Neutralizing a shooter that gets off eight shots, kills a spectator, injures two more and hits a Former President in the head isn’t a win. There were egregious failures in coverage and protocol within law enforcement and the Secret Service at the Trump Rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

It should have been impossible for the 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to gain access to a rooftop 400 feet from the podium and set up a sniper position in the most obvious vantage point imaginable.

Anyone with basic experience in close protection can credibly tell you this should not have been possible. Incompetence, intelligence failings, understaffing, lack of equity, and other excuses may be rolled out and will be rolled out, but the fact remains: this should not have been possible.

Thus, the immediate proliferation of conspiracy theories pulled in the A-listers of “Deep State” villainy. A Mel Gibson fan channel on the social media platform X is a fine demonstration of the level of discourse surrounding this event, boldly asserting:

This is the price you pay when you take down elite satanic pedophiles.

Just a few days ago, death threats against Donald Trump were posted on X without any consequences.

This order most likely came from the CIA, possibly colluding with the following people:

1. Alexander Soros… pic.twitter.com/GzVjYhtVCt

— Mel Gibson News (@MelGibsonNew) July 14, 2024

All willful and glaring misinformation aside – the shooter posted no death threats and had only a nominal social media presence – the details and motivations of the attempted assassination are a temporary distraction and will not change the irrevocably altered political landscape for the upcoming election.

According to an Axios report, an unnamed senior House Democrat stated, “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.” The Democratic National Committee is in shambles, and even the most ardent and optimistic Biden supporters must see the writing on the wall. Even if the President was replaced by a potential dark horse candidate at the eleventh hour, who could compete with one of the most iconic political photographs of the past decade?

Ultimately, the Democratic party lacks vitality, and the desperation behind the adage, “vote blue no matter who,” is transforming into political fatalism.

The efforts by the DNC and associated media outlets to discredit the former president have only served to endear him to his base and reduce a mounting social, economic and political maelstrom into the figure of Trump.

The vast corporate forces that dominate our political system have reduced the middle class, instigated a state of perpetual war and interventionism, and created a solidifying police and security state that will not be significantly affected by who sits in the Oval Office.

It is true that under a renewed Trump Presidency, we will experience an unprecedented level of systemic change in terms of personal and environmental protections, the slashing of social programs, more tax cuts for the rich and an effort to institutionalize “Trumpism,” but all of this would have happened under a democratic president, albeit slower.

Former President Trump will not drain the swamp, for he is the swamp. So is President Biden. Join us tonight on State of Play to discuss the assassination attempt, the corporate state and the changing political situation in America.

Greg Stoker is a former US Army Ranger with a background in human intelligence collection and analysis. After serving four combat deployments in Afghanistan, he studied anthropology and International Relations at Columbia University. He is currently a military and geopolitical analyst, and a social media “influencer,” though he hates the term.

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