The Unfolding Crisis: Analyzing the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump

In this urgent and insightful episode of "Thinking 2 Think," we delve into the shocking assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. We explore how the intense demonizing rhetoric and legal battles have fueled a dangerous emotional and mental state among the population. We'll analyze the role of political figures in creating an environment ripe for such violence and discuss the potential dangers if this political escalation continues unchecked. 

Join us as we uncover the complexities behind this incident and the broader implications for American society.

Transcript

M.A.Aponte: I want to start this episode with a quote. It's a very famous quote from Henry, the second of England, preceding the death of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170. And it's not exactly how the quote is said, because historians can't really figure it out, but it says something along the lines of Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest. And some people call it a troublesome priest or meddlesome priest. The reason why I'm bringing that up is because on July 13, 2024, there was an assassination attempt on the former President Trump during a rally for the 2024 election. And I'm going to try my very best not bringing up the name Trump. And the reason why that's so important is because regardless of your position, whether you support him or you don't support him, it's irrelevant because it is a political figure on a political side. And there was assassination attempt. He is the leader of that of that group. And there was an assassination attempt. That's a huge deal in a democratic society. And when I say the word democratic society, please understand, because this is one thing that infuriates me as a as a government civics educator. And that is when people you know, the argument that you see on the online and on the news about all this democracy, oh, they really don't mean the democracy. Democracy is a very umbrella term. There's indirect democracy and direct democracy. So I'm not playing semantics here. I am very well aware the United States is a republic and in direct democracy. However, if people want to say democracy, democracy, that's fine. This is not the episode for that. We're talking about the situation that occurred on July 13th and the. The fury that I have built up inside when this happened is the fact that how it was covered, how we led up, how it was led up to this. Because if we don't understand the how and the why. The. What will continue? What will happen? What is going on? What is continually happening? Because the pendulum swings. When it comes to politics and we do not want to live in a society where we become a banana republic of, well, one side is going to try to assassinate, whether physically or metaphorically the other side. I condone violence. And the reason for this entire podcast, the existence is to create a critical thinking society. To create an idea where people can disagree. And argue but still maintain a common goal of a. Critical thinking society that we want better, not just for ourselves, for for others. And it's a shame that it's come to this. So when this happened. The headlines was the first thing I noticed almost immediately there that. And I know why they did it. And we're going to get to that. But the headlines originally wrote things along the lines of of Trump Stops Rally due to loud noise or loud noises But when you watch the video. You can clearly see and this is any veteran that has been in war or a law enforcement officer, you know about adrenaline. You know about when there's an you know, when there's an active shooter, people act a certain way. You don't you know, you think, you know, that's one way is going to how you're going to react until it happens. So when you see him turn his head. And then seconds later. He holds on to it. You hear the loud noise, it stops and he's holding onto his ear. And then excuse me. And then Secret Service comes in saying, get down, get down. And he gets down. Do you know when there's a loud noise? I mean, it's not like he you know, it's an autism reaction was covering both he clearly was hit. You can see it in the video because something happened whether at the time people knew it was a bullet or was a ricochet, all these things. But and we come to find out later on, it was a direct hit to his ear. So which is centimeters away from his brain. So regardless of how you you know, and I'm going to I'm trying my best not to use his name just to avoid the anchor bias that people have of the name. That's the only reason why a political figure was hit by a by a firearm in the ear, centimeters away from his head. That is that that alone should send shockwaves to everyone, regardless of whether you support the politician. And the reason why is because if it was your politician that you support. Then you would be in fury. Regardless of who you think, even if it's a political figure from the past that you still admire. Think about that for a moment, if that would have happened. You would have been furious. So I'm going to try to avoid using the name and just try to put it as a political figure. So let's focus on how did we get here? Since. 2015. I want to say there was a lot of demonizing this political figure. And I remember as a former New Yorker, I don't really call myself former, but it's neither here or there. But. They were he was used to be loved like he was in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode. You know, he has letters that were published of all these people that used to demonize him, and he was demonized, you know, called Hitler. They have an image, literally an image of putting him with a Nazi background with the color of the grayish brownish colors that the photos back in the day used to have with the with the mustache that resembled Adolf Hitler. So let's focus on that. They were consistent with the the the the news anchors repeating all these things from and was first that he was a Russian asset which led to led to a whole investigation, an impeachment investigation which came out to be false. That's factual. Look it up if you don't believe me. And again, I'm not trying to choose a side. We're focusing on how we how it's how and why it's led to this. That's the main thing. It's it got demonized. He was ridiculed consistently since I would I want to say since 2016, when you you know, bite, you know, when he started the presidency and. They led to all this hatred. You know what they call the again, I'm trying to avoid saying his name, but I'm going to say the Never Trumpers and, you know, the the Trump derangement syndrome and all this other stuff they like. It was a genuine hate. A fury and hate that if you mention the name in front of people who have this particular hate, you would see their mo, their mood change right before your eyes. And these are the things that happens. That's it. When it's consistent, when it's in your face, it's a propaganda that changes the brain. Let's not forget that the IQ of Germany right before World War Two was one of the highest in the world. These were smart people. Very intelligent people. And they were able to build this hate together. Which led to the genocide of Jews. So you have this rhetoric that was consistent, and then you have politicians that went lawfare. On their political rival that even a politician by Bennie Thompson who proposed legislation to remove Secret Service protection. This was back in April. So keep this in mind. And now there's new reports coming out that he requested a security and was denied under the Department of Justice. And I'm sure that's going to come out whether that's true or not. This is why I don't try to do breaking news and things like that, because a critical thinker needs to analyze the entire situation. But the situation when it comes to this is that there is reports that. They they tried to limit his security detail. He requested more and was denied. So we have the rhetoric and we have a Department of Justice that is not willing to go beyond and protect their political rival. It may sound like small, but you have to think this propagandizing of a particular political person and you use rhetoric that is emotionally driven by anecdotal or selective evidence and logic. You are preparing a a relatively large group of society. To believe a certain thing which may not be true. Because if you look at the presidency of from 2016 to 2020, it wasn't as if they did that. He did the things that they accused him of doing. Meanwhile. What he was accused of was done to him. And I'm not going to get into the details. We can talk about that in another episode. And if you really want to dove into that, just leave a comment below. And if there was enough people, I can go full on discussing that. And that will probably be like an over an hour episode going into the details. But in any case, so when you have those those things and you are telling the world that this person is Hitler, this person is evil. This person wants to destroy society. Oh, and by the way. We're going to limit his security and try to remove it. This goes back. It's a full circle now. It goes back to that quote that I mentioned from Henry, the second of England. Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? And now. There's the report that they identified the shooter as a 20 year old. Now, especially males in their twenties and teenagers. You have a call to adventure. And feel like the act. That's why, you know. There's young men. Usually it's young men that, go into military or go on a backpacking and begin traveling or doing dangerous jobs or hobbies around that age is because of that call to adventure. This is. This was a call to adventure. I need to read this priest. And when you look at the the footages that keep coming in in the interviews, there was an interview from BBC. I think it was like an hour after the incident where someone was pointing out that they saw the individual on the roof, the shooter on the roof of a building, and he was calling law enforcement trying to bring law enforcement and to the Secret Service attention to that individual. And nothing happened until he opened fire. you know, Secret Service did an amazing job protecting. I'm trying to I'm trying to avoid the names. I'm just going to say political figure. But it's still a failure of security. And the and that's how law enforcement looks at it. As someone in former law enforcement, that's what we do. How could we avoid this from happening again? And this was a failure. In law enforcement it because it should not have happened to begin with. And if they were aware of this individual that was on the roof and did nothing. That's a problem. That's how there's somebody not wanting to do their job. And this is why conspiracy theorists think the way they do. Because it can't be incompetence. But as someone again in former law enforcement, you'll be surprised. It can't be. So where is this going to lead? The last attempted assassination was in 1981. Ronald Reagan. And. This is not good, especially when. And now there's new headlines coming out. One from Politico. Oh, one side is blaming the other. But that side is not long. Because we I go back that's why I originally started with that quote from Henry the second. You demonize someone to oblivion. And you try to use lawfare. To show. To show support of your rhetoric and then. When the person looks like they're going to get away with it. What you accused them of. Then surprise, surprise. Some lunatic decides to act. This is what? If this is this is a problem, it needs to stop. Otherwise escalation will occur. Because that's how history has done. Most believe all civil wars have come down to individuals and society stating they never thought it would happen or didn't see it coming. Except historians clearly know because it's not like they have a crystal ball in front of them. It's the cause and effect throughout history. We were and I believe was the victim of a swami that some something along the lines of we were centimeters away. From. I think he says something along the chaos or something. I don't have the quote in front of me, but he's not wrong. We were centimeters away from some serious societal problems. Centimeters. And. People that think that, you know, that are praising this shooter or wish that they did. He didn't miss those centimeters. They. They need to seek help. Because this is psychopath mentality, assuming that this is the answer. It's not. It will lead to conflict and it will go to your back door in some fashion. It happens through society, the normalcy bias and the anchor bias between what can never happen, which you assume can never happen. And the anchor bias. That's why I tried to avoid using the name, because it is not about that individual. It's about a political figure that you may or may not support. Because the pendulum can swing and you do not want that. So with that being said, like share I subscribe I if there's any huge updates, I will share them accordingly. I have a recording that I need to upload with it as my first interview with a former. He was a refugee from Uganda during the nineties and how he has tried to cope with the trauma as well as seeing what he can do for his country. And the conflict resonates a lot with what we're seeing going on today, both in the Middle East and in Ukraine. So with a religious aspect to it, which I'm not going to spoil anything at all, but if you have any idea of what happened in countries in Africa, especially in the nineties, then, you know, if you don't know well you'll be educated on that episode. I will update that and hopefully have it uploaded later this week. So subscribe to to get that I just haven't had the opportunity because I've been focused on work. As some of you know, I'm an educator, administrator and I am preparing for the new school year for my students. So this is this is a busy time for me for the year. So it's kind of hard. But subscribe, stay tuned. And I promise, it will be these episodes of doom and gloom is very rare for me. I only have a handful of them. Despite the the negativity we see all around our world. But this is supposed to be educational. This is supposed to be a podcast for critical thinking, where in our group you can disagree. And that's okay. You know, we challenge each other's thoughts and ideas and we try to remain cordial. So be respectful to each other in the comments. I know some you know, some of my videos, the comments got a little crazy, you know, arguments back and forth. I try to keep it civil as much as possible. And if you can do that, that's great. And I will see you guys in the next one.