The assassination attempt on Trump should change the landscape, but whether it does or not remains to be seen. I’ve posted thoughts/comments on social media, but feel like I want them gathered here also, even though I haven’t been using this site all that often lately. I hope I can find time to use it more in the next several months. I’m sure I’ll have things to say as the election nears.

First of all, I am very unsettled by the assassination attempt on Trump. I’m sickened that it happened and I’m troubled that the site wasn’t secure. I’m glad that Biden called for an independent investigation and it seems like something needs to change moving forward.

When I first heard about it, and saw video, my first reaction was that it was all fake and just part of the show. I hate that cynicism, and I think it’s fair to blame Trump’s approach to the presidency (and campaign) for that. I do not, however, think he’s awful enough to murder people, and I’m now convinced that it was not staged. That was a fleeting thought, but that the thought happened at all saddens me a bit.

I’m upset that we have such easy access to guns in this country and that we see violence as the answer to so many things, big and small.

A person on twitter (who I don’t know much else about) articulated what I find especially unsettling when I watch the video of the shooting. It should (in my view) have been a moment of horror, shock, sadness, but that’s not what it was. It was a rallying moment with loud cheering. The fact that the cheering, chanting, and grandstanding was happening over someone’s dead body in the crowd makes it even more upsetting to me.

I worry about what comes next and much of that worry stems from the tone of that crowd (which I suspect aligns with many of Trump’s supporters).

I welcome the calls to calm from both sides of the aisle.