Never Acceptable

Two things must be made absolutely clear:

1. It's a good thing Trump wasn't killed. Not because it would have been a "national tragedy," but because it would have made him a martyr to one of the most despicable causes in American history.

He must be alive to face both the voters on November 5, and justice thereafter. No one is above the law, and those 6 Justices on the Extreme Court know it. He will be held accountable for at least some of what he has done.

2. Rationally, there's a 99 percent chance that this was real. People looking for "clues" to show that the assassination attempt was staged -- and there are many, some making little sense, some making some sense -- to make him look like a tough guy, a badass, superhuman, whatever, as opposed to "elderly," "unfit" Joe Biden, end up looking like Beatles fans in 1969, scouring album pictures and song lyrics for clues to back up the rumor that Paul McCartney had died.

But if we're being completely rational, then we can't completely dismiss the possibility that this was staged. After all, this is Donald Trump we're talking about. A man who believes that image, appearances, "optics," especially displays of strength, are everything. Staging an unsuccessful assassination attempt, and not caring that others might actually be hurt or get killed, is almost certainly not be what he did do. But only his most blinkered fans cannot accept that it is exactly the sort of thing that he would do.

Regardless, Donald Trump is still unfit for the Presidency, and you can pick any one of a dozen reasons why. If you want America to remain free, and to be better than it is now, President Joe Biden is the only choice.

And can we really be shocked? This guy has encouraged violence, from his announcement of candidacy to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and still does it. He is a genuine Fascist. It has been said that "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." It has been said, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap." Trump has created a climate where political violence has become "okay." When it should never be okay, or even "okay." (I want to make that absolutely clear.)

And now, with minimal injury, he has been shot:

* Not by anybody with (as far as is publicly known, as of this writing) liberal connections, but by a 20-year-old male registered as a member of the Republican Party, the Party he leads.

* Not by an immigrant, regardless of religion, but by someone born and raised in America. Tall, blond, blue-eyed.

* And by an AR-15, a weapon of war that reasonable people consider to be absolutely unacceptable outside of an actual war, a gun that Trump has promised to do nothing about.

Justified? Of course not. President Biden is right: Political violence is never acceptable. And I want Trump alive, to face the voters, and to face the juries. I want him defeated, disgraced, and imprisoned. Once he is in prison, it will no longer matter to me how long he lives, but I want him alive at least that long.

Not because I'm a Democrat. Not even because I'm an American.

But because I'm a human being.

Political violence is never acceptable. Likewise, Donald Trump is never acceptable.

And let's not kid ourselves: Trump did not "take a bullet for America." Trump took a bullet for the only thing he has ever given a damn about: Himself.

It has also become clear to me that this period, the Age of Trump, which began in 2015 with the announcement of his candidacy, and will hopefully end in 2025 with his imprisonment, will not easily lend itself to nostalgia. Because even the people who supported Trump will, by the time the nostalgia wave would kick in, probably in the late 2030s, have to ask themselves, "What did we really get out of 'the good old days'? How good could they really have been?"

Hopefully, people will come to realize they had been fooled, and accept that he was bad for the country.

But who's kidding who? There are people alive today who voted for Richard Nixon, and wouldn't go back and change their vote if they could.

And Nixon wasn't nearly the danger to American freedom that Trump is, has been, and yet could be.

And that danger is both very real and still being staged.

Some people still don't get that. Well, to paraphrase the tagline from the Republican Convention of 60 years ago, as a new one gets underway:

I would remind you, my fellow Americans, that extremism in the defense of liberty is no defense of liberty. And I would remind you also that supporting Donald Trump, in the pursuit of anything, is no virtue.