The War Of The Assassination Narratives

Isn't it odd how the composition of the photo above very faintly echoes Michelangelo's Pieta, just as the more famous one of Trump pumping his fist beneath the flag echoes the photo of the flag raising at Iwo Jima? Says something important, I think -- and neither of those photos was remotely posed, they were lucky catches by the photographers. This is part of the underlying authenticity of the whole event.

As I noted yesterday, it seems as though the most momentous events of the campaign so far don't seem to move the polls. There are several possible explanations. One is that the impact of certain events isn't easily quantifiable, or at least not over a short time. Another is the Rush Limbaugh theory, that the polls are carefully curated and massaged to shape the news, not to report it. Another is that some of the most momentous events don't even reach the news, and as one example, here is a report from Seymour Hersh via The Gateway Pundit:

As The Gateway Pundit’s Kristinn Taylor reported, Biden suffered an “undisclosed medical emergency” while in Las Vegas on July 17 that was never disclosed to the public.

Now, according to a report from a respected longtime investigative journalist, an equally explosive incident followed just a few days later.

On Saturday, Seymour Hersh wrote on his substack that sources told him that Barack Obama had called Biden three days after the disturbing incident. Obama reportedly told Biden on July 20 that he had Kamala Harris’s approval to use the 25th Amendment to kick him out of office.

Now, I'm not going to try to vouch for either The Gateway Pundit or Seymour Hersh; Gateway is often wrong, and Hersh has always been overrated. But the story exists because of all the unexplained gaps in the post-June 27 timeline. The calls for Joe to "pass the torch" intensified after the debate, but he stubbornly resisted for two weeks until the strange few days between the July 13 assassination attempt and whatever it was that sent him suddenly back to Rehoboth the following Wednesday.

Was it an "undisclosed medical emergency"? It's hard to believe it was just COVID. It's also hard to ignore the juxtaposition of whatever it was so soon after the Butler assassination attempt. Joe had clearly been under a great deal of stress at least from his trips to Europe in early June; the mere fact of the assassination attempt and the almost immediate surge of enthusiasm for Trump, whether reflected in the polls or not, may well have triggered some type of health event for Joe.

Whatever happened, it's hard not to take the assassination attempt as the efficient cause that led to whatever it was, medically or in the schemes of Pelosi and Obama, that broke Joe's stubborn insistence on becoming the 2024 nominee. It's also hard to explain otherwise the strange war that broke out last week over the assassination narrative: was Trump hit by a bullet, or maybe just a piece of flying glass from a shattered teleprompter? The clear subtext was the need to minimize what happened in Butler, because clearly it was very, very important -- the subliminal effect of the photos in the immediate wake of the event is too powerful.

The first major battle in the war, following the initial skirmishes of media speculation that it wasn't a bullet, or it wasn't a wound at all, the bandage was fake, was the testimony of Secret Service Director Cheatle in front of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday. Cheatle effectively refused to answer any questions, deferring to some sort of final report that would be completed 60 days hence.

There have been bipartisan calls in Congress for Cheatle’s resignation and a push by Republican lawmakers to impeach her. Lawmakers were particularly incensed after her appearance in front of the House Oversight Committee on Monday, where she was unwilling to answer many of the committee’s questions.

During her House Oversight appearance, Cheatle acknowledged that there were “significant” and “colossal” problems with the security at the rally, but still rebuffed demands for her resignation.

“I think I am the best person to lead the Secret Service at this time,” Cheatle said Monday.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that the resignation is “overdue.”

The following day, despite her insistence that she wouldn't resign, and despite words of support from both Joe and Secretary Mayorkas, resign she did. Like the question of who phoned Joe and told him it was over, we know nothing of who phoned the Director and said what, and we may never learn anything more, except that someone must have decided that Kim Cheatle was not a hill to die on.

Something similar happened to FBI Director Wray later in the week:

Friday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), also a former White House physician, blasted FBI Director Christopher Wray, who appeared on Capitol Hill a day earlier and called into question whether a bullet actually hit former President Donald Trump during an assassination attempt earlier this month.

Jackson called Wray’s effort “politically motivated” and suggested that Wray and other elements of the so-called D.C. establishment felt threatened by what was happening in American politics at the time.

. . . "I think that the establishment in general, in D.C., the D.C. establishment, and I will include the FBI director in that category, I think that they are completely threatened by what’s going on right now. You know, President Trump is an American icon and he is so to a lot of people that didn’t consider him that before this happened.”

On this, I think Dr Jackson is completely correct, and somehow, the FBI as an organization mysteriousy but officially backtracked on its Director's assertion the following day:

FBI statement:

“What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle.”

— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) July 26, 2024

It's plain that the organs of state security felt threatened by the subliminal effect of the Trump assassination attempt and did whatever they could, with the assistance of legacy media, to deflect the narrative. And they lost that particular war. But the whole war was fought over an issue that, as the link in yesterday's post indicated, caused barely a blip in the polls. But Trump himself is fully aware of how the narrative shapes his message:

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Saturday said he will continue to hold outdoor rallies just two weeks after a bullet grazed his ear during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, the former president said:

"I WILL CONTINUE TO DO OUTDOOR RALLIES, AND SECRET SERVICE HAS AGREED TO SUBSTANTIALLY STEP UP THEIR OPERATION. THEY ARE VERY CAPABLE OF DOING SO. NO ONE CAN EVER BE ALLOWED TO STOP OR IMPEDE FREE SPEECH OR GATHERING!!!"

Beyond that,

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump said on Friday that he is coming back to Butler County for a rally to honor Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed during his July 13 rally in Butler Township on the Butler Farm Show grounds, and the two men who were injured. Trump did not say the date or location of the rally, only stating, "Stay tuned for details."

A gutsy guy. He underatands the enormous power of the authentic non-verbal image. The polls are missing this. Of course, that's what the polls are set up to do. Hey, they're scientific!