Australian cartoonist Warren Brown has produced my favorite attempted-assassination cartoon so far and I recognize that there’s something twisted about having a “favorite attempted-assassination cartoon.”
But he’s right that, while the nicked ear is a calamity that gives Trump the chance to play victim and to divert attention from the ghastly proposals of Project 2025 that were just gaining attention, a successful attempt would have unleashed not only a wave of sympathy and a potentially successful GOP campaign, but might well have released a cavalcade of armed, motivated screwballs bent on revenge.
It’s a shame it happened at all, but thank god for the incompetence of the shooter who not only was reportedly a mediocre shot cut from his school’s rifle team but had a weapon totally inappropriate for use at that range.
Disclosure: I was a member of the rifle team at Camp Lord O’ The Flies. I was also an NRA Sharpshooter Bar 4, though once you made the team, you quit shooting for medals, so that tells you nothing. What might is that, had I planned to make a critical shot at 147 yards, I’d have wanted a bolt-action long rifle, a scope and a more qualified substitute.
Juxtaposition of the Mini-Pad
Anyone expecting Trump’s narrow escape to produce a dramatic change in the man was mistaken, and, after a few vague-but-necessary gestures towards ratcheting things down, he went back to normal.
Wuerker drew his cartoon before Trump began sporting a bandage so much out of proportion that Mrs. Betty Bowers said “This is not a bandage a doctor would apply, it is a bandage someone backstage at a community theater in Little Rock would apply.”
Note that Mrs. Betty Bowers is America’s Best Christian but is not a medical expert.
However, Trump fans at the RNC are not only wearing mini-pads in tribute, but America’s Worst Christian has declared not just a miracle but one trumpeted by an angelic manipulation of the flag and I wish I were kidding.
In any case, MacKinnon was able to use the prop to show how little Trump is listening to calls for moderation, while Wuerker could only use a protective hand. Either way, the lack of response has been well illustrated.
Mini-padded MAGAts are hardly the only people making a fetish of the near-tragedy, which sparked a flood of absurd rumors and conspiracy theories on social media.
Snopes was able to dispense of one, the claim that Trump was injured not by a bullet but by flying glass from a shattered Teleprompter. They just showed that no Teleprompters were injured in the making of this delusion.
According to other fantasies, the shooting was faked by Trump supporters and staged by Biden supporters and the shooter was a plant, purposely using special bullets which pierce the skin but cannot cause serious injuries, which will be of comfort to the fellow who was killed and the two in critical condition.
All that’s missing is a fellow with an umbrella on the grassy knoll and someone proclaiming that the walrus was Trump.
As noted the other day, I don’t recall everyone getting so het up over Squeaky Fromme or Sara Jane Moore. If you want to Make America Great Again, how’s about a return to that level of sanity?
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Howsoever, we can’t just blame the civilians in the Peanut Gallery for the difference this time around.
After John Hinckley’s attempt, the Gipper, who nearly bought the farm, still managed to squeeze out a joke to his wife and then put the whole matter aside. Trump responded with some similar bravado, and I’m okay with waving to the crowd as he was carried off, which injured football players routinely do.
But, as Gary Huck notes, his party loyalists have hurried to avoid blaming our gun culture, and Zyglis widens the intentional avoidance.
Still, a scapegoat must be found and, as Huck’s elephants note, the call surely isn’t coming from inside the house.
Thus the Blame Game leads us to
Juxtaposition of the Day #3
Bob Gorrell — using his best Ctl-C, Ctl-V artistic technique — blames the Democrats for having disagreed with Trump and saying mean things about him, though Berge goes quite a bit farther down the path of logic and outcome, citing actual times when Republicans have called for violence and even for murder of political opponents.
Fortunately, we have Keith Knight to explain the apparent discrepancy.
Even more fortunately, we know who’s really to blame as seen in
Juxtaposition of the Day #4 (A new record!)
Granlund reflects the abuse the Secret Service is currently taking, while Deering shows how they must surely be feeling.
Deering plays upon the meaning of “woke,” since Republicans are blaming the fact that the Service employs women and minorities for the shooting, though they haven’t explained how that changed the decision on how far to extend the protective radius.
Perhaps women and minorities don’t have much faith in anyone’s ability to make a 147-yard shot while white men are genetically born ballistics experts. It’s hard to logically explain a theory based on hatred and stupidity.
Though it’s worth noting that even Lee Harvey Oswald, a trained, qualified marksman resting his single-shot, telescope-equipped rifle on a stack of boxes, was only about 87, not 147, yards from his target.
And that Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, John Wilkes Booth, Sirhan Sirhan and even Arthur Bremer (who failed to kill his target) were within a few feet of their victims.
There should, and will, be an investigation of what went wrong, which will have to include using a pitchfork to work through the haystack of nonsense and paranoia already obscuring what facts exist.
But whatever emerges will have nothing to do with estrogen or melanin, despite how it will be spun if the incels and racists have gained control of our government by the time the investigation concludes.
This Matt Wuerker (Politico) cartoon is a good place to wrap things up, since he has identified the real protectors of Donald Trump. Our critical need is to find out how they were able to get so close in the first place.
I’m a regular gawker, more so than commenter.
But wanted you to know that I appreciate the effort you put into every daily post.
Thank you.
Amen!
I second that!
It’s the best blog on the internet IMO
I’ve come to think that the shooter was actually planning his own “Suicide by Cop” death and that the slight hit on Trump was actually just sheer luck on the part of a guy who likely did not think he could make the shot. ANYBODY should know that taking a shot in the direction of a President or presidential candidate is a virtual guarantee of getting killed themself.
It seems his goal may have been to become (in)famous. Too early to tell, but I saw somewhere that he was also tracking the Democratic convention as well.
Many thanks for including my cartoon today. And here I thought I was joining the conversation too late.
As long as I’m here, I’ll mention my own experience on the safe end of a gun: visiting my sister and her then husband many years ago, I joined in on target practice in the woods in the back of their property. I hit my target, about 100 yards away, with the first four shots from a rifle. After that, and then switching to a pistol, my tally was much more what you’d expect from a first-timer.
Many questioned Oswald’s use of the Italian-made Manlicher-Carcano and wondered (at the time ) how he made the shot on a moving target.
I had a dozen friends who could have made that shot. They all came home from Parris Island with at least marksman, if not sharpshooter, medals. I assumed all Marines had to work until they earned one or the other until I flew through Jacksonville SC airport and saw how few had them. But for someone who knew what he was doing with a gun, it was a very good, but not astonishing, shot.
You’re confusing Paris Island with Camp Lejeune. The island is in SC, the camp is at Jacksonville NC, with that airport nearby. Although both are close to beaches. And yes, I’ve lived near both.
Right, Jacksonville NC. Also full of Marines.
Actually, those Marines you saw may have simply chosen not to wear their marksmanship badges.
The Marksman is the lowest qualification. Qualifying is required, with periodic requalification.
That makes sense. Several of my classmates made sharpshooter, but they’d grown up with deer rifles in their hands, so it was assumed they were good shots going into basic.
On the subject of marksmanship, I found this to be interesting: https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Portals/207/Docs/wtbn/wtbn%20schoolhouse%20packets/Annual%20Rifle%20Qualification%20Guidelines%20CURRENT%20210804.pdf?ver=-heMRZ9Nggd9oVouaxj3OA%3D%3D
I’m just shocked that schools have “rifle teams” over there. If there’s anything that does the NRA’s job of breeding gun culture, it’s that. America needs a cultural enema.
The NRA started out advocating safe gun education along with hunting and sport shooting, hence their support of high school rifle teams. They even supported gun registration back in the day. It was only in 1977 that gun lobbyists took over the NRA and installed their own cadre of gun nuts. Check your favorite search engine for “NRA Cincinnati Revolt” for details.
My husband was in Junior ROTC when he was in high school and sharpshooting was one of the activities they did. I have no idea if he was any good at it as he never picked up a gun again after he graduated.
Gosh, that final Matt Wuerker panel is the epitome of “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Or in this case, several millions of words – a profound closer to your pithy round-up today.
Yeah, it’s giving “we’ve got ours, screw the rest of you”.