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Cheez Whiz's avatar

The 1 flat-out false note of the whole episode, for, me, was that "fight! fight! fight!" reaction. That was severely heightened when Kid Rock came out at the convention, changing the lyric of a song of his I assume was called Hey, Hey, Hey, to Fight! Fight! Fight! as if the whole moment was scripted.

Of course it wasn't. If Trump was capable of a Bob Roberts moment like that he'd be leading in the polls by 5 points. But it all seemd so phony, at the moment and later. But it was likely just a rare honest reaction, someone dared attack him in his Happy Place, a rally. Maybe the honesty is what comes across as phony, because he is never, ever honest. But that was just the beginning of a season of unreality.

Like every other terrified citizen, I am over the moon about how Harris and Walz have somehow become Rock Stars, filling arenas and hauling in cash, inspiring almost Beatlemania-level excitement. While Trump is basically in Witness Protection, and Vance is on a Mission from God to alienate every possible voter not firmly on Team Trump. Does all of this seem normal to you? Has the past year led up to this moment in some discenable way? It all just feels, I dunno, weird to me. Maybe the core unreality of the whole Trump phenonenon is just leaking out onto reality somehow, and things are happening because some great unconsious collective will, which I don't believe in, is making them happen.

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DrBDH's avatar

I have no doubts that the young Republican with the assault rifle tried to kill Donald Trump. I am astounded at Trump’s good luck in not being killed by that young Republican with the assault rifle. I understand that Trump, in the initial shock of the moment, had no idea how close he’d come to being killed and certainly didn’t know that his would-be assassin was a young Republican with an assault rifle. And I accept that the Trump campaign would want to make this a glorious moment of defiance and survival.

But I don’t understand why the ensuing discussion of this assassination attempt has completely buried the fact that this was the act of a young Republican against his party’s nominee, using an assault rifle that until then had been a fetish among Republicans, including lapel pins on Republican politicians’ jackets.

This is why we can’t have irony, I guess.

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