Well, one thing on which we might agree is that the Trump shooting incident has seemingly silenced what had been increasingly loud calls for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.
Yes, the feeble old man still has dementia—and that is still obviously a rather serious problem for America. However, the American media and people, suffering from their own forms of cognitive and attention deficits, cannot handle more than one news story at a time.
So, they have already forgotten about Biden’s dementia, just as Biden has already surely and conveniently forgotten that he called Trump a fascist, clear-and-present danger, existential threat to democracy and to all life on planet Earth last week.
Consequently, the Dems are now apparently stuck with Biden. As a Dem strategist is quoted on Townhall.com as saying, “The bullet that struck Trump ‘probably saved Biden’s nomination’ by freezing Democratic calls for him to step aside and ‘doomed his re-election.’”
But, other than this new assumption, everything else about the events that happened on the Butler Farm Show Grounds in western Pennsylvania on July 13 are in dispute.
In the year 2085, “conspiracy theorists” will surely still be debating what really happened in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump this year (or even if it really was an attempted assassination), just as we are still debating what really happened in the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963.
Mainstream-maligned conspiracy theories—many of which eventually turn out to be true—naturally thrive in a country that has government agencies, big corporations, and media outlets that have been proven to repeatedly lie to the public about almost everything.
Thomas Matthew Crooks?
We have not yet heard anything from investigators about the possible motives of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old guy who has been identified as the shooter.
Trump supporters have blamed the hateful, violent, anti-Trump rhetoric of the Democrats and media for creating an environment in which the killing of Trump was viewed as acceptable and desirable by many Americans.
That seems like a logical association to me. My own sister texted me after the shooting, “Too bad they missed. Misogynistic asshole!” I replied with, “Fuck you, crazy bitch!”
Ah, nothing like family love! I voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Although I’ve been planning to go with Kennedy this year, there are still a lot of things I like about Trump, mainly the fact that he really pisses off people like my sister, who always votes Dem.
Back to the shooting . . . It is possible that Crooks was just a severely mentally disturbed kid with absolutely no political motivations or media influences.
And then there are the other possibilities—that Crooks was simply carrying out instructions from Deep State handlers, or that he wasn’t the shooter at all, or that there were other shooters on the scene, or [fill in the blank]…
Plenty to be suspicious about
Regardless of motives, there are plenty of other weird things about the Trump shooting that have raised public suspicions and fueled a wide variety of conspiracy theories. News reports have been confusing and contradictory, adding to the feeling that none of this makes much sense.
I’m sure that you are already familiar with the numerous suspicions and theories that are being discussed. A few examples…
The building on which Crooks perched was not covered by Secret Service, apparently being left to the responsibility of local police, who were sheltering inside the building—directly beneath Crooks—rather than monitoring the perimeter or top of the building. Several members of the public spotted Crooks climbing the ladder to the roof and crawling across the roof.
They shouted at the cops and Secret Service agents about this for two or three minutes, but nothing happened?
Even worse, according to other reports, Crooks was spotted and identified by a cop as being suspicious about 30 minutes before he began shooting. The cop called it in and took a photo, but no follow-up action was taken against the guy?
Or some reports say that a local cop climbed the ladder to confront Crooks on the roof. But Crooks pointed a gun at the cop, who then promptly retreated back down the ladder. Crooks then immediately started firing at Trump with his AR-15. WTF?
What about those countersniper cops dressed in black who were on another building with rifles and scopes on tripods? On videos and photos, they appear to be staring at Crooks for a long time, without making any attempt to shoot him.
A guy claiming to be one of those cops, named Jonathan Willis, wrote on X that he had Crooks in his sight for at least three minutes, “but the head of the secret service refused to give the order to take out the perp. 100% the top brass prevented me from killing the assassin before he took the shots at president Trump.”
According to RealClearPolitics, the Secret Service did not give permission to shoot because they have rules of engagement that require waiting until the suspect starts shooting before returning fire. But even if that’s true, couldn’t they have at least removed Trump from the stage until they were sure that there was no threat?
Mark Steyn has posted a good summary of these and other suspicious points about the shooting, along with his usual witty and humorous observations.
More than one gunman?
CNN has reported:
Forensic analysis suggests that as many as three weapons were fired at the Trump rally in Butler . . . The first three shots were consistent with alleged weapon A, the next five were consistent with alleged weapon B, and the final “acoustic impulse” was emitted by a possible weapon C, per audio analysis by Catalin Grigoras, director of the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver, and Cole Whitecotton, Senior Professional Research Associate at the same institution.
This report does not make the implications of this forensic analysis clear. Does it mean that there were three gunmen? Does it mean that Crooks used three weapons? Or were the second and third weapons those of the Secret Service or the cops?
If you try to stop the wars, they will kill you
There can be only two possible logical explanations for these weird happenings. One is Secret Service incompetence. The other is Secret Service complicity—an inside job with Secret Service and Deep State operatives colluding to kill Trump. Did they try to “JFK” Trump, or where they just morons?
Simple incompetence and stupidity within the Secret Service may be the answer, especially considering the leadership of Kimberly Cheatle, who is primarily concerned with getting more five-foot-short female agents into the agency.
But along the lines of JFKing, Trump could have been targeted by the Deep State neocon warmongering brigade, mainly because of his pledge to quickly end the Ukraine war should he be elected.
This theory seems very plausible to me. I believe that Trump has a pretty good understanding of the Ukraine conflict (in contrast to his typical American misunderstanding and anti-Palestinian prejudice regarding the Gaza conflict).
Just two days before the shooting, Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, soon after Orban had also met with Putin, Zelensky, and Xi as part of his international peace efforts.
I believe that Trump could very well stop giving money and weapons to Ukraine and force that corrupt regime to negotiate an end to the war on terms that are largely—and righteously—favorable to Russia.
Needless to say, such an outcome to the war would be disastrous for the neocon globalist agenda and the Western corporate profiteers, like the American military-industrial complex and BlackRock (the latter of which has essentially purchased Ukraine as its own property).
Brain-dead sock puppet Biden represents their easy gravy train, and they’ll do anything to keep that train chugging along.
It has been widely reported that Crooks appeared in a BlackRock commercial a couple years ago. Perhaps the Deep State neocon globalist operatives spotted him in that commercial and recruited the socially shunned, firearms-experienced loner for their secret, malicious purposes.
Some prominent personalities seem to agree with such a scenario. Jackson Hinklewisely posted on X, “If you try to stop the wars, they will kill you,” along with side-by-side photos of Trump raising his fist after being shot and Kennedy’s doomed motorcade.
Tucker Carlson has said, “A guy with a rifle wound up on a building that close with a ladder, and all these people saw it. And the Secret Service, what is that? It’s not crazy to think that there was something there. It was an effort to kill Trump, and it wasn’t just a lone gunman who was killed, that it was something else.”
In one of Andrew Napolitano’s podcasts, the judge, Larry Johnson, and Ray McGovern discussed the possibility that some motivated Deep State or foreign operative may have put the shooter up to the job. Ukraine certainly has a motive to stop Trump, as well as a motive to hate J.D. Vance, who has been a vocal opponent of Ukraine aid.
If Ukraine is involved, Vance had better get himself a suit of armor. Some right wingers, like Bongino, are raising the possibility that Iran or China wanted Trump killed. But I think that is just more ignorant conservative warmongering BS.
Staged by Trump?
I understand that some people, including my podcast friend Kevin Barrett, have proposed an alternate theory, which holds that Trump and his people staged the “shooting” for their political benefit. As Barret writes,
Percolating elsewhere, however, are non-partisan analysts who likewise see a psychological operation, but attribute the choreography not to the Biden camp, but rather to Team Trump. Cui bono? Obviously a surviving, muscularized Trump himself in spades. Gimlet-eyed cynics wonder whether so many picture-perfect images were simply a photo shoot for Trump 2024. Campaign-ready visuals appeared faster than 2015’s We Are Charlie Hebdo posters.
I, respectfully, find such a theory very implausible.
First of all, Trump did not have a need for that kind of phony, staged operation, which would be a sign of desperation. The Biden dementia discussion already was giving Trump a huge political advantage, and he would have benefited by just letting that controversy play out.
Secondly—under the assumption that there actually was a shooting—the bullet whizzed right by Trump’s head, within less than one inch of his brain, taking out a small piece of his ear. How could he have possibly “faked” or “staged” such a nearly fatal event, in which the result depended on millimeter accuracy?
As for claims that Trump was not even shot at—and that the blood or wound on his ear was fake and applied there by either him or the agents that surrounded him—that seems like a desperate attempt at denial.
There are numerous photos clearly showing a very real-looking bloody wound on the upper ear with blood dripping along the sides of the ear and down the side of the face. Pretty good special effects in such a short time.
Or did an agent cut Trump’s ear with a pair of scissors or something, without Trump even saying “ouch”? And then, in a relatively calm and steady voice, he asked for his shoes? As Biden might exclaim, “C’mon, man!”
I think it is safe to conclude that—whoever shot him for whatever reason and under whatever circumstances—Trump was indeed shot. And he came within an inch of being killed.
Look at his face
You know what the best evidence for this conclusion is? Trump’s face. Not his bloody face on July 13. But his facial expression on the first night of the Republican convention on July 15. As a long-time Trump observer, I can report that I never saw Trump’s face with that expression. Instead of his usual cocky, confident, determined expression, there was an expression of humbleness, humility, and humanness.
It was very noticeable and striking to me immediately. I was watching Newsmax at the time, and Rob Schmitt and the other hosts commented on it after I had thought about it.
That facial expression indicated the honest, deeply felt experience of a life-changing event in which the man had a sudden realization of his own mortality. You try getting a bullet whiz by your head, within less than one inch of your brain, and see how you feel afterward. Yeah, it might change you for the rest of your life. In Trump’s case, it might actually make him a better president the second time around (if the Dems are unable to steal the election again).
The conspiracy theories about July 13, 2024 will continue and evolve. And as with November 22, 1963, we will probably never know the real truth. I wonder what the conspiracy theorists will be saying about it in 60 more years?
By A. J. Smuskiewicz
Published by Unz.com
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com