Donald Trump endured an attempted assassination on Saturday, July 13 at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
He appeared to have been clipped on the ear by a bullet and stood up with his face covered in blood, pumping his fist as his crowd of followers. Naturally, the internet has several takes, jokes, and hours and hours, of commentary on this entire situation on TikTok, X, and Instagram.
There has been everything from jokes about who actually conducted the shooting to the former president’s reaction and even satire about the weight of missing this particular shot. A shocking amount of people are taking to the internet to say that they wished the bullet had been a couple of inches in the other direction, many of them stating that they don’t feel sad or remorseful at the attempt on the former president’s life.
British political and human rights creator Femi posted his opinion on why it’s okay for the general public not to feel bad or even surprised that someone tried to inflict violence on not just a former president, but Trump in particular.
Femi first explains that he is opposed to violence in politics altogether. He was even against it when someone threw a milkshake at British politician Nigel Farage because the action could inspire escalation into more serious acts of violence. He says that regardless of his feelings on a politician he opposes violence against them because that violence can, and has been known to escalate.
But in the case of Donald Trump, his thoughts and opinions are more nuanced, namely because Trump himself has not historically been against violence. He called for violence in 2021 when he sighted the capitol riots on January 6. Before that, in 2020, when protestors looted in response to the death of George Floyd amidst the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump tweeted “When the looting starts the shooting starts,” essentially giving police the go-ahead to go out and shoot people.
Femi analogized a Mafia boss being shot. He said in that instance people would be against the violence but they still wouldn’t take the said of the Mafia boss because they would have made a career out of insighting violence and endangering everyone around them, themselves included.
Therefore, this assassination attempt should do nothing to soften general dislike for Trump, because, as Femi said, he himself has made the world, or at least the United States a more violent place. It just inevitably turned back on him this time.
Commenters praised Femi for articulating what they couldn’t, although a few are of the mindset that the shooting was staged altogether. One commenter noted that when something bad like this happens to a person they find objectively bad, they have a hard time finding sympathy.
For many people, Femi articulated perfectly the middle ground between wishing violence on someone and not being surprised or upset when that violence inevitably occurs.