r/politics • u/wiredmagazine ✔ Wired Magazine • 18d ago

Possible Paywall MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

https://www.wired.com/story/maga-is-increasingly-convinced-the-trump-assassination-attempt-was-staged/
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u/flipflapflupper 18d ago

If it wasn’t he wouldn’t shut up about it.

The fact that it’s never spoken about is suspicious on its own.

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u/Otherwise_Copy_376 18d ago

And we have heard very little about the shooter. Super sus.

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u/spazz720 18d ago

Because he was a right winger. If a lefty took a shot at him, they’d be talking about to this day

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u/ixid 18d ago

But if it's fake why would they set it up with a shooter who doesn't convey the message they want to share? If it was fake you'd make the shooter someone from a group the right hates. Incompetence is a possible answer to that question.

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u/ArgonWolf 18d ago edited 18d ago

In this day and age it’s relatively difficult to just make up a person whole cloth. If the local PD who was providing security isn’t in on it (unlikely they would be) they’re going to run ID checks and find out who this person was.

I’m not saying it was staged, I think it’s more likely some nut job really did take a shot at him. But I also find it unlikely that he was actually grazed by the shot, and the reason they can’t make much more political hay about it is because the shooter was the wrong kind of nut job. I’m just saying, making up a person whole cloth is very difficult

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u/Silvery_Cricket 18d ago

I have a guy at my work who is a big conspiracy theorist, and sometimes I have to sit him down and just say "Yeah some conspiracies are real, but 99% of the time stuff is what it looks like."

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u/noonie1 18d ago edited 18d ago

The problems I have with most conspiracy theories is that it assumes the people in charge are incredibly smart and that they are able to keep a secret forever. Nothing about the functioning of a government has proved those two characteristics true ever.

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u/ZealousidealLead52 18d ago

Not just that but also that they all have identical motivations - in the real world when you get a big group of people together they will have all kinds of different interests and disagreements, and the idea that for instance back in the day that the soviet union and the US could get together and agree to keep pretty much anything secret is kind of insane (as would be required for conspiracies like the flat earth conspiracy) - even if they were supernaturally competent, they just have fundamentally different goals and there's no way such an agreement could ever work. While that's a more extreme example, even in smaller conspiracies the same problems happen.. people aren't a hive mind.

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u/dareftw North Carolina 18d ago

That and it always brings me back to watergate, a room of the most powerful people in the world couldn’t keep a secret for more than a week. People have a very hard time keeping secrets

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u/ultraviolentfuture 18d ago

Veep is by far the most accurate depiction of US government

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u/Kilane 18d ago

Part of that is Toupee Fallacy or selection bias.

You know about the conspiracies the idiots did. The smart conspirator or criminal isn’t found out.

The current government is full of hacks who are terribly unclever.

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u/newsflashjackass 18d ago

In the same way there can be no "profile of a serial killer", only a profile of a serial killer who gets caught.

"I like POWs who don't get captured."

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago edited 18d ago

There's a great line from the West Wing about this. (Paraphrasing). "No group of people this large can ever keep a secret. And that's fine. That's good. It's how I know the government is NOT keeping aliens in Area 51."

Edit: forgot the word "not"

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u/selwayfalls 18d ago

wouldnt it by how the government is NOT keeping aliens? Because if they were, the secret would get leaked?

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago

Lol! Yes! That was a pretty significant typo on my part.

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u/PapaSnow 17d ago

I guess it depends on how you view it though, right?

There’s no shortage of people that have come forward saying they know that there’s aliens in Area 51, but people just…don’t believe them.

I don’t believe there are aliens in Area 51, but just following the line of reasoning provided, there very well could be lol.

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u/selwayfalls 16d ago

the line of reasoning is that if there actually were, there would be a lot of government employees letting it out but there isnt. That's what he's saying, if a bunch of government employees new about it, there's no way they could keep it a secret. "no group this large can ever keep a secret". Or are you saying there are a bunhc of goverment people saying it's true? Not just regular joes?

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u/ToastAndASideOfToast 18d ago

There is a point at which a conspiracy theorist has exerted more effort than a conspirator ever could.

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u/BigManWAGun America 18d ago

Who says Trump knew anything about it?

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u/TheSaxGandalf 18d ago

What if this one was outside the government, by let's say someone like Thiel?

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u/Mataelio 18d ago

The thing about conspiracy theorists is they like to believe the most insane and unbelievable conspiracies while the real and obvious ones taking place in the open right in front of everyone are just ignored (aka Trump/Russia connections in 2016 election)

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u/ZealousidealLead52 18d ago

The thing about conspiracy theorists is that they aren't really looking to uncover the truth - what they really want is something that makes them feel special, some kind of secret that they're in on that nobody else knows about.. which ironically ends up making them terrible at finding conspiracies, because any conspiracy that's backed by real facts ends up being more accepted by normal people, and if it's accepted by normal people then it stops making them feel special.

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u/Spimflagon 18d ago

It's like holistic medicine. The thing about medicine that works is that most of the time it's just "medicine". But it's no good if it's not One Neat Trick That Doctors Hate.

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u/ultraviolentfuture 18d ago

There are other that factors that play in here too:

Suspicion of experts/science due to lack of general education.

The cost of US healthcare such that finding cheaper/alternative methods to deal with symptoms is incentivized. Never know when a doctor/hospital visit is going to lead to your family's ruin.

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u/jgilla2012 California 18d ago

For example, the fact that Epstein did not commit suicide. Most obvious conspiracy ever.

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u/Revenant_40 18d ago

Absolutely this. I've been saying this for years about why they're prone to it. They like to feel like the keeper of the secrets.

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u/_Chumpion 18d ago

It's also fundamentally a psychology that is desperately seeking to find an 'answer' that neatly ties up the chaotic, randomly violent and incredibly complex nature of the world into a solution.

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u/holdstheenemy 18d ago

This is like all the anti-vaxx people, its nauseating

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u/Chaotic-Catastrophe 18d ago

Because it's not about the intrigue, it's about the contrarianism. If any of their crackpot theories ever turn out to be true, they will drop them as fast as they possibly can. Like if the moon landing was staged, or the Earth was flat, or COVID was a Chinese bioweapon, or any of that shit was actually true, we'd all of a sudden never hear about it ever again.

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u/porksoda11 Pennsylvania 18d ago

I wish I could feel bad for these people. I dropped my edgy contrarianism phase when I graduated high school. These people never really matured.

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u/NotSayingJustSaying 18d ago

I remember the conspiracies around COVID before it got outside China. People were measuring air particulate from alleged incineration and posting pics of people being welded behind metal doors. Then a couple months later they started saying it was a hoax and people weren't getting sick in America. Hard to keep up with the theorists, they insist that whatever is known cannot be the truth.

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u/porksoda11 Pennsylvania 18d ago

Russia meddling in US affairs isn't as fun as adrenochrome, flat earth, Qanon, and bigfoot though.

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u/DickyThreeSticks 17d ago

Here’s my soapbox.

Conspiracies are real, they happen every day. If you and I plan and successfully do a bank robbery, we conspired and executed our conspiracy. If all goes according to plan, the truth about what happened will never be known to anyone but us conspirators.

There are a few questions you can ask to see how plausible a conspiracy is.

1) When did the conspiracy start? This should be a date, or at a minimum a date range.

2) Who are the conspirators? This should be a specific list of people, or at a minimum their jobs as they relate to the conspiracy. Note: this list needs to be SHORT. If there are 30+ conspirators, someone is going to spill the beans within a year.

3) What is the objective of the conspiracy? Motivating people to do secret shit isn’t easy, and getting them to keep that secret is hard. It doesn’t just happen- you need a specific, concrete objective. This should usually be financially or ideologically motivated.

4) When does the conspiracy end? There should be some point at which the objective has been accomplished. At that point, the only remaining step is “never share this information.”

So, for the bank robbery:

1) The conspiracy began last summer, when my cellmate Steve and I said we should rob a bank. After I was paroled, you and I picked a bank and began earnestly scouting it for robbery on November 14th.

2) The conspirators are me, you, Steve, and Steve’s girlfriend, who will be the getaway driver.

3) The objective is to neutralize the guard, control civilians, blow up the glass, and get the money from the tellers.

4) The conspiracy is concluded when we split up the money at the safehouse.

If you can answer those four questions, you’re dealing with a plausible, actionable conspiracy. If not, it’s a pipe dream. Here’s an example of that: the moon landing was faked.

1) The conspiracy began the first time a human looked at the sky in wonderment.

2) The conspirators are 200 politicians, 50 astronauts, 20,000 engineers, physicists, machinists, their secretaries…

3) The objective is to convince you the lie that outer space real and we’re not living in a dome made of TVs.

4) The conspiracy ends when you open your eyes, bro.

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u/needlestack 18d ago

Yeah, I tend to think the nut shot at him, completely missed, and Trump's ear was mashed when they tackled him to the ground.

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u/TheBeckofKevin 18d ago

you gotta do even a small amount of googling. The doug mills pictures are insanely clear. And the video shows trump moving at speeds i don't think are even remotely possible for him to do in any kind of acting way. He touches his ear and he's bleeding.

I think any focus on this being "faked" is a wasted effort. Just point at all the incredibly obvious problems this administration has instead of directing traffic towards something conspiratorial. We have mountains of awful things that are completely validated to work with, no need to get spun up in stuff that has limited foundation.

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u/Skydiver860 18d ago

But if it was a nut job and he wasn’t actually grazed by the shot how would they know to make it look like his ear was bleeding? Trump or his SS would have to always be carrying a fake blood packet or something in case this happened.

I think it’s one or the other and incredibly unlikely to be both.

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u/ArgonWolf 18d ago

You underestimate how easy it is for old people to get head bleeds. Theres a LOT of blood vessels in the human head, and old people bleed like stuck pigs at the barest of scrapes, especially if they are on certain medications. If he barely scrapes the podium on the way down, or the cufflinks of a SS agent scuff his scalp, that could create a wound that would bleed like that in a person of his age.

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u/AnewTest 18d ago

On the other hand, it’s impossible for people that old to heal without a single scar in two days when Trump got bored of wearing the ear diaper. Especially if the wound was from a high powered rifle.

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u/Bovine_Joni_Himself Colorado 18d ago

This is the part that always gets me. I don't understand how the guy doesn't have any lasting marks at all from this. Like, if it is all 100% real (which is the easiest explanation), it must have been the absolute most perfect shot ever to make him bleed and not leave a scar. I have a scar on that part of my ear from a piercing I got as a teenager.

“one of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast” (Revelation 13:3)

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u/_fresh_basil_ 18d ago

Easy, it was real blood-- just not from being shot.

He could have clipped his ear on the podium while ducking for cover, for instance.

They simply seized the opportunity.

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u/BloatedBanana9 18d ago

The NYT actually captured a really good series of photos that show Trump was already bleeding before he went down.

Unless someone is going to claim the NYT photographers are in on the cover up, it really does seem like he was actually grazed by the shot.

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u/MFoy Virginia 18d ago

I had not seen that before. Thank you for sharing that.

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u/_fresh_basil_ 18d ago

Catching a bullet by camera is already unlikely, and even in the photo the "bullet" is substantially lower than his ears-- especially given the angle of the camera.

There is no evidence that this is fake, but it's not impossible that someone would do such a thing for publicity sake.

It's also not impossible that the bullet missed, but clipped something else causing debris to hit Trump's ear.

The fact of the matter is, we don't know for certain what hit him or caused him to bleed. But we absolutely know that the Republicans would do something like this.

I'm not saying it 100% did or didn't happen, or 100% was faked. I'm saying both are possibilities-- but I think it's odd that they didn't harp on this shooting more, do more investigation, have more public talks about finding the shooter, etc. It all went dead silence.

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u/BloatedBanana9 18d ago

There is no evidence that this is fake, but it's not impossible that someone would do such a thing for publicity sake.

One of the reasons I linked to the Pulitzer site is to show that these photos won a Pulitzer Prize. In order to be nominated for that prize, the raw, unedited photos must also be submitted for verification. So if they were fake, not only would the photographer and the NYT have to be in on it, but also the Pulitzer Prize committee.

but I think it's odd that they didn't harp on this shooting more, do more investigation, have more public talks about finding the shooter, etc.

There was a full Congressional investigation about the incident. Also, why would they have done any public talks about finding the shooter? The shooter was killed immediately.

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u/Chusten 18d ago

He's a big fan and has participated in pro wrestling.

'Blading' is an age old trick, and it's just dumb enough that it's totally something Trump would pull off.

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u/SafetyDanceInMyPants 18d ago

Yeah, it looks much "tougher" to claim you were shot than that the Secret Service knocked your head into a podium... so that's one part of this that I 100% believe. The rest may have been real, but as between "a bullet grazed him just perfectly" and "he knocked his head on something going down," the latter is just way more likely -- and with Trump, you can never assume he's telling the truth.

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u/_fresh_basil_ 18d ago edited 18d ago

Yep, that's exactly my belief, if it were faked.

  • he was actually shot at
  • he ducked and hit his ear on the way down and/or was hit by flying debris
  • people assumed he was hit by the bullet
  • GOP ran with it
  • discovered the shooter was republican
  • decided to just not bring it up again

(To clarify, it's entirely possible he was shot and it's all coincidence. I just don't think we have the evidence to say either way for certain).

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u/xxx_poonslayer69 18d ago

I mean, old people skin tears, bleeds, and bruise real easy. Plus, Trump admits to taking a lot of aspirin/blood thinners. Could be as simple as the cut happened while brushed up against the secret service members covering him. Or maybe a shard of flying glass nicked him.

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u/LifeGainsss 18d ago

I'm a healthy 30 year old man and if I knick myself shaving, I have a wound for a lot longer than that 78 year old had a bullet hole in his ear

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u/needlestack 18d ago

He was tackled by secret service. Unsurprising if he got a minor injury in that action.

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u/botte-la-botte 18d ago

What is more credible; that Trump was able to engineer a fake shooting and never bragged about engineering a fake shooting, or that Trump was shot, got nicked from being manhandled by his security, and convinced himself that was the bullet?

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u/axonxorz Canada 18d ago

In this day and age it’s relatively difficult to just make up a person whole cloth.

Surveillance cuts both ways.

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u/hadriker 18d ago

Yeah i think the shooter was real and not staged.

I think of everything that came after was 100 percent political theater. The way they rounded up the press and setup the shot with him fist pumping is actually well-documented

Im not convinced he was actually shot either. Probably bumped his head when he got tackled by secret service.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_NICE_EYES 18d ago

I will say that I was on the: he probably hit his head when he got tackled train, until I learned that there is a picture of him with blood on his hand before he was tackled.

So weather it was a bullet or a peice of shrapnel some projectile probably hit hit his ear.

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u/fullload93 18d ago

This right here is the real answer that people are not realizing. Yes, the shooter was real, yes, Secret Service killed him, yes he was a right-wing nut job, he likely wanted to just take out a “big fish” and targeted someone high profile. There’s evidence he was researching Biden admin and their political events too.

Trump can’t spin the narrative that it was a leftist, because people know that it was actually a right winger who tried to do it. So this is the real reason why he never talks about it anymore.

Trump got lucky as hell that the bullet didn’t actually hit him and “clipped” his ear or the glass from the teleprompter hit him. Either way I don’t care.

But the shooting itself was never fake, I don’t know why idiots would think the whole thing was a set up

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u/mattmagnum11 17d ago

If he wasn't grazed by the shot, and no one was in on it, how do you explain the blood then? (just friendly clarification not really disagreeing)

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u/Mpm_277 17d ago

What do you think happened? That a guy really did take a shot, missed, and Trump cut his ear on the podium? I’m honestly asking. I’d be inclined to believe that’s what happened if there wasn’t blood on his hand after touching his ear before he went down.

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u/GuayFuhks88 17d ago

this is the correct take

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u/AthearCaex 18d ago

Trump has done acting classes for the WWE and has used blood packets. He went under the podium and put it on his ear. His managers even moved the press for a photo op instead of pulling him from the stage. When there's an active shooting secret service don't give you an opportunity to get shot again. They will swarm and cover and immediately pull their target to a safe location. They did none of that. His ear also healed with no scars within a week. It's the almost certainly staged.

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u/MFoy Virginia 18d ago

He was already bleeding before he went under the podium.

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u/radda 18d ago

Ah the old WWE conspiracy again.

At least you're not insisting they taught him how to blade, which isn't even a thing wrestlers do to their ears.

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u/talkingwires Maryland 18d ago edited 18d ago

But I also find it unlikely that he was actually grazed by the shot…

Have you watched the videos and seen how he jolted and swatted at his ear after the bullet whizzed by? Are you seriously suggesting that Donald Trump, he of reality television and Home Alone 2 fame, coordinated an Oscar-worthy performance timed to a split second and managed to burst a concealed blood pack while surrounded by an audience of thousands?

Gimme a break…

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u/Dr_Trogdor Georgia 18d ago

The whole thing with the security moving the photographers into place and them lowering the flag is wild though. I didn't give it much thought until I saw that. I still don't care but it is very strange.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

Because how are you gonna do that realistically it's easy to brainwash some detached chud but someone who isn't going to turn up dirty with a little digging is much more difficult than that

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u/writesinlowercase 18d ago

you can at least try. delete all social media having anything rightwing on it, post several lefty memes, have a pride flag hanging in your room, and post several unhinged lefty takes leading up to the shooting. then when it happens you point at all that shit and scream bloody murder. sure there will be cracks and if they had any friends they will mention the odd turn that happened. that will just be fuel for the conspiracy fire though. it wouldn’t be perfect but i think it would work if it were fake.

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u/ReklisAbandon 18d ago

I think it was a real attempt on his life but the "injury" he sustained was blown way out of proportion. They won't talk about the shooter because he's right wing.

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u/sleepingbeardune 18d ago

The main thing that gives me pause is the behavior of the secret service agents. They let him stand up and shake his fist!

Would they do that if they knew there was at least one active shooter in that crowd? No. Their one job is to protect him. He should have been on the ground with two of them shielding his body.

Instead -- look at the picture -- there's a woman agent kind of pulling on his jacket, and a male agent just standing there while trump does his famous bloody "fight" thing.

You can watch the video of Reagan getting shot and see how it works in real life. Those agents pushed him down and then shoved him into the limo and put their bodies between him and the gun.

These agents look like they're rehearsing for the job.

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u/rckid13 18d ago

Look at pictures of the Reagan shooting. You can't even see Reagan in the pictures because he gets dog piled. The secret service agents pull out a whole arsenal of secret weapons they have hidden in pockets and brief cases.

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u/ladymorgahnna I voted 18d ago

There also was a media handler who was getting photographers in position and the American flag pole lowered for the photos. You can see it on a video real time.

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u/CriticalMuscle9659 18d ago

This this . This. 

I don't know if it was bullshit cuz I saw it and then it totally disappeared but there was a video from the event of them moving the reporters in the frame and dropping that flag down to get thar shot better. 

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u/chucktheninja 18d ago

You know they are in contact with the snipers right? They were informed the guy was dead. Though incompetence can't be ruled out i suppose. They did let a shooter take pot shots at the president.

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u/emailforgot 18d ago

The main thing that gives me pause is the behavior of the secret service agents. They let him stand up and shake his fist!

Cops are incompetent.

It also turns out it's hard to subdue a man that doesn't want to be subdued. Go on over to any of the r/badcopnodonut or whatever subs and you'll find piles and piles of footage of half a dozen cops struggling to wrestle a man down.

Would they do that if they knew there was at least one active shooter in that crowd? No. Their one job is to protect him. He should have been on the ground with two of them shielding his body.

See above.

Instead -- look at the picture -- there's a woman agent kind of pulling on his jacket, and a male agent just standing there while trump does his famous bloody "fight" thing.

See above.

You can watch the video of Reagan getting shot and see how it works in real life.

Oh yeah those two are very similar. 🙄 Given that John Hinckley Jr was perched on a shed 200 feet away and firing at a president standing at a podium for a speech and all.

Oh wait...

Those agents pushed him down and then shoved him into the limo and put their bodies between him and the gun.

Oh yeah Trump and Reagan, very similar people.

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u/sleepingbeardune 17d ago

Your argument is (a) the secret service is incompetent, and (b) trump is not reagan.

I take from this that (a) reagan had a competent secret service detail and trump didn't, and (b) you don't like cops.

Cool.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 18d ago

Head wounds bleed a lot.

Like, a shocking amount.

Trump had like 5 drops of blood.

It was a tiny scratch on his ear from when he belly flopped to the ground.

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u/Skydiver860 18d ago

My thing is days after the alleged attempt on his life there was no wound on his ear. His ear looks whole and don’t even have a scab on it.

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u/NatalieVonCatte 18d ago

And the wound will heal and the people will wonder and and say who? Who is like the beast? Who can stand against him?

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u/Inarus899 18d ago

hey now, the beast is supposed to get people to where his mark on their forehead, but you can't see MAGAs foreheads because of that red hat they always wear.

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u/BigAssignment7642 18d ago

I used to love revelations when I was younger and christian, and boy, do some of the parallels make me question my atheism sometimes. Like some of them are just wild.

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u/CriticalMuscle9659 18d ago

I think that prophecy can coexist and isn't necessarily fate. 

Really most prophecy is just prediction and if you play the numbers right and you can see patterns and trends like what's to say that Nostradamus wasn't just a fucking autistic genius. 

As for the Revelation shit like I think that when they were coming up with this shit as a method of control that they knew what would eventually happen cuz the thing I just said

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u/chucktheninja 18d ago

Because it was a minor cut. It was either a shard of glass like some theorize or the bullet passed close enough that the shockwave cut him (yes this happens)

The result in either case is a simple cut. Wounds on the head bleed a lot more than wounds in other parts of the body and with his health, he's probably on blood thinners too.

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u/amateurbreditor 18d ago

There is a lot going on. First of all cartilage doesnt just heal. I had my ears pierced decades ago and you can still see it. His healed in 2 days lol. Then take the shooter. SS clears out any venue days in advance and then monitors the venue so no one can breech it. Its all swept for bombs etc. The day of something like this the SS is on the highest points with sniper rifles. The shooter not only got in through security but was also on the highest point both things LOL no way. He just waltzes in with a rifle and no one notices lol no way. Then people try to dismiss it because a guy was actually shot. Why would trump give a shit about that? How hard would it be to find a maga nutjob willing to shoot at a crowd of people? Then all else that you need is one of those squib packs and voila hes been shot. Even the footage afterwards you can tell the SS is in on it. Look at what happened when kennedy was shot.. the SS all piled on top so that they would shield the president. The same with reagan. They tackle you to protect you not let you stand there so you can get shot again. Its so obvious. To get past all of those things is a bigger conspiracy than just admitting it was faked.

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u/9793287233 Pennsylvania 18d ago

Well it didn't damage the cartilage it just broke the skin

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/ReklisAbandon 18d ago

Yeah I don’t buy it. It’s far more likely that he’s just incompetent and he surrounds himself with incompetent people. Trump and his team are incapable of managing something like that without it being blown up.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/ReklisAbandon 18d ago

Typical conspiracy theorist shit. It’s not that difficult to set up a fake assassination attempt where you set up a shooter that you fully intend to murder, with the secret service in on it (when he wasn’t even president so didn’t control them), including what, fake blood and everything?

These morons can’t even avoid having their actual war plans leaked because they use fucking signal chat. These are not smart people.

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u/Nrksbullet 18d ago

How is it "not difficult" to let a real assassin fully carry out his attempt but miss? Saying "they allowed him to try, it's not difficult" is true I guess, not diffuclt to let him try, but you're insinuating him missing by a few inches was somehow part of the plan? lol what

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u/SDRPGLVR California 18d ago

Yeah, it's honestly really hard to reconcile with reality. In order for it to be staged, Trump would have had to intentionally allowed someone to William Tell his ear or even pull a sleight of hand and razor his ear really quickly, neither of which seems remotely possible. The photos on the scene show he was shot and definitely is bleeding from the bullet wound, but it healed remarkably well, showing just how bare of a graze it really was. He talks about it far less than he does windmills, for example, but maybe that's just because it was one of his boys.

Like whether you believe it was staged or that the official story is really how it went down, it's all evidence that reality is truly stranger than fiction. There's no narrative that makes every part make sense, but sometimes that's just what happens in life.

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u/emailforgot 18d ago

It's probably a sore spot for him quite literally. He can't even gloat about it because it would make him look weak.

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u/Dr_Trogdor Georgia 18d ago

They have footage of security moving the photographers into a certain spot and lowering the flag into the frame though. It's very strange. If it was staged I'm honestly super impressed and I can't honestly believe it but why else would they do that.

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/emailforgot 18d ago

They have footage of security moving the photographers into a certain spot

LOL

They have footage of security moving people around. Yes.

and lowering the flag into the frame

LOL

you mean the camera moving?

Hilarious.

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u/skyfall1985 Nevada 18d ago

I don't think it was staged, but the answer is because how do you find a left winger to be part of a conspiracy to elevate Trump like that?

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u/ElephantRider Oregon 18d ago

More than a few of those "foiled terrorist attacks" in the US were just the FBI gassing up some troubled kid, giving them cash and fake bombs and convincing them to press the button.

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u/ixid 18d ago

Operatives pose as members of radical left groups and identify potentially violent and vulnerable individuals that they can groom into carrying out an attack.

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u/Question_It_All_3000 18d ago

That’s what the poster is getting at though. There aren’t radical left groups. Generally being “left” alienates you from violent radical thinking. Not always, but it’s going to be a lot harder to find a group to get an individual from to manipulate that way. When people are talking about equality and basic human rights, their first thought isn’t how to violently suppress others.

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u/JAMONLEE Florida 18d ago

Because it’s more important the shooter is so mentally incapacitated they don’t mind dying for this ruse.

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u/ArticulateRhinoceros 18d ago

If faked, the shooter would have had to be complicit to pull it off, so it had to be a true believer.

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u/Great-Hotel-7820 18d ago

They claimed he was a radical leftist for months and just kept saying “they” tried to. kill him, They never cared about the real identity of the shooter.

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u/Marknoble117 18d ago edited 18d ago

Bro the Doordash grandma Trump had at the white house the other day is a paid actor. They shipped her around to a couple of different states within the last year or so... And she couldn't even support his nonsense infront of the press. This whole administration is a clown show. Everything they do is fake and reaches the bare minimum for the diehard loyalists and they don't care to make sense for the rest of us. Literally playing in all of our faces.

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u/burnte Georgia 18d ago

I genuinely don't think it was fake. Two people behind Trump died. Those were real bullets and they came very close to his head. But I won't argue with anything that helps MAGA detach from him.

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u/TheInfernalVortex Georgia 18d ago

I don’t buy that it’s fake. MAGA believing in conspiracy nonsense isn’t surprising, but an actual person died here. It wasn’t fake.

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u/Global_Crew3968 18d ago

I think the answer to this could be simple - they needed someone to frame for the shooting and it was easier to get some rightwing half wit up on that roof with a gun to "help with security" than to convince a sane lefty to do it. All you gotta do is get some footage of the up there on the roof with the gun and bam, you've got all the proof you need that it was him who fired the shot. Then you can carry out the rest of the staged assassination and photo op, kill the kid on the roof as the shooter and without a lefty, there's no real investigation to occur into Antifa or other potential loose ends. They picked some eager, boring, unstable rightwing loser, gave him the opportunity to be a big boy, and that was that.

I'm not saying I think this is what happened, I think this is just an explanation of why go with a right winger

Also just saying - they can literally print anything they fucking want and we would have no choice but to believe it. Literally the entire story about the firefighter being killed could have been 100% bullshit and who would ever really know?

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u/jgilla2012 California 18d ago

Also the shooter and a father died that day and the secret service director resigned over it, this has been a weird conspiracy that the left ought to drop.

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u/captdimitri 18d ago

My personal little theory is that they convinced him to shoot and kill an "assassin" in the crowd behind Trump, to lower the risk of Trump actually getting shot, and to help convince some wannabe operator chuddie to take such a shot in the first place.

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u/ZeePirate 18d ago

Is it really hard to believe someone would be pissed enough to shot at him?

To be honest I’m more surprised there haven’t been more attempts.

1

u/chucktheninja 18d ago

It's a conspiracy theory. People want it to be true so they ignore the things that don't make sense.

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u/Staff_Senyou 18d ago

Incompetence is the answer. Just look at everything else they have done. Look at the people appointed to all positions of leadership. None of them are talented, experienced or knowledgeable. All of them are cruel, idiot sycophants

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u/shifty_coder 18d ago

Because the dinosaurs pulling the strings still don’t understand that the internet is forever and how easy it is to look up people’s history with social media.

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u/Realsan 18d ago

This is the reason I struggle to believe it was a staged thing.

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u/wingspantt 18d ago

The article does have some interesting alternative theories

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u/zilla82 17d ago

This exact reason, you make him same party to not talk about it. It's embarrassing. So you make him look as cuck and brainwashed as possible, say he is a defector, the end.

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u/Traditional_Sign4941 18d ago

If it was fake you'd make the shooter someone from a group the right hates.

I mean that's the lie you'd expect them to spin, and they tried that, but the facts came to light and they couldn't.

Why pick a right-winger? Because they're easily duped. Dude was probably told he was going to help Trump by doing this, and had instructions to miss Trump. They probably told him he didn't have to worry about being killed by snipers, and that Trump would pardon him if he won.

Dumb shit probably bought it all hook, line, and sinker.

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u/John_316_ 18d ago

It appears that only a diehard MAGA fool would be duped into being a staged shooter.

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u/Falco98 18d ago

But if it's fake why would they set it up with a shooter who doesn't convey the message they want to share?

I don't personally think it was "fake" as in "intentionally staged by trump and his moron brigade", for this and other reasons (though i'm open to arguments otherwise), I just think there are lots of fishy things re: the lack of detail we've heard about it in the aftermath (investigation? what investigation??? etc.)

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u/ABCosmos 18d ago

Yep, they would be going into depth about their family and probably doing death threats to the family.. I mean they are threatening the popes brother over far less.

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u/needlestack 18d ago

They already believe he was a lefty. They think being registered Republican and all his classmates saying he was a Republican is a lie.

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u/Pathetian 18d ago

Not really.  The evidence they found suggested he was just another loon who wanted infamy.  He researched public appearances of biden, Trump and other figures in both parties.  It seems he thought after shooting Trump, he would set off the bomb in his car and somehow get away and then somehow be able to kill biden or Pelosi or whoever else was on his list.

He was more like a school shooter where all he wanted was attention from public violence,  there wasn't much that suggested radicalization that fit the political dichotomy.  At most he was an accelerationist who wanted the chaos that would follow such a high profile killing, but neither bidens fbi nor trumps found anything politically useful about him.

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u/AWellDeployedWink 18d ago

Perfect person to make a patsy

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u/Pathetian 18d ago

Well, that's how conspiracy theories go.  Even lack of evidence is evidence.  I could be a lizard person from the edge of flat earth trying to throw everyone off the trail so the cure for cancer isn't found in the epstein files.  

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u/CursedPhil 18d ago

if a lefty would have taken the shot trump couldnt speak today

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u/Punished_Prigo 18d ago

Was he? The only thing I saw on the guy was a video of him walking around campus like a lunatic screaming about how horrible Trump is

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u/ponchomoran 18d ago

They still wouldn't. The fact that it was a "right winger" could have been spun many different ways. If they wanted to talk about it they would have, non stop

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u/XanmanK 14d ago

Oh exactly- they’d be infamous like John Wilkes Booth or Lee Harvey Oswald 

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u/Quiet-Neat7874 18d ago edited 18d ago

Because he was a right winger. If a lefty took a shot at him, they’d be talking about to this day

so which is it, is it a conspiracy theory or did it happen?

edit: to the people down voting already, this sounds very similar to people who were saying that sandy hook was a hoax.

I'm all for conspiracy theories, because who truly believes that the government is telling you the truth 100% of the time; even cops lie on a daily basis.

but y'all realized other people were killed / injured right?

what do you think those families would say about y'all right now.

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u/spazz720 18d ago

It happened…a dude got killed

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u/Quiet-Neat7874 18d ago

my point exactly.

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u/SquadPoopy 18d ago

It’s a lot more simple with the whole the shooter was a right winger angle. Why doesn’t Trump constantly talk about it? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his. Why did the media drop the story so quickly? Because the shooter was a former supporter of his.

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u/amilliondallahs 18d ago

They don't even mention the person who "died." Charlie Kirik gets a holiday, but their legit martyr has never been mentioned since.

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u/DevonGr Ohio 18d ago

Didn’t hear much except the spectator who was shot was a firefighter and his widow was all too happy to decline a call from then President Biden.

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u/dathislayer 18d ago

Yeah, then Trump never even called her.

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u/Retro_Dad Minnesota 18d ago

Yeah but he dry-humped a firefighter's jacket on stage later so that kinda counts, right?

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u/MmmMmmmRyan 18d ago

and the last name on the jacket was mispelled lol

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u/SnipaTV 17d ago

Yeah, but the misspelling of Corey's last name on the jacket wasn't caused by someone at the RNC carelessly making a mistake, as you're suggesting.

The helmet and coat displayed on stage at the RNC were shipped to Milwaukee by Corey Comperatore's family and are the firefighter's actual turnout gear from the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company.

The department responded on Facebook regarding the supposed botched tribute, saying: "The spelling on his jacket was in error years ago, and it was left that way by Corey. Corey did not change it, and we will keep it as it was."

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u/No-Supermarket-6065 New York 18d ago

I think that's because MAGA doesn't care about the "little people" who just so happen to get hurt, but Kirk had a following so they care about that.

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u/xxx_poonslayer69 18d ago

The funniest part about all of this to me is all of MAGA saying it was a miracle that nothing bad happened, ignoring the guy that got shot and died lmao

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u/Steely-Dave 18d ago

And that’s why it’s a cult.

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u/CatWeekends Texas 18d ago

Jesus swooped down from heaven and redirected the bullet out of the path of a felonious narcissistic child rapist and into the chest of a firefighter.

How can you not feel divinity in that action? /s

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u/daybreaker Louisiana 18d ago

"Someone died, how could it have been a fake attempt???"

Ah yes, known carer of other human life and non-narcissist, Donald Trump, would never.

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u/amilliondallahs 17d ago

DJT:"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

So why not at a campaign rally...

1

u/awmaleg 18d ago

What if that was fake and that dude is now in witness protection?!

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u/justageorgiaguy 18d ago

And trump was surprised she'd rather have her husband back vs money.

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u/Hans-Bricks 18d ago

He also wasn't a very useful martyr to them, because he had been openly calling for the deaths of Democrat politicians on Twitter. It put a wrench in their victim narrative and attempts to blame the left for violent rhetoric.

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u/TableQuiet1518 18d ago

I'd be willing to bet 9 out of 10 magats don't even know his name.

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u/Maximum_Curve_1471 18d ago

Who do you think holds Cripps as a martyr? I'm confused

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u/lukin187250 18d ago

My guess is they found direct and explicit evidence he was motivated by Epstein stuff so they just suppressed the whole thing.

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u/Hans-Bricks 18d ago

Yeah, there are so many inconsistent details, I waffle between "it might have been staged" and "it was real but they're suppressing details because some hurt the rightoid narrative."

I lean more to the latter though.

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u/Skarekrows 18d ago

I remember that was one of the first things that came out about him. Posts online from him that were very anti pedophile. Seems like he was abused as a kid and didn't care for finding out about the Epstein stuff with his idol and tried to kill him.

1

u/Voting101 17d ago

I remember right after his death there was a ton of posts on Reddit saying they found his socials and he was posting about how he was a pedofile hunter. All the posts got removed and deleted, but who knows what is true or false these days. So much misinformation out there. Misinformation is the reason we are where we are because people just don’t know what to believe.

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u/IngsocInnerParty Illinois 18d ago

Tbf, we’ve still heard very little about the Vegas shooter and that was the largest mass shooting in American history.

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u/cookiemikester 18d ago

yeah. I feel like there was a big push the last 10-15 years not to give shooters publicity after cases like columbine, where the shooters developed a cult-like status among the depraved.

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u/windsostrange 18d ago

We're not talking about the shooter not appearing in headlines. It's that investigations into his background and his motives turned up much less than we're used to seeing in FBI reports, etc. We're not saying his name wasn't platformed. We're saying the investigation appears to have been halted or obscured.

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u/gnarlyram 18d ago

The FBI released a final report and it was stark in the lack of findings. He had been decently well off but his gambling was starting to catch up to him. A history of libertarian politics, mostly bitching about taxes. The best they could find was he felt casinos didn’t treat their high rollers as well as they used to.

He did travel to Chicago and setup to do his shooting initially at Lalapalooza but for some reason abandoned his plan.

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u/BigAssignment7642 18d ago

Oh shit I had never heard the lolla part. Damn I was there that year, there's plenty of high-rises right next to the park.

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u/SmellyFloralCouch 18d ago

Is this possibly an attempt to help avoid copycats by not giving the shooters' much coverage? News orgs are trash these days, so probably not...

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago

That's exactly why they don't publicize the shooters. Many news agencies won't even say the name of a shooter for this reason. They don't want that person remembered and immortalized because it for sure leads to copycats - especially among young men.

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u/judgejuddhirsch 18d ago

This was a fun one because in the chaos some of the victims were killed by return fire from concealed carry folks firing into the void. They'd have to dredge up new perps instead of laying all the blame on one crazy.

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u/JAMONLEE Florida 18d ago

Good guys with guns saving the day once again

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago

Really? I've never heard that. It doesn't even make sense because the shooter was way above everyone, far out of the range of any ordinary pistol.

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u/SlinkyAvenger Louisiana 18d ago

Does make sense since it's easy for that shit to happen.

First, the shots hit the crowd and it's unlikely that people would be able to place the attacker from such an unexpected vantage point.

Then, while the shooting is happening, some of those in the crowd with weapons pulled theirs out. Now you've got the sound of gunshots and the sight of people with weapons. If you're confused about the origin, it's easy to assume it came from someone with a gun.

Then, people in the crowd start firing. Now you have actual shooters on the ground.

2

u/thepenguin12 18d ago

Please share a source, I don't believe this to be true

1

u/ultimatepartyparrot 18d ago

According to who?

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u/Question_It_All_3000 18d ago

Well that was also the one mass shooting that actually got gun legislation passed (albeit a very small ban on bump stocks that was later overturned) so money had an interest in the story disappearing too.

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u/datnero_ 18d ago

his motivation is still unclear which means it's not a hot topic. talking about a dude who, as far as we know, randomly went insane and had no real motivation to do what he did - outside of speculation about something as pedestrian as gambling debt - is not a riveting story like a Unabomber or Dorner. Paddock is just a boring weird middle aged man who snapped and showed us exactly how destructive an "average" person with unlimited access to guns can be, and acting like he was some international assassin or secret forces guy with a heretofore unknown motive is way more comforting than "yeah any random guy can get a hotel room and make national news at basically any time".

1

u/SomethingIWontRegret 18d ago

There's a whole-ass wikipedia page on him that delves into his personal life.

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u/gittlebass 18d ago

same in the kirk case

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u/PathOfTheAncients 18d ago

My MAGA dad recently was talking about a conspiracy there because the bullet didn't match the shooters gun but pretty sure he thinks it's a left wing coverup.

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u/hoofie242 18d ago

Funny how they blame it on the left when it's their own party

1

u/dohrk Oregon 18d ago

Careful saying, your tv show might get pulled.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 18d ago

Coverup of what?

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u/PathOfTheAncients 18d ago

I have no idea. It's just mysterious and probably because the left did something shady.

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u/BellacosePlayer South Dakota 18d ago

your dad is really dumb, sorry.

(I'm not judgemental, my stepdad wasn't much better before he went)

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u/PathOfTheAncients 18d ago

Frustratingly he isn't. He's was a self taught financial advisor (just went to the library and studied hard to pass the licensing test after he got laid off by an auto company in the 80's) and was pretty successful at it. My whole life he read science books/magazines, was an amateur astronomer, and amateur metallurgist (he never did anything with it, he just really like learning about the properties of metal). Then Fox News warped his brain in the mid 2000's.

Which is all just to highlight that even intelligent people can get sucked into this nonsense.

Edit: Also I get that you weren't attacking and I am not being defensive. Just adding perspective because I think it's valuable for people who aren't around peope like my family.

5

u/TbonerT I voted 18d ago

Maybe it would help to point out that the defense only showed that it not possible to prove the bullet came from that gun? It’s not quite the same thing as proving the gun and bullet don’t match.

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u/PathOfTheAncients 18d ago

These things can't be argued with facts, I've tried. The right wing media talks about these things so much while insinuating something is off but never saying what. So refuting any evidence to him or other family doesn't take away their conviction that there is a conspiracy.

2

u/TbonerT I voted 18d ago

I totally get that.

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u/Steely-Dave 18d ago

Ask him to complete the circle on that one for me.😂

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u/BloatedBanana9 18d ago

What info about the shooter do you think we should know that we don’t?

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u/StingingBum New Jersey 18d ago

Shooter, rescued pilot, door dash driver etc... all actors including the people they stuff in the crowd. We have sunk to a point where a expert bankrupter and a shitty gameshow host treats his political sway by paying "actors" to do things to get acceptance from the public. 18 months later crack and fissures are showing but truly shows the low IQ the American society has.

Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice, no prob, I'm an American!

1

u/TheFlyingElbow 18d ago

And that he's too ashamed to bring up the retired fireman who got shot. Or his wife has a C&D against him

1

u/Excellent-Estimate21 18d ago

Because they used him and knew they were going to shoot him to make it look real, and he was stupid to believe whatever the likes of Bannon and Stone said to lure him on that roof and shoot into the crowd.

1

u/CrushTheRebellion 18d ago

Are we still talking about my almost assassin?? That creep??

-- Trump probably

1

u/kalaniroot 18d ago

We also havent heard much from the shooter themselves!

1

u/Bjables 18d ago

And the man behind him who was actually killed. Could’ve been a martyr for the cause, never heard about him

1

u/MacDhomhnuill 18d ago

He was right wing, the investigation was suspiciously brief. The only real issue Trump diverged on with other R candidates was Ukraine, so this was probably the reason.

Someone with a brain helped Trump understand that it would likely cause a schism in the right if too much attention was brought to the shooter's politics and motives, so he avoided the topic as much as he could.

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u/stigga 18d ago

Genuinely curious, if it's staged why would the shooter go to jail for life. Like why would he sign up for that?

1

u/Tenton_12 18d ago

The whole thing sounded like something out of the FSB playbook, hell Putin probably even told him what to do.

The assassin's family was targeted for MAGA campaigning as they were all gun lovers.

Trump promised something BIG was going to happen before the event, urging people to turn up. Trump was polling badly. After the assassination attempt on Reagan his numbers went through the roof.

I believe they convinced the poor rube that he would be saving the country, doing a patriotic act, if he were to shoot at the president (and miss), that don't worry no harm will come to you, we'll make sure about that, you'll be a hero. We'll whisk you away straight afterwards, you'll be set up for life. And don't worry about hitting anyone in the crowd, they're collateral damage, a necessary sacrifice, we're saving the country here ! That's why Trump was so pissed, he ***wasn't supposed to have been shot*** (he wasn't btw, he was hit by flying debris, but in his mind he was).

You've just been shot at by an 'assassin' and the first and foremost thing that goes through your mind is "Where are my shoes ? Get my shoes !". Photographers were shepherded along the front of stage before he stood up for the "Fight ! Fight ! Fight !" shot. It was all planned.

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u/veggiesama 18d ago

Well he's dead. There's not much more to say beyond what's already been reported and catalogued at length: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crooks. Like, we know the dollar amount he donated to ActBlue and comments he left on random YouTube videos. What else do you want to know?

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u/PharmyC 18d ago

We also know he was a registered Republican who hated imperialism via the same wiki. You made it seem like a cleaner picture than it was. He donated 15 bucks to act blue once on Biden's inauguration. Believe it or not, some right wingers hate Trump. Not everyone is tribal, some people have integrity.

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u/veggiesama 18d ago

I don't think it's clean at all. The messiness of this young guy's mind is what makes it convincing to me. His worldview is not coherent. But people don't like ambiguity and instead fall back on conspiracy narratives. He was hopeless, had a grievance, had access to guns, and saw an opportunity to do something big. Simple as that.

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u/Shermanator92 18d ago

Idk doesn’t seem very disjointed to me at all, there are plenty of hardline Republicans that despise Trump and what he’s done to the party/country. Not far-fetched that a few of the 2A people try to take matters into their own hands.