Second Failed Assassination Attempt on Trump
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rodoheel
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Entirely one-sided? No. But is right-wing rhetoric more loaded with hate, anger, violence, and divisiveness? No question. Only a fool would try to seriously dispute that. Right-wingers are far more likely to make open threats that they will harm government officials in response to laws or regulations they dislike. Right-wingers are far more likely to threaten or talk about "Civil War." Right-wingers are far more likely to use dehumanizing and denigrating rhetoric about immigrants and foreigners being a threat to our country. (Trump's own VP is spreading dangerous lies about legal Haitian immigrants that are causing people to make bomb threats and close schools; the post that Laura Loomer, who is now apparently a key Trump adviser, made about Kamala in the White House is the most astonishingly open racism I've seen in a while. There are no equivalent senior Dem candidates or advisers pushing this type of stuff about their political opponents.) And most importantly, right-wingers are far more likely to engage in actual political violence. There is simply no real left-wing equivalent to the massive white nationalist movement that has consistently been a key factor in Trump's rise and makes up a big chunk of his supporters and advisers.
Calling Trump a threat to Democracy is not violent political rhetoric. It is simply fact. It is simply fact that he tried to overturn the results of the last election through months of plainly frivolous court challenges and openly denigrating and delegitimizing our voting system. It is fact that he instigated and for hours failed to make any attempt to stop the J6 riot, which is like no other election-transition event we've ever seen in this country. It is simply fact that the Project 2025 manifesto penned by dozens of people who have served in his administration and campaign openly advocates for increased authoritarian power invested in a future Trump presidency. if you think me saying any of this constitutes "dangerous political rhetoric" along the lines of what Trump, Vance, and others routinely espouse, you need your head checked. Trying to boside this issue as if liberals are just as responsible as the white nationalists on the other side for raising the political temperature is absurd. Maybe Trump should stop campaigning and acting like a banana republic strongman if that's not how he wants to be described.
CallMeTyler
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We really need to stop entertaining HY’s trolling on this forum.
rodoheel
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Here's a good description of the people who are probably most responsible for the rising political temperature - the supposed political moderates who are actually pro-Authoritarian more than anything and have flocked almost entirely to Trump because of his authoritarian tendencies:
"It is a common assumption that people who hold views from both sides of the aisle are economically conservative and socially liberal—the profile of many in the upper-middle-class political elite trying to reduce polarization. In fact, a 2016 study showed that this type of moderate ideology was held by only 3.8 percent of the electorate. Instead, the preponderance of Americans who respond to ideological survey questions with answers on both sides of the aisle (28.9 percent of the electorate) tend to be pro–economic redistribution while also upholding the belief that American citizens should be White, Christian, and born in the United States.44 That mix of views led this group to be swing voters for many years, although since 2016 many have moved more decisively into the Republican Party.
This group, many of whom support an authoritarian leader and some of whom justify political violence when necessary to maintain traditional gender roles and a White-dominated racial hierarchy, may be highly affectively polarized—but they also may not be, since they tend to distrust all American institutions and elites.45 Some view themselves as strong partisan Republicans, so surveys such as Bright Line Watch found that people who strongly identified as Republican a year after the contested 2020 election were the most supportive of political violence.46 But others feel little partisan affiliation. They have voted for both parties in the past and seek someone to represent their views; if a third party of a Trumpian orientation emerged, they might switch to it. While they were united by their votes for Donald Trump in 2020 and their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, they may be willing to mobilize in the future behind another strong, extreme leader: many of the most radical are no longer willing to turn out violently for Trump rallies because they feel let down by his failure to provide monetary support for those arrested on January 6.47 They are probably best characterized simply as the antidemocratic right, a growing counterculture with high distrust, a low sense of agency, and strong feelings of grievance and victimhood."
Full link here has a great, thorough, and fairly recent examination of political polarization and violence:
carnegieendowment.org
"It is a common assumption that people who hold views from both sides of the aisle are economically conservative and socially liberal—the profile of many in the upper-middle-class political elite trying to reduce polarization. In fact, a 2016 study showed that this type of moderate ideology was held by only 3.8 percent of the electorate. Instead, the preponderance of Americans who respond to ideological survey questions with answers on both sides of the aisle (28.9 percent of the electorate) tend to be pro–economic redistribution while also upholding the belief that American citizens should be White, Christian, and born in the United States.44 That mix of views led this group to be swing voters for many years, although since 2016 many have moved more decisively into the Republican Party.
This group, many of whom support an authoritarian leader and some of whom justify political violence when necessary to maintain traditional gender roles and a White-dominated racial hierarchy, may be highly affectively polarized—but they also may not be, since they tend to distrust all American institutions and elites.45 Some view themselves as strong partisan Republicans, so surveys such as Bright Line Watch found that people who strongly identified as Republican a year after the contested 2020 election were the most supportive of political violence.46 But others feel little partisan affiliation. They have voted for both parties in the past and seek someone to represent their views; if a third party of a Trumpian orientation emerged, they might switch to it. While they were united by their votes for Donald Trump in 2020 and their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, they may be willing to mobilize in the future behind another strong, extreme leader: many of the most radical are no longer willing to turn out violently for Trump rallies because they feel let down by his failure to provide monetary support for those arrested on January 6.47 They are probably best characterized simply as the antidemocratic right, a growing counterculture with high distrust, a low sense of agency, and strong feelings of grievance and victimhood."
Full link here has a great, thorough, and fairly recent examination of political polarization and violence:
Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says
What can be done about polarization in the United States? Reviewing a decade of research reveals unexpected findings.
rodoheel
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Here are some other notable conclusions from that study by the Carnegie Endowment for Peace:Here's a good description of the people who are probably most responsible for the rising political temperature - the supposed political moderates who are actually pro-Authoritarian more than anything and have flocked almost entirely to Trump because of his authoritarian tendencies:
"It is a common assumption that people who hold views from both sides of the aisle are economically conservative and socially liberal—the profile of many in the upper-middle-class political elite trying to reduce polarization. In fact, a 2016 study showed that this type of moderate ideology was held by only 3.8 percent of the electorate. Instead, the preponderance of Americans who respond to ideological survey questions with answers on both sides of the aisle (28.9 percent of the electorate) tend to be pro–economic redistribution while also upholding the belief that American citizens should be White, Christian, and born in the United States.44 That mix of views led this group to be swing voters for many years, although since 2016 many have moved more decisively into the Republican Party.
This group, many of whom support an authoritarian leader and some of whom justify political violence when necessary to maintain traditional gender roles and a White-dominated racial hierarchy, may be highly affectively polarized—but they also may not be, since they tend to distrust all American institutions and elites.45 Some view themselves as strong partisan Republicans, so surveys such as Bright Line Watch found that people who strongly identified as Republican a year after the contested 2020 election were the most supportive of political violence.46 But others feel little partisan affiliation. They have voted for both parties in the past and seek someone to represent their views; if a third party of a Trumpian orientation emerged, they might switch to it. While they were united by their votes for Donald Trump in 2020 and their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, they may be willing to mobilize in the future behind another strong, extreme leader: many of the most radical are no longer willing to turn out violently for Trump rallies because they feel let down by his failure to provide monetary support for those arrested on January 6.47 They are probably best characterized simply as the antidemocratic right, a growing counterculture with high distrust, a low sense of agency, and strong feelings of grievance and victimhood."
Full link here has a great, thorough, and fairly recent examination of political polarization and violence:
Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says
What can be done about polarization in the United States? Reviewing a decade of research reveals unexpected findings.
"People holding hostile attitudes toward racial minorities had been found within both parties throughout the twentieth century. They began moving to the Republican Party after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The 2016 election was another punctuation point, when a new group of voters scoring high on racial resentment moved from being Democrats or swing voters into the Republican Party.140 A study of 5,000 Americans conducted throughout the 2016 election found that White Trump supporters adopted more racially hostile views toward Black Americans over the course of the campaign in line with their preferred candidate’s rhetoric.141 Nathan Kalmoe and Mason found that White Republicans with higher levels of minority resentment were also more likely to see Democrats as evil or subhuman—that is, to be affectively polarized.142 These alterations coincided with Republicans holding a more racialized view of the Democratic Party (thinking of the party as containing a larger number of minorities than was accurate).143 Meanwhile, for approximately a decade, Democrats had been moving to the left on racial issues."
"Affective polarization in the United States has been rising for decades, while political violence only increased sharply in 2016.20 Affective polarization is also quite symmetrical across parties, while political violence is overwhelmingly from the right.21 This suggests that emotional feelings of hatred toward members of the other party are not a primary cause of political violence. In fact, some scholars have found that affective polarization is not even correlated with political violence or justifications of such violence (though other surveys have found correlation between “strong Republicans” or “Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans” and support for violence, while the same does not hold true for “strong Democrats”)."
rodoheel
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And finally, here's another notable study, which was cited in the Carnegie Endowment report:
From the abstract:
"MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to agree strongly or very strongly that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy” and that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States". They were far more likely to agree that that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants,” and to endorse the central elements of the Q-Anon delusion complex. MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to consider violence usually or always justified to advance 1 or more of 17 specific political objectives They were more likely to report that, in a future situation where they considered political violence to be justified, they would be armed. They were not more willing than others to engage personally in political violence of several types (to damage property, threaten or intimidate a person, injure a person, or kill a person) or against 9 categories of people defined by occupational or social characteristics, and they were not more willing than others to threaten or kill someone with a gun in a situation where they believed political violence was justified."
As defined, MAGA Republicans are a minority of Republicans and are distinct from other Republicans and non-Republicans on many measures. They are more likely to hold extreme and racist beliefs, to endorse political violence, to see such violence as likely to occur, and to predict that they will be armed under circumstances in which they consider political violence to be justified."
Gee, I wonder why MAGA republicans consistently hold the most violent, extreme, and racist beliefs? Surely not because the leaders of the movement espouse those very same beliefs. Must just be a coincidence.
From the abstract:
"MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to agree strongly or very strongly that “having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy” and that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States". They were far more likely to agree that that “in America, native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants,” and to endorse the central elements of the Q-Anon delusion complex. MAGA Republicans were substantially more likely than others to consider violence usually or always justified to advance 1 or more of 17 specific political objectives They were more likely to report that, in a future situation where they considered political violence to be justified, they would be armed. They were not more willing than others to engage personally in political violence of several types (to damage property, threaten or intimidate a person, injure a person, or kill a person) or against 9 categories of people defined by occupational or social characteristics, and they were not more willing than others to threaten or kill someone with a gun in a situation where they believed political violence was justified."
As defined, MAGA Republicans are a minority of Republicans and are distinct from other Republicans and non-Republicans on many measures. They are more likely to hold extreme and racist beliefs, to endorse political violence, to see such violence as likely to occur, and to predict that they will be armed under circumstances in which they consider political violence to be justified."
Gee, I wonder why MAGA republicans consistently hold the most violent, extreme, and racist beliefs? Surely not because the leaders of the movement espouse those very same beliefs. Must just be a coincidence.
uncjhodges
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Worst fucking poster on this board. Ignore has been a blessing
superrific
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Find me examples of leftists speaking about other human beings as animals. Find me examples of leftists talking about other human beings as nothing more than disease vectors. Find me examples of leftists inventing criminal conspiracies out of thin air to scare people. If it's so both-sided, you shouldn't have any trouble finding these examples.
I mean, surely we'll find examples of Kamala denigrating humans like this, right? Let's see, what do Trump and Vance have to say about her? What's that, she laughs too much? Gulp. But it's an evil laugh, I tells ya.
The rhetoric will never be out of control bidirectionally because liberals and conservatives have completely different world views and basically messaging. The right views progress and change as inherently suspicious. When right-wingers see change, they get frightened and try to roll it back. Since most people like change for the better, the right-wing has no choice but to cast all change as dangerous. This is the rhetoric (and more than rhetoric!) of hate.
Liberals, by contrast, believe in social progress -- which is to say, change for the better. They don't see women's sexuality as a threat to civilization; they see it as the flowering of liberty. They don't see gay rights as a threat to hetero marriages as so many right-wingers do; they see it as a matter of equality and respect for all people. That means the liberal message is basically one of love. We have the hippies to thank for that. While their political views and strategies left a lot to be desired, at least they snatched the progressive spirit away from the soulless Soviet-style technocrats and various Marxian philosophers who would make the case for human unfreedom in mind-bogglingly complex prose that hid layers of contempt under a veneer of supposed profundity.
This is the dynamic that fuels our politics: conservative hate and resentment versus liberal love. Do liberals get frustrated? Oh yes we do. Primarily with the obstructive efforts of the right-wing, not with population groups. That's why MAGA has to invent its own supposed hate narratives about liberals shitting on their values (virtually all of which have no foundation). For instance, "flyover country" is a thing that exists in the conservative fever swamp. Liberals don't think of people that way. That's not to say that Oklahoma is a vacation destination of choice; I won't be going there any time soon. That's just personal preference; by the exact same token, I'm OK if Sooners don't want to spend time at the Met. That isn't some weird condescension (and even if it was, condescension is by no means the same as hate).
rodoheel
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Another big component of the rising political temperature: harassment and attacks directed at public officials. HY2012, you want to look at us with a straight face and say that you think both sides are equally responsible for directing harassment and hate at relatively low-level officials like election officials, school board members, and city council members?
Centerpiece
Esteemed Member
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Agree. I’ve got him on ignore, but obviously others don’t and insist on engaging with him… I wasn’t going to go super ignore on anyone, but I may have no choice if I keep seeing his name. “Heelyeah2012 said: You are ignoring content by this member” and then somebody else responds and basically reiterates or goes into detail of what HY has spouted off this time… and there it is… back up in my face again. Ugh.
I've also considered the super ignore (even at times with super
). I like reading some of the responses but then I think, "was this response really necessary ... especially with a troll?). Yes, HY and his fans might be the first to get the dreaded total personal ban.The guy is obviously crazy. NO conspirator is going to enter into a plot with a crazy person.
Occam's razor says crazy guy was willing to camp out at golf course on possibility Trump would be there. That takes no huge stretch of imagination. He does not strike me as the kind of guy that is weighing the costs and benefits of wasting his time on a Sunday afternoon. He may well have done this many times before yesterday.
superrific
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This is an underappreciated point. It's like one of those videos where some kid makes a full court shot and everyone in the gym runs around like mad, except you have no idea just how many takes they needed to get that result. Except in this case, the prize was sort of the opposite type of mad.
On the other hand, the WH has surveillance on the perimeter that would presumably catch the guy the first time (or at least create a record of many "visits"). I'm guessing MAL has the same. What about the golf course? One supposes that they would, but maybe not. If not, it reinforces your point even more. He can only be caught when Trump is there, because that's the only time when the SS is looking.
I suppose Trump is not so much a fan of internal surveillance cams. They have not caught the right type of criminal activity. How funny would it be if Trump's security didn't catch this guy because they've dialed down the security because they don't want visual records of Trump criming?
The golf course is about 15 minutes from Mar-a-Lago and is lined by major city streets. I would think it is highly unlikely the course has surveillance cameras with a view of the city streets. I suspect most of the cameras would be near the clubhouse and on the interior of the golf course.
lawtig02
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I agree that’s the most likely explanation, but I’m keeping an open mind, and almost anything is on the table. The one thing that makes no sense would be any involvement by the Biden or Harris teams. The last thing they want right now is Trump being assassinated. But there are a lot of groups who would welcome that, from the Iranians to the Ukrainians to Team Fuentes, and this guy seems vulnerable to manipulation by any number of them. So again, I think the crazy lone wolf explanation is the most likely, but I won’t be at all surprised if the story ends up being a little more complicated than that.
StrangePackage
Exceptional Member
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National socialism. Literally.Here's a good description of the people who are probably most responsible for the rising political temperature - the supposed political moderates who are actually pro-Authoritarian more than anything and have flocked almost entirely to Trump because of his authoritarian tendencies:
"It is a common assumption that people who hold views from both sides of the aisle are economically conservative and socially liberal—the profile of many in the upper-middle-class political elite trying to reduce polarization. In fact, a 2016 study showed that this type of moderate ideology was held by only 3.8 percent of the electorate. Instead, the preponderance of Americans who respond to ideological survey questions with answers on both sides of the aisle (28.9 percent of the electorate) tend to be pro–economic redistribution while also upholding the belief that American citizens should be White, Christian, and born in the United States.44 That mix of views led this group to be swing voters for many years, although since 2016 many have moved more decisively into the Republican Party.
This group, many of whom support an authoritarian leader and some of whom justify political violence when necessary to maintain traditional gender roles and a White-dominated racial hierarchy, may be highly affectively polarized—but they also may not be, since they tend to distrust all American institutions and elites.45 Some view themselves as strong partisan Republicans, so surveys such as Bright Line Watch found that people who strongly identified as Republican a year after the contested 2020 election were the most supportive of political violence.46 But others feel little partisan affiliation. They have voted for both parties in the past and seek someone to represent their views; if a third party of a Trumpian orientation emerged, they might switch to it. While they were united by their votes for Donald Trump in 2020 and their belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, they may be willing to mobilize in the future behind another strong, extreme leader: many of the most radical are no longer willing to turn out violently for Trump rallies because they feel let down by his failure to provide monetary support for those arrested on January 6.47 They are probably best characterized simply as the antidemocratic right, a growing counterculture with high distrust, a low sense of agency, and strong feelings of grievance and victimhood."
Full link here has a great, thorough, and fairly recent examination of political polarization and violence:
Polarization, Democracy, and Political Violence in the United States: What the Research Says
What can be done about polarization in the United States? Reviewing a decade of research reveals unexpected findings.
