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When people use the phrase “a game of inches,” they are typically referring to sports like football or baseball. But never has that term been more true than the events of Sunday night in Butler, Pennsylvania. A couple of inches to one side and Donald Trump would be dead or in critical condition in a local hospital. Dare I say what I, and others, are likely to have been thinking: While I’ve never wished Trump well, neither did I wish that sort of sad fate upon him. I don’t like the man, but I am not an advocate of political violence, nor do I condone violence of any kind.
I have wished for a while now that somehow Donald J Trump would just go away, but I never hoped for it to be via a bullet to the head. I don’t think my reactions to a Trump assassination would have been or should have been the same as the munchkin-residents of Oz who broke into song when a house came from out of Kansas and fell on a certain green witch.
But now let’s think about something related that I have seen few consider: What if the bullet had strayed a couple of inches to the other side? Instead of grazing Trump’s ear, it would landed harmlessly, we hope, or at least harmed a person of lesser note. Once again, my sincere hope is that the young crazed shooter had never hatched his plot. But think of how things would be different today if that bullet had not touched Teflon Don at all. Instead of a general concern for assassination attempts and a general discussion of political violence, Trump is now a hero. Today he is a “bloodied victim,” he is a “martyr,” he is “defiant” and “resilient.” Why? Because that bullet neither hit nor missed. The bullet, for heaven’s sake, grazed his earlobe. That bullet, ever so close but ever so far, turned likely winner Trump into such a heavy favorite that the most of the Vegas money is likely to be on margin of victory rather than on victory vs defeat.
Oh, yes, let’s consider one other major consequence of the events in Pennsylvania that is not getting much attention. The news outlets love to label and feature “breaking news.” It doesn’t matter if the breaking news is actually a bit old and stale; it stays at headline level until something new and sexy comes along to replace it. Then it plummets and goes virtually underground. Yesterday’s breaking news: Should Biden resign? Should he be replaced with another Democrat? Seen much discussion of that the last couple of days? The attempt on Trump has pretty much put that debate to rest, hasn’t it? Joe Biden is out there acting very presidential, and Democrats who would replace Joe don’t have much of an audience to speak to. We are on to the next thing, a pretty big thing at that, and the decibel level of the Joe-must-be-replaced debate would not at all disturb those in the local library.
Life goes on, for us as citizens and for Trump with a little less of an earlobe.
Donald tells us he will go easy on the provocative rhetoric, that he will become a healer and a man who brings us together. My guess is that this is good news for Liz Cheney, who was worried about the military tribunal she was going to face.This is good news for all those killers and rapists who have been streaming across our southern border. It will be all love and positivity, and no more name-calling, well, at least for a while.
Two inches left. Two inches right. Amazing.
