This is unbelievable, unacceptable and unprecedented. Just nine weeks after Trump was nearly assassinated while speaking at a rally in Butler, PA there was a second attempt. As you all know by now, on Sunday Trump was playing golf at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, FL. A gunman, armed with an SKS rifle was able to create a sniper’s nest in some bushes bordering the sixth and seventh holes of the course and lie in wait for some 12 hours for Trump to pass by. Only by a stroke of luck was the Secret Service able to thwart him.
An alert SS agent was walking the course one hole head of Trump when he spotted a rifle peeking through some bushes bordering a chain link fence between the sixth and seventh holes. In a matter of minutes Trump would be passing by at which time the would-be assassin would have had a clear shot from some 300 yards away. A shot like that is so easy that the chances of the gunman failing to kill Trump would have been minimal. The agent fired at the man who then fled. An alert private citizen was able to note the license plate on his car, and the police were able to apprehend him in short order.
America is no stranger to assassinations and assassination attempts of presidents and presidential candidates. According to Wikipedia there have been numerous attempted assassinations of both presidents and presidential candidates, too many to list them all here. The first was Andrew Jackson in 1835 while he was president.
According to my research there have been three attempted assassinations of presidential candidates prior to Trump. Teddy Roosevelt and George Wallace were wounded, and RFK was killed. Four sitting presidents have been assassinated. How many can you name? You get bonus points if you can also name the year. See the answers below.
Decent people can take a deep breath that the attempt failed, but there are a multitude of questions that need to be addressed prospectively. For example, according to multiple media outlets:
- The area in which the assassin was nesting was well known not only to the SS but also to others as well. Apparently, it has been a favorite hiding place for paparazzi seeking to take surreptitious photographs of celebrities. So why was it left unattended?
- Obviously, Trump’s SS protection has been inadequate. Why wasn’t it enhanced after the first attempt on his life?
- Is it a problem with manpower, training, funding, planning, leadership, a combination of the foregoing, or something else more sinister? Could certain people who view Trump as a threat to democracy, or worse, be embroiled in a conspiracy to intentionally leave Trump vulnerable? Food for thought.
- Routh was able to construct a sniper’s nest and hang out for some 12 hours without being noticed. Why? How?
- Security at the Trump National Doral, where Trump also plays frequently, is similarly lacking.
- Only the golf course in Bedminster, NJ seems to provide appropriate and adequate security for Trump when he plays there. For one thing, the police restrict public access by closing down nearby roads.
- The SS admitted that it failed to “sweep” the golf course beforehand, but it failed to provide a reasonable excuse. In addition, it stated that it didn’t have the resources to protect Trump on a golf course. That is absurd on its face. Many presidents have played golf from Eisenhower to Obama, and the SS managed to protect them just fine.
- Why didn’t the SS have a drone on site. It doesn’t take a lot of manpower to operate a drone, and they provide an extra layer of security.
- The Palm Beach County sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, disclosed that Trump’s SS detail was “lighter” because he is not the president, only a candidate. This strikes me as illogical, inane, ill-advised, and incredulous, and if true, needs to be rectified immediately. Common sense, which as we all know is not common, holds that Trump is not your typical candidate. He is a controversial figure whose enemies both political and non-political, have vilified him ceaselessly. Therefore, he is much more likely to be attacked. He has been twice already, and the likelihood is there will be more attempts. He definitely needs a higher level of protection.
- The federal government claims the SS is short of manpower and money. Biden and Schumer have claimed that Congress needs to pass an appropriations bill to resolve the matter. In the words of Joe Biden, that is pure “malarky.” According to published reports the SS budget is $3.8 billion. Furthermore, if more funds are needed the feds have the power to reallocate funds from other agencies, such as Homeland or the FBI, especially for an “emergency,” which this clearly is. Also, the SS could “borrow” law enforcement personnel from the state or local police. Of course, this would require a certain degree of coordination and cooperation, which, as we saw in Butler, seems to be another deficiency. In my opinion, by the time Congress passed such a bill it would be weeks if not months. The election would be over, and Trump could very well be dead. Besides, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and others have opined that the problem is a “manpower allocation [issue], not a funding issue.” I would agree.
- Routh is clearly unbalanced. For instance, he had published a book in which he openly called for Trump’s assassination. Moreover, in April he tweeted that “democracy is on the ballot, and we can’t lose. … You can’t lose if your opponent [Trump] is dead.” Those actions should have landed him on the FBI’s radar. Somehow, it didn’t.
- Incredibly, much of the mainstream media has been praising Roof as a “super-citizen” and a “crusader for causes.” Huh?
- Where has Mayorkas been? As head of Homeland Security he should have been all over this. He has been MIA, just like he has been regarding the border and everything else for which he is responsible.
- The best news I have heard is that Governor Ron DeSantis has directed Florida law enforcement to conduct a thorough investigation. He is one person who will get answers, which have been sorely lacking.
I maintain that the continued vilification of Trump by his political opponents and the mainstream media is the chief cause of the two assassination attempts. It is one thing to disagree with him politically. That’s protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but in my opinion characterizing him as “evil,” a “Nazi,” “Hitler,” or an “existential threat to democracy” as they have done and continue to do crosses the line. Rather than try to calm emotions the Dems and their allies in the media have doubled down on the vitriol. For example, just today, Hillary Clinton referred to Trump as “a danger to our country.” Even worse, various bloviators on CNN and MSNBC blamed Trump and the GOP for the attempted assassination and accused them of trying to “rile up” their political base. Truly, they are suffering from a terminal case of TDS.
In our political system we are free to disagree with political opponents. That does not make them “evil.” These above characterizations merely incite unbalanced persons to violence, which is exactly what we are seeing now. Biden, Harris and their allies in the Dem Party, the media, and elsewhere need to tone it down. It is irresponsible, and furthermore it is not true. Have they forgotten what Hitler did? Maybe so, which is a whole other problem.
CONCLUSION
Trump’s haters and opponents have been trying everything to defeat him for nine years for example, falsely accusing him of treason, insurrection and being a threat to democracy, impeachment, rigged Stalin-style “show trials,” imprisonment, disqualifying him from the ballot in certain states, and now assassination. He has prevailed every time, so far. As I said above, there have been two assassination near-misses in just nine weeks. It is clear that the policies and procedures of his SS protection detail are insufficient and need to be addressed. Is anyone doing that? I hope so, but I don’t know.
The impressionable crazies out there will keep trying. We have been lucky so far. The law of averages dictates that we can’t be lucky every time. The assassin only has to be lucky once. I fear that sooner later one of them will succeed in assassinating Trump, and no sane person wants that. Note, I said sane.
One could characterize some of Trump’s critics as deranged, but that is a subject for another blog at another time. By the way, has anyone thought through the constitutional crisis that would result if Trump were, in fact assassinated while still a candidate or if he were the president-elect?
Quiz answer: Abraham Lincoln – 1865; James Garfield – 1881; William McKinley – 1901; and JFK – 1963.
We Built It Blog by Larry Jacob 