Seth Masket: Quick points: 1) Assassination attempts are bad, period. 2) We do not know the motives of the shooter. 2) We do not know the political consequences of this event. There were attempts to shoot Teddy Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter shortly before elections; they all survived and lost.

Quick points: 1) Assassination attempts are bad, period. 2) We do not know the motives of the shooter. 2) We do not know the political consequences of this event. There were attempts to shoot Teddy Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter shortly before elections; they all survived and lost.

My second point 2 is obviously point 3. My bad.

You could have avoided the issue by using bullet points, but I guess that would probably make for terrible optics.

Fuck man I laughed at this am I going to hell now?

If so, can you help the rest of us level up from the 21st century, too?

Nah, in a political system as unprepared for fascist threats as this, it would’ve been wonderful. No point pretending otherwise.

Ish. It would have only served to make him a real martyr and we would already be seeing the after effects. If he croaks it needs to be of natural causes like choking on McDonalds.

Meh, there’s not a world where he doesn’t die a martyr to them. Better that he not do so as president.

I’m not sure if his death wouldn’t also throw the fascist party into total disarray if not a nosedive. There’s really nobody who is an heir to his particular nutty band of followers. So, I also land in the camp that believes this would have been good for the country. If not the world.

I don't know, not chewing a chicken nugget is exactly a martyrdom worth way to go.

Isn't* Fucking autocorrect

4) the shooters are almost always total loons and cranks with no coherent ideology

Doesn’t mean the right-wing media won’t say they do.

Recently here in Brazil, bolsonaro was stabbed in the belly and won that election, just as a counter example

There are plenty of counter-examples. It's just not clear that there are electoral consequences one way or another.

He was also a front-runner if not winner by then as is, and it was after a large slump in popularity of the current party and a pretty much useless no-one candidate that was "basically Lula, trust me bro."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... Point 1 is obviously wrong people, please be serious.

List of assassination attempts on Adolf Hitler - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

FDR was almost killed by an assassin before he took office in March 1933.

Right but as you say it was before he took office. After he won.

However, attempt against Bobby Kennedy was much less unsuccessful.

He also failed to win the election.

In fairness, he was dead. ☠️

I think there's even a transcript of the TR one, since he was in the middle of a speech: TR: "Oh, no, I've been shot! Anyway..."

Also on FDR.

FDR had already won

That’s what I’m hanging my hat on that fascist SOB will lose too.

Wallace getting shot didn’t boost him past regional candidate.

Ford had 3 attempts in 2 months in 1975! They finally got him a bullet proof raincoat in case the assassins developed better aim.

I'm not enjoying our return to the 1960s to 1980s. Where I expected to hear about an assassination attempt (succesfull or not) every year or two. But given the current vitriol I'm not surprised to see it's return.

In regards to 3, sure, but they didn't have social media

My timeline has been full of people telling me another Trump presidency is the end of everything, including Trump assassinating enemies. Does #1 apply? Will it be the end of everything but that’s ok as long as we don’t do assassination before he gets in? Or is my timeline full of fear mongering?

To be fair, TR was running a third party candidacy.

But we now know the shooter was only 20, so he probably never even heard of Jodie Foster.

Also we do not know if this was an assassination attempt.

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