Survivor: Bloody Donald Trump. Picture: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
There are so many theories around the Donald Trump assassination attempt.
Most intriguing is how the young shooter, Thomas Crooks, aged 20, managed to smuggle such a large rifle into an area so close to the stage.
And why security personnel didn’t act when people pointed the rooftop shooter out to them.
In fact, there are now so many stories about security issues that were flagged before the shooting, that people are wondering why Trump’s security staff even allowed him to take the stage in the first place.
Of course this has cast aspersions on the Secret Service, inferring that they allowed it to happen.
Their only job is to protect current and past presidents, and by all accounts they are particularly good at it.
Until they weren’t, that is.
This is a problematic theory, because there are other, less messy and more effective ways to achieve this aim.
There are other interesting bits of information that are not being talked about.
Like the fact that Crooks was a registered member of Trump’s Republican party, so presumably a supporter of his policies.
Why try to kill your preferred presidential candidate?
Then there’s the fact that the family legally owned more than 20 guns and rifles.
But I understand why this won’t be addressed, because Trump is a fervent supporter of gun rights and much of his support comes from the powerful National Rifle Association.
Despite the alarming level of gun violence in America, and the shooting of several presidential candidates over the decades, politicians like Trump will never address the issue, for fear of losing votes.
Then there are those who believe that Trump staged the whole thing to boost his popularity among supporters and undecided voters.
They point to the fact that his close security team allowed him to stand up on stage, pump a fist into the air and insist that they spend valuable time retrieving his shoes before leaving.
The experts say there wasn’t the expected level of urgency to cover his body and remove him from the scene at speed.
I don’t know much about guns and shooting, but I do know that at around 120 meters away, Crooks would’ve had to be an expert marksman to only nick Trumps ear deliberately, without killing him.
Trump is such a performative showman, that I can understand why people would believe this theory, but it just doesn’t gel with me.
Especially since Crooks ended up paying the ultimate price for his actions.
The one theory that is almost certainly true is that the shooting will have the opposite effect to what Crooks intended.
It will cause a groundswell of sympathy votes for Trump, from people who may otherwise not have voted for him.
Together with Joe Biden’s terrible performance during their recent debate and questions around his advanced age (he turns 82 a few weeks after the elections), it doesn’t look great for him.
Then there’s the fact that he is not exactly on the best terms with the likes of Elon Musk, who now directs X (formerly Twitter) - the world’s greatest loudhailer and has been known to work with Trump.
Many believe that we might as well start bracing ourselves for another few years of the special brand of Trump crazy.
dailyvoice@inl,co.za
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