How to Lose Deserved Sympathy in 0-to-60

After the attack at the White House Correspondence Dinner on Saturday, Trump made a speech which said, in part –
 
“I want to live because I want to make this country great... That's why I want to live. But when you’re impactful, they go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone.”
 
Jeffrey Epstein was "impactful." The 2016 Insurrectionists were impactful.  Bernie Madoff, George Santos, the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan were all “impactful”. Merely being "impactful" is not a standard for creating emotional support to rally around you.

Mother Teresa and Jane Goodall were impactful, too.  And Warren Buffett and Mackenzie Scott.  People didn't go after them.  Unless you expand the definition to include "with admiration."
 
Moreover, people who are not "impactful" get shot at every day. And killed.  30,000 of them a year, every year.  Being “not impactful” didn’t protect them. Though some become impactful from their death, like Renee Goode and Alex Pretti.
 
The attack on Trump was reprehensible.  I’m glad no shots were fired at him or at any of the members of his administration in attendance who were targets, and that they all were unscathed.  Indeed, all attacks on all public officials & figures are reprehensible. The murders of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk were sickening.  The attack on Paul Pelosi was, as well.  And they're usually done by individuals who are, in some way, disturbed.
 
It is not diminishing the attack on Saturday to recognize that every president in modern times has serious threats against them and attacks planned.  It puts the threat in its larger, more dangerous perspective.  Only a few such designs, thankfully, ever get to the point where shots are fired.  The overwhelming majority of them are discovered early and stopped, long before the public has any idea that they even existed.  It’s why all former presidents have lifetime Secret Service protection.  To think that the Secret Service wasn’t on high alert against ongoing threats when Barack Obama was president would be foolhardy and intentionally blind to reality.

Foolhardy, too, are all the (like always) immediate, kneejerk claims on who a shooter is and the motivation.  But, of course, there they were on Saturday, instant moments after the event, piling out of the woodwork at “libtards”.
 
This was one person acting crazy. The moment the news broke, it could have been someone registered as a Democrat, and from later reports he appears to have been. (Though unlike the immediate and incorrect claims, it also turned out that it wasn't just Trump who was "the" target, but most of the officials in his cabinet.) But before anyone knew anything, it just as easily could have been a MAGA convinced by the current crazy conspiracy theory in MAGAworld that Trump is the antichrist. Or a MAGA furious at Trump for deceiving him by starting a war. Or someone, whatever his side, who’s been financially ruined having lost his healthcare and savings and job. Or a deeply-devout, ultra-religious adherent outraged at Trump sacrilegiously suggesting he's Jesus. Or even a suicide agent from Iran who we're at war with seeking revenge.  Or...or…or the list is long.  None even remotely justify the shooting.  But none would be surprising if it turned out that such a person was the would-be shooter.  Or might be the next time, since threats against a president don't stop.

Nor do threats stop against most members of Congress (if not all of them) -- of both parties -- who receive regular threats.  Some of whom have been shot. 

Name-calling can certainly ratchet up the temperature.  But it occurs on all sides.  Some hyperbolic, some descriptive.  But that's something many on the far-right seem to conveniently ignore hearing, from the calls of "enemies of the people" and "vermin" and "evil" and "poisoning the blood" and "from the devil" and "commies" and on and on and on.  "Punch them in the face," "hang them," "Why can't we just shoot the protestors?", AI videos dumping sh*t* on protestors, "I will be your retribution."  Name-calling does come from both sides, although not all necessarily equally.  Especially when so much of it comes from the leader of a party, with the biggest platform and loudest megaphone in the country, and enablers around him unite to amplify it.  Or when it's one side alone that has not only called for "Second Amendment solutions," but without pushback from that side.  Sometimes it even comes after just quoting the Uniform Code of Military Justice against following illegal orders, and being called "traitors," the penalty for which is death. Yes, absolutely, name-calling does come from both sides. And yes, liberals can go too far.  So, too, can conservatives.  But that doesn't even remotely mean all is equal. Criticizing a president or policies, even bluntly, is not an action to promote violence -- dehumanizing people you don't like and threatening physical harm does.

Importantly, though, it isn't just repetitive, hyperbolic name-calling that can push a person beyond fury to violent attack.  Sometimes, it only takes reading streams of unending, disturbing stories in the news and being too unstable to handle it.  But sometimes, perhaps usually, the only thing it takes for moving beyond anger to violence is an individual feeling pounded by whatever in their life is tormenting them.
 
But perhaps most foolhardy was Trump and his MAGOP enablers and MAGA base immediately jumping in to market the attack like it was laundry detergent.
 
As a friend of mine wrote in an email – “At first, I was concerned Trump would go on a sympathy tour and get a sympathy bump.  No such worries.  Instead he's using it as a sympathy stump, to tout the ballroom.  And, once again, definitely establishing his cognitive implosion.”  
 
Yes, that was my thought, too – and then I saw Trump’s very long social media post and his circle of MAGOPs hard-sell pitching online for his ballroom immediately after the emergency as if it was an “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” ad for ADT Medical Alert, which brought about a massive pushback response. 

“This event would never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House," Trump began his rant. "It cannot be built fast enough! While beautiful, it has every highest level security feature there is plus, there are no rooms sitting on top for unsecured people to pour in, and is inside the gates of the most secure building in the World, The White House."
 
Not surprisingly, this infomercial brought about a massive pushback response, at a time when – if Trump had posted with consideration – he would have evoked understanding and appreciative support.  Among the high-end comments were responses like:
 
"Trump wasted no time in turning the shooting into an advertisement for his ballroom," former Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob wrote.

"Wow! Trump sure made lemons ("assassination attempt") into lemonade (justification for his pet construction project)," Daniel McAdams, executive director of the Rand Paul Institute, posted.

"Children are starving, and people are going bankrupt from routine surgeries," author John Pavlovitz posted. "What the hell is wrong with you ghouls?"
 
But far worse for Trump is how many people even suggested in reply after reply that all this hawking for “the ballroom” looked so instantly coordinated that it seemed evidence for conspiratorialists that the attack was staged!  Which, as happens with conspiracy theorists, was expanded by comments about the surprisingly lax security.

So much for evoking national sympathy.
 
Beyond the immediacy of Trump’s pandering for his ballroom, the mere push itself was ludicrous because it was so easy to refute.  1) Trump has long been pushing for the ballroom as a protection against a drone attack – and, if you didn’t notice, this wasn’t a drone attack.  2) If Trump and his enablers did want to make the case that a ballroom would have kept this solo gun intrusion from happening – we actually had a ballroom, before Trump tore it down.  3) This was a private function, not an official government event.  The White House does not host state events.  Also, 4) if Trump was at all concerned with security at such a large public gathering…they didn’t need a monolithic ballroom, he just didn’t have to show up.  After all, he never had before, when they had a comedian hosting who might make jokes about him.  Or he could have appeared by Zoom.
 
In fact, putting Saturday aside, Trump’s whole argument about needing a monstrous ballroom with intensive security features built in to protect the president and all partygoers whenever in attendance -- why not tear instead down the entire White House and build a big beautiful new one -- perhaps underground?! After all, the White House is where the president, his staff, members of Congress, foreign leaders and others congregate 24/7, unlike the occasional gala in a ballroom.  (Not to give Trump any ideas, of course...)  But no, Trump wants a grand ballroom.
 
It’s all so idiotic.  And at a moment when Trump could have done something to assuage national angst over an attempted shooting of a president, whatever the party, and discuss empathically violence in our country and trying to unite people, no, instead Trump couldn’t help being Trump.  And so in his immediate, one-track mind, he could only focus on his huge ballroom he wants.  Because that’s how malignant narcissism and dementia work.  And all the enabling MAGOP lemmings followed him -- unable to look at polls with Trump’s 34% approval and see the edge of the cliff they’re walking off.