this [because…] the fascist bandit armies would come out in droves [if he died]” seems like kind of a lose-lose situation for people to be in. If Trump is alive and kicking, he can win the presidency and continue to foment stochastic terrorism by riling up his base with more and more violent rhetoric, while also potentially instituting policies meant to harm his political faction opponents. If he’s not, they commit terrorism on his behalf.

        I know it doesn’t all start and end with Trump (far from it and there’s plenty to be said about how fascist and imperialist the US already is under Biden and previous presidents before him and Trump) but from the standpoint of the kind of base Trump is the center of gravity for, him further riling it up or being a martyr both seem like bad outcomes to me in different ways. The “far-right” doesn’t need an excuse to do violence and already has been (I mean, the Jan 6 thing happened long before this). What they do need is power to be able to carry out what they want to do as more than random acts of terror and Trump represents a means of them getting that in some way. Though he is of course far from the only one in their circles willing to go there. He’s just currently the most charismatic and the center of gravity for pushing it.

      • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        Not disagreeing with you, but they would eventually turn to violence inevitably. Either through “legal” means as reactionaries restructure the government under Trump and his supporters, or through continued terrorism in areas or periods where he isn’t in power. It doesn’t matter if he’d gotten assassinated or if there had never been an attempt. His fanatics are convinced they’re in a holy war, and they look for any shared of evidence - real or imagined - to support that bias.

        I’d wager you’re more annoyed at the hypocrisy of liberals wanting Trump dead than them simply wanting him dead, because I can guarantee his fash followers are going to do violence and terror regardless of any attempt, its success, or its failure.

        • rainpizza@lemmygrad.mlOP
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          9 months ago

          This is exactly what I am seeing in Reddit with people throwing the accusation that the shooter is from “Antifa” and also calling for a purge. These chuds only need a small excuse to start murdering people and justify the dehumanization of any group of people that they are told to hate.

          • CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml
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            9 months ago

            Exactly. They’ve been screeching about this decades before Trump, insisting the US is some Christian fascist paradise being besieged by an international cabal of communists. Every Trumpite politician I see yammers on about “the left” in every negative thing that happens. Trump didn’t need to get shot at for them to start marching with torches at Charlottesville, or to start attacking city infrastructure to target minorities, or to push state governments and courts to adopt more and more aggressive reactionary legislation. Yes, this will be their rallying cry, their “proof”, but with how much pressure reactionaries have been putting on citizens, it was only a matter of time until someone pushed back and gave them the excuse they wanted.

    • Franfran2424@lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      Exactly. Trump gains little and risks a lot by sketching it.

      He instead can keep hoping Biden gets worse and worse till his defeat. Relatively safe and already leading.

      Also, we literally have the corpse of the shooter in a roof.

    • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      The news today is saying it was about 200m away and he was using “an AR style” rifle. Definitely a difficult shot, but if he was using an AR-15, that alone made this a really dumb move. He should have brought a full sized rifle, and aimed for centre of mass. Effective range of 5.56 is about 550m. A full sized rifle would be at least 50% more.

      • Jennie@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        There’s another image of him where you can clearly see the wound and yeah it’s literally just grazed his ear. Unfortunate but it is probably not going to kill him.

    • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      To be fair, he looks pretty good for an old man who just got shot. Didn’t even break character. Watching in slow motion it looks like the bullet meant for his head only grazed his ear. He’s gonna be fine.

      • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        Did lose a portion of his ear, but it probably was fast enough that adrenaline took over.

        Will have to see what his follow up response is.

      • ComradeSalad@lemmygrad.ml
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        10 months ago

        My bad, thanks for the info. I was watching a low quality broadcast, thought him going down was him collapsing.

        One of the agents did hand his hat back to him though judging from the close up shots. I guess he likes his hat.

      • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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        9 months ago

        I don’t know. How many people are actually going to make their voting decision based on this? Who was going to stay home or vote Biden, but is now voting for Trump?

        There’s also the factor of this happening 100+ days out from the election. I bet more people are going to forget this even happened by November than will have it be the event that decides their vote.

  • albigu@lemmygrad.ml
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    9 months ago

    Browsing reactionary spaces, seems they’re trying to brew the theory that the secret service purposefully let this happen, or though sheer incompetence. Wait a week and they’ll start saying the secret service was compromised by Biden.

    • rainpizza@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      9 months ago

      I haven’t seen this take yet. However, what I do see is some chuds saying that the guy is probably from Antifa and some others rallying for a “purge”. This is going to be a wild year.

    • USSR Enjoyer@lemmygrad.ml
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      9 months ago

      I saw some ex-cia guy making that same argument. The idea of a US president thinking the CIA is out to kill him is pretty funny.

    • rainpizza@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      9 months ago

      It gets crazier! The shooter was registered as a Republican voter. Never in my life have I expected a republican to do this against Trump out of all people LOL