Oh man… this conflict is so, so, SO hard to watch or bear. It’s so hard to process this kind of devastation.

Sometimes I feel kind of numb (like right now), and other times it gives me nightmares. Both are unpleasant. Even though they certainly don’t compare at all to actually living through all this in Gaza.

Why must we divide the tribe? I don’t know how leftist who can’t identify as such plans to exercise collective power. But you do you.

That’s a leftist. You’re a leftist, buddy.

I relate a bit, though. I think it’s cringe when socialists call each other “comrade”.

People joke about the shooter “missing”, but at a few hundred feet away, a 2" miss is clearly within the influence of wind.

Trump got extremely lucky. I don’t think this was the result of a poor shot.

It’ll be interesting to see how he responds to this. I think an appropriate message would be something like, ‘This is terrible: assassinations only weaken democracy, and so no matter how great the threat Trump poses, his defeat must be electoral.’

To quote Dubya, I don’t think Biden “does nuance”. I doubt he’s equipped. Perhaps this big event will give him an excuse to exist the race and say it’s because of something other than the debate performance.

That’s a great point: I’m not saying that you have to draw them a footbath. Sometimes violence is necessary. But it’s gotta be part of a larger strategy to remove their sources of power. Domestically, direct physical street confrontations and assassinations seem to usually belie a lack of larger strategic goal.

Yeah, on reflection, I agree.

Fair. If you’ve got better terms, let me know. My point is that I think it would be silly to worry that the guy who tried to assassinate a fascist is going to make peaceful, non-violent antifa activists look bad. Using violence to fight fascism is the name of the game, right?

To be clear, I’m not hating on antifa. It’s a strategy, and I don’t like to fight with allies over tactics. But I think it’s silly to be engaged in violent struggle and worry about the bad press of being associated with violent struggle.

You know what? I guess that’s fair.

I guess we’ll likely see.

Was the shooter a crisis actor? Did he fake this because he’s planning to rig the election?

With all due respect… Jesse what the fuck are you talking about

I’m saying that it’s tautological.

If you try and kill a fascist because you’re opposed to fascism, you’re a black-bloc antifascist. I suppose it could come out that the shooter was purely delusional and was trying to kill Trump for fame or because of hallucinations, but it seems pretty obvious to me that this was political violence against fascism. That’s what antifa means. Am I missing something?

Don’t encourage these assholes. Have you considered how good this is for him?

If anyone else is thinking about doing this, please do not. With all due respect: you are a fucking idiot and you are not doing anyone a favor except the fascists.

It did hit someone behind him. The local medical examiner told the Washington Post that a member of the audience died.

I hate to say this, but … the shooter IS antifa. That’s what antifa means.

It’s not an organization with member rolls. It’s a term for people who are prepared to fight fascism by any means necessary, which I think it’s clear this person thought they were doing.

It’s a shitty situation to be in if you don’t like fascism. But there’s no use in getting semantic or trying to polish facts. This is where we’re at.

Personally, I have been saying for YEARS now something that seems consistently unpopular but true: “punching Nazis” is strategically ineffective. Justified? Yeah. Gratifying? Surely. A good strategy if you don’t want to live under fascism? Definitively not. It is choosing to embrace a playing field tilted wildly against us. Like it or not, we’re now on that field.

If you’re thinking of buying a gun right now, don’t. Instead, make sure you know all your neighbors by name. Plant gardens and stock up on canned goods. Put your efforts into putting people in positions of local power who are prepared to defend against either state terrorism or militia terrorism.

We cannot win with violence. Violence may be necessary defensively, but as an offensive strategy it is a tactical mistake, and we all need to accept that.

I don’t think it’ll seal it, but I think the whole Democratic dream of doing nothing and hoping that he says unpopular things and Biden can win without going out in public is completely dead.

We need a healthy, vibrant candidate to run aggressively against him. He can be stopped at the ballot box, but that will need an active, dynamic effort. It won’t happen on it’s own, which was clearly Biden’s campaign’s plan A.

It’s time for him to focus on being president and let Harris go out and make the case that she’s the right person to manage the four years.

Are you really just going to go fully into “it was a false flag” within minutes of an attempted assassination?

Staged it as a political stunt? Him getting grazed by a bullet? While he’s already AHEAD?

Jesus. We’re in dark times. Please keep your wits about you. The project to avoid falling into fascism does not get easier by having more people break with reality.

This seems like wishcasting.

Everyone is welcome to their subjective opinion, but I don’t think any of these are really suffering that hard.

Haaretz also reported this about three months ago. But I think there’s benefit to seeing more coverage of this.

Fascinating. I think he summarizes the expectations on Starmer in a pretty useful way.