Polarised American society, gun access and aggressive rhetoric led to Trump shooting

Image: AP - Getty Images.

American society has become more polarised. Discourse is more black-and-white. I am not referring to black people and white people. I'm referring to strong views at either end of the political spectrum. People are less inclined to have thoughts in the middle ground. The grey area. The area of compromised solutions.

In general there are more extreme thoughts and that kind of issue is occurring across the Western world I would argue. It's why we have far right groups doing so well in France, Germany and the UK for example.

Photo-edited version by MikeB

And there are more stresses in society I feel. The world has become more stressed. People have become more anxious and fearful. That's partly because the background tension in the world has increased. This is due to various factors such as climate change and Putin's invasion of Ukraine. And we are still post-Covid which caused a lot of financial stresses, still felt today.

And then in America they have more guns than there are people (433 million guns and 341 million citizens). No country has so many guns available. And if you combine these polarised viewpoints as I've called them plus aggressive rhetoric with the easy access of guns which are not, some may argue, regulated as well as they should be in America, you end up with the Trump attempted assassination.

Of course, he is a divisive character. You either love them or loathe them. And I'm sure a lot of people are unsurprised that he was shot. He was shot in the right ear so the shooter was targeting his head apparently with a rifle from a roof from which he had visual access to the rally which apparently (ironically) was supported by a gun lobby.

But underpinning this attempted assassination of Donald Trump is the black-and-white nature of American politics and society being somewhat split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats. Some might argue that there will be a civil war as this split is so severe.

The argument now is that Trump's attempted assassination will boost his campaign to be the next president. A strong survivor compared to Biden, the weak and rapidly declining geriatric.

One remarkable aspect of this assassination attempt is that Trump immediately knew that he should use it to his advantage because we see some amazing photographs of him with his fist raised showing a very strong, dominant character and behind him is the American flag. 

Surrounding him are Secret Service personnel trying to recover him and take him to a safe place. It's an amazing photograph which he will no doubt use from now until he becomes the next president.

Update a few hours later:

There's a lot of talk about the aggressive rhetoric, which I mention. The general consensus now is that it should be dialled down in order to stop provoking these sorts of incidents. Freedom of speech is important but it can cross the line to inciting violence and there needs to be a fresh look at that. This would apply not only to the United States but the UK as well because there has been violence and intimidation in the UK during the latest general election.

And there are ructions in France with their recent elections and extremist views coming out.

The shooter is Thomas Crooks. He lived at Bethel Park and his home is being searched by the FBI as I dictate this.

He was seen on the roof opposite the stadium where former president Trump was speaking by a bystander and a Trump supporter. This man saw the shooter very clearly and he pointed it out to law enforcement but apparently they took no action. There was confusion before the actual shooting.

There are concerns about the lack of efficiency of law enforcement and Trump's security team in allowing this to happen. The man who saw the shooter before he was actually shot by security staff said he was up there for about three or four minutes and he shot five bullets one of which grazed Trump's head and took a nick out of his ear. That bullet went on and killed a man behind him it seems.

Two other people behind Trump were injured. They are hospitalised.

Trump immediately after being shot in the ear apparently shouted "Fight, fight, fight!". This further incited violence. It's understandable he said this but the argument is that the shooter was incited to violence and now we have former president Trump responding by also inciting violence. It is a very unhealthy situation. Trump's post on his Truth Social website is far more conciliatory however.

Trump says in Truth Social post that he was shot in the ear⁠

⁠Latest updates: https://t.co/2NwEPPigui pic.twitter.com/uH0Vk1l31f

— NBC4 Washington (@nbcwashington) July 14, 2024

Some Democrats have stated that the shooter was working on behalf of the Democrat party. They blame the Democrats for organising this attempted assassination. This will further polarise the Democrats and Republicans.

Incidentally, Thomas Crooks was a registered Republican interestingly. We don't know his motivation for the shooting. But a large segment of Democrats appear to have assumed that his motivation was to shoot the leading Republican, the Republican candidate for the presidency to knock him out of the race. But that's an assumption which has not been verified as yet with evidence.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.