by PAUL COLLITS – AMERICANS thought they had political problems in 1968. Compared to today, the late 60s were a walk in the park.
Robert F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were only two in a long line of assassination targets, both in America and elsewhere.
- It is hard to believe all of this happened.
- This might give pause to those who recently posted they hoped Trump would be killed.
- It probably won’t.
It’s not only the Yanks that breed assassins.
There was the “polarising” de Gaulle. He suffered over thirty attacks on him over his lifetime.
FORGAVE
There was Pope St John Paul II. He met and forgave, personally, his would-be assassin.
There was Ronald Reagan (he forgot to duck). There was Arthur Calwell, the Australian Labor Party leader before Gough Whitlam.
There was Benazir Bhutto. There was Indira Ghandi. There was Shinzo Abe. There was Malcolm X. There was Anwar Sadat. There was Yitzhak Rabin. There was Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel. And all the rest.
Most famously, there was RFK’s older brother John F Kennedy.
And we shouldn’t exclude Jeffrey Epstein and every third person ever to have crossed the Clintons.
What many of these (mostly) men had in common was that they were a threat to someone or something. To both the powerful and their useful idiots.
JFK was a threat to the military-industrial complex and to the communists. His brother, to the powerful unions and the Mafia.
The late Pope was a threat to Soviet communism and, in particular, the Polish puppet State.
Now, Donald J Trump has all but joined the list.
Students of American politics are fascinated by 1968, and many books have been written about the events of that year. Little happened stateside that was not momentous.
We had the escalating and controversial Vietnam War. We had an anguished President who ended up not standing for re-election.
We had an insurgent candidate called Eugene McCarthy. We had Nixon pulling off the greatest comeback in American presidential history, following his narrow and probably rigged defeat in 1960 to JFK.
We had Democrats all at sea over who was going to stand (does this sound familiar?) We had George Wallace, the Independent candidate from Alabama with a taste for continued segregation.
We had RFK’s dramatic entry to the race in the spring.
Oh, and we had the two already mentioned assassinations of RFK and Martin Luther King jr.
Robert Kennedy gave a brief and emotional address from the back of a truck to announce that Martin Luther King Jr had been killed, to a stunned, mainly black audience. He called for calm and for peace.
Two months later, Kennedy himself was dead. His alleged assassin (Sirhan Sirhan) is still very much alive today. His son, RFK Jr, believes his father’s actual killer is also still alive and living in the Philippines.
It is hard to believe all of this happened.
This might give pause to those, including a journalist, who recently posted that they hoped Trump would be killed. It probably won’t.
As The Vigilant Fox has said: “It’s not uncommon for the Left to call on violence against Trump.”
You won’t find this on Google, of course. I am guessing there has been a fair bit of online shredding these past hours.
Instead, you will get headlines like this, from the egregious and paywalled Washington Post: “Trump allies immediately blame Biden, Democrats, for their rhetoric.”
Well, The Post would say that.
FAULT
Back in 2020 the American ABC said this: “President Donald Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from acts of violence in communities across America, dismissing critics who point to his rhetoric as a potential source of inspiration or comfort for anyone acting on long-held beliefs of bigotry and hate.”
There you go. The violence abroad is his fault!
Tucker Carlson all but predicted today’s events, after Trump was found guilty of whatever those New Yorkers think he did: “This won’t stop Trump. He’ll win the election if he’s not killed first. But it does mark the end of the fairest justice system in the world. Anyone who defends this verdict is a danger to you and your family. [emphasis added]
American anti-vaccine activist Dr Simone Gold noted that: “I am in the center of Times Square. Not a single video monitor reporting that President Trump has been shot. The depth of the censorship and propaganda is astounding.”
Here is US writer Paul Alexander: “Trump shot at rally, how many times did I write here we were getting talk of the only way Biden (including Kamala & Obama) can win is to kill Trump. For Biden cannot debate him again; and they will kill Trump’s children, they will, the Left democrats will not stop.
“I told you they must run. Biden has to win to stay out of jail. They committed many crimes. Long live Trump after the assassination attempt.”
The great Ohio Senator JD Vance also weighed in: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.
“That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s assassination attempt.”
That is drawing a pretty direct line.
The BBC continued: “Chris LaCivita, the Trump campaign manager, said that ‘Leftist activists, Democratic donors and even Joe Biden’ need to be held accountable at the ballot box in November for ‘disgusting remarks’ that in his view led to Saturday’s attack.
“Democrats may object, but many on the Left used similar language to describe the culpability of Right-wing rhetoric in the months before the 2011 near-fatal shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Arizona.”
What goes around…
US author Ed Dowd anticipates the fallout, with some dread: “Now the empty vessels of humanity await the propaganda download on what to say about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
SPIN
“The mainstream media spin factory will be up deep into tonight and tomorrow night to develop the talking points.”
It is perhaps appropriate that more mindless, though perhaps not purposeless, political violence should occur very near July 14.
The French taught the modern world what happens when unconstrained merciless, raw power is unleashed on one’s political enemies, when abstract ideas trump people.
There wasn’t much “liberte, egalite or fraternite” around as the guillotine snapped down on enemy necks. And we are reminded afresh of the limits of flawed democracies operating in an already deeply fallen world of borderline-evil men, playing around with dangerous ideologies and agendas.
Who has done this? Well, the political class got Lee Harvey Oswald wrong. They got Sirhan Sirhan wrong. Many think they got James Earl Ray wrong.
Will they get Thomas Matthew Crooks (if this is the guy) wrong? There are those who smell rodents already, and are asking questions out loud.
Like popular US podcaster Matt Walsh: “A roof with a direct sightline to the stage was not secured by secret service. Our choices here are extreme unbelievable negligence or something much worse.”
“There is no ‘conspiracy theory’ off the table now. The most powerful forces in the world will do anything to stop Trump from being president. [emphasis added]
Is law enforcement running dead with Trump?
The New York Post noted: “Trump’s Secret Service detail is just the fraction of the size of sitting presidents — with his campaign continually asking for more protection.
The Post also said: “Law enforcement officials admitted it was ‘surprising’ how the gunman was able to get so many shots off in the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump before he was taken out by Secret Service snipers.”
Even Elon Musk weighed in. “Incompetence or deliberate?” he posted. This is a huge call. But it is where the world now is.
Who was “behind it”, if anyone?
BULLSEYE
Here’s a story the mainstream media won’t cover. An incendiary Joe Biden post has reportedly been deleted — but not before the internet could screen grab it.
“It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,” Biden wrote.
Will Biden face accusations of inciting violence, or will political double standards persist?
Of course, it is one thing to urge others to get violent and to stand back and see what happens.
Like Henry II did with Thomas Beckett. Who will rid me of this meddlesome Trump?
It is another thing to have it done yourself. We do know, though, that Biden is crooked and amoral. And leads an administration also crooked and amoral.
Let us leave the final word to Matt Walsh: “Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still standing.
“Biden and his handlers are clinging desperately to power. They know they can’t win. Everything is crashing down around them. They tried to put Trump in prison to stop him. Now Trump is shot, following the worst two weeks of Biden’s campaign.”
Still standing. Does God have a plan here? As a friend says, Trump now has the perfect election picture, the Iwo Jima flag moment.
But for how long will the now decidedly unexceptional United States stand?
They should be grateful that there are a few people remaining there, including Trump, who still believe the United States are worth defending, and are willing to risk their very lives to make America great again.PC
Apparently there’s already talk of making a movie about the failed assassination attempt: it will be a cartoon, and they’re going to call it “Donald Ducked”.
Elon Musk just pledged US$66 million a week to the Trump election campaign.
Let’s hope that there is a swing to the sensible right centre of the political spectrum globally led by elected again President Trump and other similar leaders of nations.