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Trump and His Bulletproof Wall
How did we reach this point? Why does a President, who is failed terribly by the people who are supposed to protect him, consigned to speak behind bulletproof glass? Is the glass a legitimate solution to the pathetic performance of the Secret Service?
I don’t have the desire or strength to list all the errors and oversights that resulted in the assassination attempt against Trump. There are far too many details to be confident that it was only carelessness and not taking the situation seriously for us to be reassured that only ineptitude was at fault.
But what disturbs me the most is Trump having to speak behind a bulletproof glass. It speaks so profoundly of our deeply disturbed country and the incompetence of our intelligence community. That with all the protections we have available in terms of equipment, strategies and procedures, we have to rely on a glass barrier to protect the former president.
You may say that this action is not a big deal. At least Donald Trump is safe. But the glass barrier also speaks to our lack of confidence in the Secret Service. Our willingness to put a wall (transparent though it is) between the former president and the people who have waited for hours to see and hear him speak.
I hate barriers of any kind. They speak to defenselessness and weakness. These barriers tell the world and our citizens that Trump must hide in plain sight in order to be relatively safe.
And it gives the Secret Service permission to continue with its sloppy and unprofessional behavior.
Published in Politics
Never let a crisis go to waste. If the establishment can take advantage of its convenient incompetence to compromise Trump’s charisma and connection with crowds, it will.
I couldn’t agree more, genferei. And now the Secret Service can sit back and move on…
An administration acting in good faith in service of the American Republic would have enough pride to not let this happen to a candidate of the opposition party. Wouldn’t even allow the appearance of lax security. We do not have such an administration.
I understand your misgivings, @susan. And I am as upset about the BS coverup and, at this point, highly suspicious actions of the FBI (so what’s new ?) in their investigation. But the bottom line…I’d rather have President Trump behind glass and alive then out front and gone.
I won’t argue with you @cdor. I want him alive, too. It just pains me to have to send these messages. I wonder how Trump feels about it, given that he almost died?
I am also vaguely troubled by this and how his events have now been indoor ones per the USSS directive (I typed the shorter abbreviation for the Secret Service and didn’t like that very much).
On the one hand, we live in a time when a determined assassin can kill their target, and stopping them is nigh impossible if they are competent and willing to die in the attempt.
On the other hand, the politician who thrives on being with their people is a farce to be reckoned with. Obama was like that, as was Clinton. I was once in a large room where John McCain (*spits*) was speaking when he was running in early 08 and I was drawn in by his charisma even in a room with easily a thousand people. That same feeling did not come through on the TV and I suspect it would have been lessened behind glass. Trump has wanted metal detectors to come down because he trusts his people, his voters. He should.
The gripping hand is that while securing the principal is the job of the USSS, they have not exactly covered themselves with glory in the past decade or so. I did a quick search for US Secret Service scandals and got this from 17:
There is a pattern there for someone willing to pay attention. It seems that the days of agents like John Barletta seem to be gone. What with the behavior of then VP Biden with his nude swimming in front of female agents, maybe that is a good thing.
Good grief, David. That is atrocious! I remember some of those incidents, but not all of them. And how did I miss VP Biden swimming nude? Thanks for doing that research–I think. ;-)
Hugo Chavez pioneered this strategy: Withdraw security and police protection from people who oppose or dare criticize the regime while deploying imported Cuban thugs to attack them. We are heading that way.
I’ve become such a cynic that I immediately start looking for an angle behind any action like this. Who made the decision to put up the glass? What message are they trying to send? In which direction are they trying to manipulate the election? It just seems like nothing is simply what it appears anymore.
Too much truth to this. There are so many factors that go into the lack of safety for a politician or a person of prominence or celebrity. And, of course, a complicit government will also “handle” lesser known but threatening individuals, e.g. Seth Rich? Vince Foster?
But I digress. People get built up, too much is invested, expectations are created that taking a single life will substantially alter future events, etc. The presidency has become more import than in earlier days when people could care more who was their representative in the state house and the US Congress than president. Mental illness –organic and induced — seems more prevalent, or at least consequential.
We know, or should know by now, that if someone is “marked for death no matter what comes” there is no way to stop it. That does not excuse two factors that seem to make this moment more perilous: demonization and complicity.
Susan, on August 9, a few weeks after the attempted assassination of a former President of the United States, I wrote a post entitled “July 13-Time to Ask It Out Loud? Was It Just Negligence or Something Far Darker?” , here, in which I examined in some depth what was known at that time about the almost unimaginable incident of July 13. It was not promoted to the Main Page. I enquired as to the reason and was told it was too filled with “aggravated despair” to which I readily pleaded nolo contendere as that was precisely the emotion I was experiencing in the aftermath of that nightmare. About a week later I wrote another post, “A Brief Glance Back at an Epochal Event in Ancient Times”, here, after Congressman Clay Higgins, a life long law enforcement officer who hails from our area of South Louisiana and whose credentials in the field of criminal investigations are considerable, had spent three days in Butler and submitted a brief report to the Task Force formed to investigate this collosal failure of the USSS. A sub-theme, as indicated by the title, was the fact that the corporate media was doing everything in its power to assure that the public would have access to as little as possible news about the incident. (This post was promoted) Lest it be thought I am writing this to “whine” about the promotion policies of this esteemed platform I should note I am far too old for any such profligate expenditure of my time but I did think, in view of your post, that others might benefit from the research I shared in those posts. There have been so many reports, analyses, posts, columns, long essays, etc., about this incident, and there should be more frankly, it is as you say hard to keep up with it all. I did spot, just this morning, however, a short item on American Thinker which briefly examines the many contradictions in the “official” narrative(s) and to illustrate the inanity of some of the “explanations” gives a humorous twist to what the Feds are trying to get us to believe. The article is “What we know about the Butler shooting, and what we don’t”, here, and I highly recommend it. Here is an excerpt:
If one was of a pesimistic nature one could easily believe that we will never know who was managing this entire scenario as it is impossible to believe that was all the result of simple negligence and the Feds are hoping we will finally accept and go away in exhaustion from trying to get at the real truth. It has served them well for a very long time, i.e., the Kennedy Assassination, so they have no real reason to doubt it will work again this time. Just one more reason they are going to go to every extreme possible to deny President Trump the office to which he was rightfully entitled in 2020.
By the way, there is a Hillsdale Conference in Atlanta October 24-25 and My Lady and I have signed up. We sure would love to see you and Jerry there; also how do I go about suggesting the possibility of a meet up in conjunction with this conference?
First, I saw your posts and liked them both. I’m sorry that they chose not to promote the one–
“aggravated despair”? I appreciate your passion in your posts, because I know they are sincere and heartfelt. So I’m glad you included your links for those who missed them the first time around.
Regarding Atlanta, probably not. We already have a small trip to Tarpon Springs for 3 days in October, and I’m looking forward to it. But I’ll ask Jerry. And you’ve seen Dave Carter’s invitation to Panama City, right? I’m considering that one. Maybe we could meet up there. Give my best to Judy.
Finally, I don’t see a link for the Ricochet Meet-up group. Your best bet is to write to Randt Weivoda and he’ll give you the ins and outs. Best to you both!
Please let’s not forget about the awesome Secret Service professional who left her post to breastfeed her baby.
Sometimes I feel like we are indeed living in a Monty Python sketch.
Did someone say guarding someone important?
I have no first-hand knowledge of McCain- went to a rally in a restaurant – waited. He stood us up – sent Graham and Cornyn in his place. yawn.
Post on ricochet asking of anyone is interested contact Bryan. He is there, as is Phil Turmel.
I have a different take. The media and Dems on trying to make this go away. The glass is a constant reminder of what happened, what he is up against. Keep the glass. Add flags.
Trump avoids outdoor venues because an unhinged Democrat might take a shot at him. Kamala avoids them because it is too hard to hide that the Dems need to bus in their attendees.
Note: “unhinged Democrat” is not
an oxymoronredundant. Not yet.Edited due to previous lack of caffeine.
Susan, the probabilities are such that in a country of 330+ million there will always be someone who sneaks through the system. Bulletproof glass and the protections of the 4th amendment (not to mention the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th) mean that the government is always behind the perpetrator (as they should be) otherwise the government has too much power.
Public hangings would deter a lot of things.
From this example, the production values of Secret Service training films has clearly improved.
I’m not clear on what you mean by “behind the perpetrator.”
The speaking behind a glass has been around for decades. You’re focusing on the wrong things.
I remember when they blocked 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Citizens used to be able to drive by the White House. When the Secret Service did it, it wasn’t even clear they had the authority to.
My last visit to D.C. was before J6. Everywhere I went on the mall, including The Smithsonian required your going through a metal detection scanner.
And when the president travels to a big city on Air Force One, there are considerable FAA restrictions that disrupt commercial air traffic. Not to mention when he lands, and travels by motorcade to his destination the disruption of thousands of citizens as they drive to their own destinations. I honestly believe that should be against the law.
A president (or candidate for president with Secret Service protection) often restricts the movement of citizens on public sidewalks, just because he happens to be residing there. That should be against the law too.
Speaking behind protective glass? That’s the least of these problems.
Although those other issues are inconvenient, I don’t think they send a message to the world about our intelligence community.
I’m not unsympathetic to an intelligence community not catching every needle in a haystack. You are going to get that wrong occasionally. Obviously the inability to react when an unidentified person with a rifle is allowed to make it to a roof looks bad, though that’s less of an intelligence failure and more of an operational one.
It’s the big failures of our intelligence community over the decades. The beginning of the Korean War. The failure to identify how weak the Soviet Union was in the 1980’s. That’s what we really pay our intelligence agencies for.
This complaint is incoherent.
If the Secret Service doesn’t put Trump behind glass and he’s shot, they are either incompetent on in on the plot (no doubt the “deep state” and “resistance” conspiracy lunacies would get a mention). If they do, it’s to “compromise Trump’s charisma and connection with crowds,” as one commentor has put it. Madness.
How about they’re doing it to cover their rear-ends?
Most would-be assassins don’t last long enough to get to a hanging.
Unless you are talking about Secret Service men in which case, I am listening.
Many bad cops deserve it.
The problem is that they did catch the needle. But they ignored it.