Something Happened

On the Trump shooting...

[I wrote this the day after Trump was shot in Butler PA. I’m going to file it here mainly for my own reference.]

What did I see?

What was this?

What should we call this?

I’m puzzling over this because I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’m struggling to find a precedent either in history or in myth.

"Miracle" isn't quite appropriate. There’s a plausible explanation. He turned his head at the exact right time and the bullet grazed his ear.

But it was more than mere luck. It's too implausible to be serendipitous.

Trump dodged a literal bullet, and America dodged a proverbial bullet. I don't want to contemplate the violence and chaos would have inevitably erupted….

Thankfully (as the Wise Man said) providence protects idiots, children, drunks, and the United States of America…

———

I didn’t take Trump seriously. During the 2016 election I (quite frankly) thought he was a buffoon. Boxy suit, tacky gold, mail order bride. He was a C-list celebrity playing at politics.

And maybe he was. Maybe he was doing it for the publicity. But he took Clinton apart, and I liked that.

Then he won. Then came the lies.

I mean… the magnitude of those lies! The Russia stuff. The secret server in Trump Tower communicating with the FSB. The pee tape. The "fine people". The Comey firing.

Of course in the end we learned that he was completely justified in firing Comey. He and the FBI lied to get FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Nixon could only dream of pulling something like that.

And then they impeached him for shaking down the Ukraine for a kickback, when in reality the Biden family had been taking Ukrainian kickbacks all along.

And what was the personal toll? The pee tape story must have had some effect on his marriage.

I knew someone who knew Ivanka. She knew her socially. Big money NY people, Hamptons crowd, those people. After the election Ivanka became an outcast. No more dinner invites. Old friends didn't return calls. Ostracism.

And then came the Floyd riots, the sham election, January 6th. We know about this. We were all there.

But they wouldn’t leave him alone. They could have let him walk away. They didn’t. They couldn’t. They needed an enemy.

They raided his house. The agents were authorized to use deadly force. They went thru his wife’s underwear drawer.

They not only prosecuted him, but anyone around him. How many Trump political prisoners are there? And how many more have been disbarred or bankrupted from legal fees?

Why does Trump keep fighting? Undoubtably The Offer has been made. That all the legal problems will disappear if he just walks away and never runs again. And undoubtably there are people close to him who’ve urged him to take that deal.

I know The Offer has been made because The Offer always gets made. (Although it’s possible The Regime is so hubristic they didn’t make The Offer...)

A pragmatic man would take the deal.

But he won’t.

And he keeps fighting.

———

One of the themes in the Hebrew Bible is personal transformation through ordeal. The Abraham story is a good example. He was a loser. He was a grown ass man living in his mom’s house.

God calls on him to go into the strange land. Abraham complies and… a series of terrible events follow.

Among other things he’s cucked by the Pharaoh of Egypt, and his cousin Lot is kidnapped and Abraham has to raise an army to get him back.

But each ordeal transforms him. And at no time does he quit. Not even when God demands he sacrifice his only son.

He never quit and he became a different man. A better man. He became The Father of Nations.

Or maybe you wrestle with God all night. You start the day as Jacob and end up as Israel.

Ordeal does this. It transforms us.

In Phillip K Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep there’s the character of Wilbur Mercer. He walks up a never ending hill. All the while he’s insulted and pelted with stones.

In the book there’s a new religion based on Mercer’s ordeal. You can get into an “Empathy Box” to feel his pain. This is how you worship.

Towards the end of the novel the protagonist finds himself walking up a hill being pelted by stones.

I don’t need an Empathy Box. I have this app.

There’s an ordeal in every Hero’s Journey story. But the hero always loses something in the ordeal. Go up against Darth Vader and you’re gunna lose a hand. The dragon is going to take your arm.

Or maybe the sniper takes a chunk of your ear?

After the ordeal comes apotheosis. Divinization. Our hero has been granted divine character. He’s a newly created God.

Or maybe The Hero becomes an avatar for an existing God? Maybe one of the Old Gods? I can’t help but believe that they’re still out there somewhere…

———

I saw it about an hour after it happened. I was organizing fishing gear in the garage. I’d left my phone in the house.

Heard my phone ding. Saw I had texts. Saw that Trump had been shot.

I logged into X and found the video. This is what I saw:

I saw Trump giving a speech. I’ve seen clips of his rallies, but have never watched an entire speech. It’s Angry Boomer Standup. He has some good one liners, but fuck it gets old…

So he’s giving a speech. Then the pops of gunfire. He reaches for his ear. And then he hits the ground.

The Secret Service rushes in. There’s panic in the crowd. You can hear screams.

And then they get him to his feet. But it wasn’t Donald Trump that stood up. He was something else.

He wrestled with God. He’d been transformed. He was something else.

The man who put his fist in the air and said "fight" wasn't the same man who hit the ground.

And it didn't take decades, or weeks, or a night. It happened in less than 90 seconds. We have the video.

I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t imagine any human alive today has seen anything like it. These things don't happen.

They simply don't happen.

Ancient peoples would have recognized this. Their myths prepared them for such things.

But these things don’t happen in the modern world. They just don't happen.

But I saw it.

I saw it happen.

And I can’t believe it.