July 15, 2024 [Note from Peter: Imagine for a moment what would have happened if Joe Biden were the one that was shot on Saturday. The media would have blamed Trump, ‘MAGA extremists’. And Biden most certainly would not have come roaring back with a show of strength. As James points out below, the double standards are off the charts.] Rarely are events recognized in real time as obvious historical turning points. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is one of them, and it will go down as a clear marker in the history of America’s decline. It epitomizes the chaos and disorder that characterize the current state of affairs. And it escalates a sharp divide in American politics. Of course, this isn’t the first attempted Presidential assassination. But it marks a new era where political tensions have moved clearly into political violence. We’ve been watching it all year with the anti-Israel protests. We saw it during the BLM riots. Now it has escalated to political assassination. A bullet came within centimeters of ending the life of a former President, and top contender for the highest political office in the land. It would have been an extremely violent death, live-streamed from hundreds of phones and cameras. Trump survived, but at least one rally attendee is dead. He’s dead because he went to a political event to support his chosen candidate for democratically elected office. And someone decided that instead of allowing voters to decide our country’s future, he would use violence to alter the political landscape. Is it really hard to understand what would push someone to such extremism? For eight years, the media has been telling people that Trump is Hitler and represents an existential threat to humanity. The clear implication of their fear-mongering is that extreme measures are justified. And in the hours after Trump was shot, the media continued its shameful miscarriage of its duty. CNN declared, “Secret Service rushes Trump offstage after he falls at rally,” and “Trump injured in incident at rally.” Even after it became obvious that a bullet struck Trump, and that it was clearly an assassination attempt, the Associated Press, CNN, NBC and others continued to run with headlines with some variant of, “Shooting at Trump Rally.” NPR’s headline read, “Trump says he was shot in the ear at rally”. Note the wording: “Trump says”, as if this was just another wild, unverified claim from the former President that needed to be run past one of their holy fact checkers. This might seem like a subtle point to harp-on given the momentous event. But it’s not. It’s part of the decay in American institutions. The media spins, spins, spins, even in the moments after their number one target, the man they demonized above all, got shot. And that’s also why the well-wishes from Trump’s political rivals ring hollow. It’s one thing to criticize someone’s policies, or explain how you believe their actions or leadership will make the country worse. But it’s hard to deny that the left’s extreme histrionics in exaggerating the existential risks of a second Trump presidency is at least partially to blame. I think much of the blame also falls on Joe Biden. Remember, this is the guy who promised to unite the country and “restore the soul of America”. Bang up job, Joe. Instead he has deepened divisions, to the point that ideological fault lines in America are far worse than they were four years ago. And that says nothing about his record on inflation, national security, global security, the border, and more. The majority of Joe Biden’s own party doesn’t want him to run. But he insists he is staying in the race. The left is terrified. They know they cannot win. If Biden had bowed out, they’d have some chance. But with Biden, they have zero chance. So it’s not surprising that some deranged foot soldier— feeling a sense of desperation and inevitability about Joe Biden losing the election— took it upon himself to eliminate Donald Trump. Much has been written on the Internet these days about the poor security at the event as well. But we shouldn’t be surprised about that either. Remember, Joe Biden picks his people based on diversity & inclusion credentials, not actual talent. And that includes the Secret Service. But just to give you an idea of just how spectacularly bad the security was— If you look at a satellite image of the rally site, you’ll see there are six structures with elevated rooftops (i.e. at least 3-5 meters in height) which had a clear line of sight to where Trump was speaking. That means those six locations were high-risk vulnerability points that the Secret Service should have sealed off from the moment they showed up to the venue. Instead they were wide open. And the shooter positioned himself at the CLOSEST one, less than 150 meters away. This failure to include such a tactically important position within the security perimeter is beyond inexcusable. There are plenty of videos floating around showing crowds of people shouting at the cops, informing them of the shooter’s presence on the rooftop. But law enforcement didn’t react in time. Is anyone really surprised? Don’t we remember the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, in which a deranged madman was murdering children, and the cops stood around and did nothing? The escalation of political violence is deeply disturbing. But the sheer security incompetence of the incident is another national humiliation, on the order of the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. America’s adversaries cannot believe what they’re seeing. So where to from here? Well, the Left has already tried everything to keep Trump out of power. They tried disinformation and the Russia collusion hoax. They tried impeachment. Twice. They tried full-blown lawfare. They tried to throw him in jail. They even tried to remove him from the ballot. Nothing worked. And, now, someone has even tried to take him down with a bullet. I don’t even want to think about the potential chaos had the bullet been an inch to the left, and it had been Donald Trump’s brains as opposed to his blood spilling onto the stage. But he survived, and the Left is completely desperate now. Voters are soon going to choose between an enfeebled old man who can’t complete a sentence, versus a guy whose first instinct after an attempted assassination is to show strength. It’s pretty obvious which image America needs to project right now. And for all of their talk of saving democracy, the Left is terrified of allowing the voters to choose. All of their grand plans have failed… one after another. They know they’ll lose. I think the only other tricks up their sleeve are: (1) Joe Biden has an ‘accident’ (which might be blamed on some MAGA guy, just to get everyone riled up), and they replace him with a viable candidate; (2) Rampant voter manipulation. I’m not holding my breath for the third option, i.e. they allow voters to freely make up their own minds. The Left is fanatical, and as the assassination attempt shows, they are willing to do anything to accomplish their goals. Trying times indeed. It’s clear that having a strong network of trustworthy, like-minded people is becoming more important than ever. To your freedom, | 
