In my continuing quest to identify useful symptoms of Trump Derangement (to shake in the faces of those who deny that there is such a malady, or that it isn’t frighteningly widespread, I found the just-released survey of self-identified Democrats and progressives invaluable. Read it all, but heed particularly one item in the chart above, showing what percentage of this group believes that the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a false flag hoax orchestrated by MAGA to create sympathy for Trump ahead of the election.
Almost a fifth, 19% believe this crack-brained theory is definitely true. Another 27% believe this nonsense is “probably true” (despite any evidence whatsoever). That’s almost half, or 46%. I would add to this the 15%, dimwits all, who say they “aren’t sure.” That’s a damning 61% of Democrats and progressives who are so marinated in hate and and bubble-bath that they can’t accept reality.
A man sitting behind Trump was killed by a bullet, and Trump’s ear was grazed. Reviewing what happened at that campaign speech and not concluding that it was an honest-to-Pete assassination attempt and a close call at that constitutes a Bias Makes You Stupid lollapalooza, right up there with thinking the world is flat and dinosaurs didn’t exist. This is signature significance for brain failure, and the name for this variety is “Trump Derangement.” 61% seems a bit small to me, but it’s still damning.
Now it appears that the same 61% (or more) are claiming that last weekend’s attempt to kill the President was also a hoax. From The Hill:
Ethics Alarms 
A friend of mine in Oz says that she thinks this is all suspicious, but can’t point to any real evidence. She points to the timing of Saturday’s assassination attempt and the fact that there were no real casualties. She thinks it’s to take attention off the fact that the Iran War has achieved nothing and that the Epstein files are once again pushed off the front page. Yes, she also thinks it’s to boost the gop’s chances in the midterms and to push the chances of the completion of the ballroom, which she says is another distraction and a boondoggle.
Then again, she also says that Obama was the perfect president and that Biden was perfectly okay mentally and just had a bad night at the debate that everyone jumped on. She thinks Harris would have been a much better choice as president and right now we’d be in a much better place with her at the helm, but that there are too many people in the US who are scared of smart black women. Thankfully she doesn’t believe 9/11 was an inside job.
That’s pretty much the type of propaganda I’m seeing, as well, Steve.
The ironic part of it is that, if people had been killed, Trump would have been blamed for that, too. Indeed, if Obama had suggested a ballroom, he would have been deemed a classy, sophisticated President.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.
I think the symptoms Steve summarizes in the second paragraph of his comment are the real tell. TDS sufferers have an unshakable confidence in their bizarre, black is white, down is up, worldview. Clearly, anyone who thinks Harris is presidential material, even of a homeowner’s association, is not well. And by the way, there’s evidently talk of her being a viable candidate in 2028!
19+27+15=61
-Jut
That’s true in anywhere from 42 to 49 states.
And I was adding up an invoice while I wote this. Figured I didn’t need the stupid calculator….I am the Moron, goo goo gajoob.
Fixed. Thanks, Erasmus.
“A man sitting behind Trump was killed by a bullet, and Trump’s ear was grazed.”
The Trump-Deranged argue that MAGA are willing to allow innocent blood to be shed. It’s additional proof to them that Trump only cares about himself and not others. They also argue that Trump’s ear not being badly injured is somehow evidence that it was staged.
““Reasons [social media] users cited for such a hoax were wide ranging, from a desire to distract from the Iran war to a need to justify Trump’s desired ballroom at the White House for hosting large events like the annual WHCA dinner.”
These reasons, as well as the Epstein Files as you mention further down, are exactly what I am seeing on social media. Particularly unnerving is that these types of comments are overwhelming my local news station’s social media posts about the incident. The posts also have a distressing amount of laughing emojis clicked as reactions.
““Reasons [social media] users cited for such a hoax were wide ranging, from a desire to distract from the Iran war to a need to justify Trump’s desired ballroom at the White House for hosting large events like the annual WHCA dinner.”
The media’s use of “loud noises” or “popping noises”, even after people like Wolf Blitzer called them gunshots contributed to the reaction. Once again, news media – through misleading headlines and burying ledes – deliberately skews the story. It doesn’t help that snippets of people grabbing bottles of wine on their way out are being shown. And, of course, a slow, orderly evacuation is obviously suspicious. 🙄
Last Sunday, between our church’s first and second services, the fire alarms started going off as we were walking out of the sanctuary. I turned to Mr. Golden and quipped, “A kid probably pulled an alarm.’. People casually walked out of the building. I teach Sunday School so I wasn’t planning to leave, but I did walk out to the car just in case.
A minute or so later, I walked back in, people were milling around. I went back to the kids’ section and confirmed with the Student Minister that a middle school student had, indeed, pulled the alarm and had owned up to it immediately.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
showing what percentage of this group believes that the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a false flag hoax orchestrated by MAGA to create sympathy for Trump ahead of the election.
As per the usual perhaps, I am only somewhat interested in the precise topic: Toward A Useful Trump Derangement Diagnosis. Instead, I would focus on how easy it is for people, any people, and especially people in a highly indoctrinated and propagandized nation, to choose to believe things that are false, or to be excessively gullible in believing narratives that are presented to them, and which they do not question sufficiently. Or, and this is the thrust at my moment, to use sets of narratives that define the issues, but which in fact are (relatively) minor when compared to the larger issue: that being of course that you are losing your country. Fact.
And you have almost no power to be able to stop it. Because you have been DEMORALIZED and rendered IMPOTENT. See? It is possible to ‘state the truth’ and the whole Universe does not come crashing down over you.
The purpose, if you will, of those concocted narratives by those you here define as ‘the evil activities of the Democrats’ — “The Democrats” being a useful generalizing term — is simply put to undermine everything The Republicans assert is their program for the nation. It is a complex thing really, because it involves not only ‘politics’ taken in the simple sense, but also ‘metaphysics’ and also ‘psychology’. The former America is being remodeled into the New America.
So, what is true and what is false is not that relevant, what is relevant is winning against you. Similarly, your object is to ‘win’ against them. But the tools you have are those of weak, defeated people. Pre-defeated is the term. You have lost the battle before it was even engaged with. What I try to point out to you, and you simply will not (in fact you cannot) acknowledge nor talk about rationally, is that the best lens through which to see this mortal conflict between The Democrats and The Republicans is to see things in terms of demographics.
The Republican Party is the dying gasp of the fading White-European peoples within the land known as America. That is not the only factor, but it is a giant one. Once, you were 95% of the demographic, and now you are 58% (more or less). And here’s the thing: You so-called Conservatives have been trained (by mind control essentially) not to be able to see with clarity ‘the reality’ of what is actually going on, and what actually determined Fate and your fate. Demographics is Destiny. You can see it (more) clearly in Europe though.
So instead of actually focusing on ‘reality’, on the real facts of the matter, the discussion is essentially an ENDLESS COMPLAINING about minor details. And then there is all sort of ‘pearl clutching’ among the old Boomers. And one cannot forget to mention the lectures and admonitions of the Boomer class and the dreary tenets of the Boomer Truth Regime given out in moralizing, paternalistic tones.
So back to the matter in hand: I paid attention not so much to what people SAID about Donald Trump, but much more to the nature and quality and content of the animus that captured them. Donald Trump becomes, for many, a container and a projection screen on to what they project a series of ‘movies’ involving, in essence, hatred of Whites and hatred of Europeans. I say ‘movie’ because these are visual-psychological rehearsals. It is ‘anti-colonial’ in a strong sense. It is part-and-parcel of an elaborate and extensive demoralization effort that began decades ago. How many times have I referenced A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America (https://www.ucpress.edu/books/a-culture-of-conspiracy/paper) (Michael Barkun)? This is not a time of ‘rational culture’ it is a time of the flowering of the irrational and of currents not un-similar to mass hysteria.
How this has come about — how it is that the culture of which you are a part, and which you participated in constructing, was built over time within that culture-process known as Americanism — seems to me, at times, to be beyond your grasp! It is intensely frustrating. You will lecture and admonish but you will not listen. This is why I say that you assign me a role here. I have to act as the truth-teller even when people dismiss what I say: it cannot be heard. But this is very useful to me because it causes me to recoil back into my self and to answer that devilish difficult question: How is it and why is it that things have got to this point?
Please be so kind and erase the badly formatted post 2 ones up.
:::sigh:::
As you wish.
That was refreshingly comprehensible, and contained some seemingly reasonable predictions and analyses. Good.
I am getting comprehensible by the minute!