Seriously, This Is Bad News
Published at 22:41 on 13 July 2024
Assassinations (or attempted assassinations) seldom work out the way the assassin (or would-be assassin) thinks they will.
First, assassination attempts, like this one, might fail. They typically fail, in fact. The biggest targets (and ex-presidents are certainly a big target) all have professional security teams. And the Secret Service is one of the best. Failure is by far the most likely option.
In fact, such attempts happen all the time, and fail, due to law enforcement (primarily the Secret Service) foiling them. We don’t hear about them because:
- The Secret Service lives up to its name.
- In the name of not inspiring copycat attacks, the media cooperate by refusing to cover foiled attacks, unless (like this one) they get way too close to being successful and as a result become basically impossible to suppress coverage of.
It failed, so the logical result is to benefit the would be target via the sympathy effect.
But it’s worse than that. This particular would-be target has a fantasy about seeking revenge on his political enemies. He now has ammunition in pursuing this fantasy: those enemies are violent and tried to kill him.
The Nazis used assassinations and attempted assassinations to rationalize their own political violence. Kristallnacht happened in response to an assassination.
That’s right, even when they “succeed,” many assassinations, in the final analysis, fail.
There’s already some conspiracy theories emerging that Trump and his security team deliberately allowed the assassination attempt to happen. I would not be surprised to soon hear claims that it was all an inside job.
So far, there is no evidence of this, other than poorly-argued circumstantial evidence (“how could he circumvent Secret Service measures?”).
The Secret Service is indeed very good at what it does (to reiterate, assassination attempts are foiled all the time), but it is not perfect. Mistakes happen. We will probably hear how they slipped up and failed to secure the roof that served as the sniper’s nest in this one.
Time will tell, and maybe good evidence that it was, in some sense, an inside job will emerge. But so far, it has not. It is entirely possible that this thing was all sheer luck. In fact, that is currently the most plausible explanation.