Trump Dodges a Bullet!

As his supporters thank the Lord for miraculously saving their new messiah, we liberals also breathe a sigh of relief. This “life is cheap” stuff has to stop.

My favorite toys as a kid were guns. Every boy in the neighborhood had an arsenal. My favorites were a Fanner Fifty set, double six-shooters with nifty, fake-bone handles, and leather holster… with fringe. Back then it didn’t get any cooler for a 6-year old. By the time I was 10, I had moved up to a Daisy BB-gun, and became the best sharpshooter south of the draw (that’s a usually dry creek out in West Texas). What did I shoot? Cicadas, lizards, birds. People. Well, plastic army men, arrayed as defenders of brick forts I built in the backyard. Once all the soldiers were in place, from 20 yards I deftly picked off the visible targets, then hurled brick bombs to mangle anyone still hiding.

One day a beautiful bird with red coloring landed on the telephone wire above. Never had I seen a bird like that. I shot it. Dead. As I held its lifeless body, some alien took me over and wrenched me into a different dimension. I suddenly was flooded with regret and sadness and shame. I wanted to throw up. Why? It demanded of me. Why? Why? Why?

That haunted me. For awhile. Through those long years of childhood, the red bird incident faded away to a degree. Then I got a real rifle for my 16th birthday, a Winchester Buffalo Bill Commemorative 30-30. Then I got a shotgun. My uncle was a big hunter, so he took my dad and I out dove and quail hunting a few times. Now, my dad was a World War II combat vet, who had actually taught marksmanship when he returned stateside. But when hunting birds, I noticed he never seemed to hit anything. For myself, I wasn’t nearly as proficient with the shotgun as with my trusty Daisy, but I occasionally took out a few. Sometime later I queried my dad about those outings. He said he wasn’t much into killing anymore. Well, then why even shoot? Just to play along with this important cultural tradition, he answered. To help you assimilate to it.

Made sense to me at the time. Sort of. Hunting was a big part of West Texas culture, one of the major subsets of the “manly” ”disposition men were supposed to assume out in this land of cowboys, roughnecks and hard-worn farmhands. Cattle, oil and cotton. You worked hard, and for fun you drank, bowled, played pool and shot things.

Then we went deer hunting down in the Big Bend territory. This time my 30–30 went along. First, I managed to clumsily slide down a small cliff, scuffing both my elbows and the gun, which went tumbling down in front of me. Lucky I didn’t shoot myself.

I collected myself, wiped off the gun, and trudged on through the creosote bushes, when there ahead was an 8-point, muley buck. I fired once, shucked, then again, in quick succession. The deer fell. I went to check it out as it breathed its last. One bullet had gone through an antler, the other through the heart. I was at first elated. I had achieved that classic male milestone, that “rite of passage:” getting your first buck. I had successfully imposed my will upon another being, much larger than a finch. Then, as the body went still and eyes glazed, I felt a distantly familiar punch in the stomach. The alien was back.

Why? Why? Why? This life form, this sentient being, this beautiful fellow Earthling was just living its life, having a nice day, harming no one, until YOUR sorry, stupid ass came along. You are not starving. You are not even hungry. You have no real need, and no real business out here in this animal’s home. Why take the most precious thing from any living creature, its very LIFE, for absolutely zero good reason? “Rite of passage” into what? Dominance? Willful violence? In this modern age? When your order for animal flesh and fluid is already waiting for you at the supermarket! What gives you this “privilege,” this “right?” How dare you! What you have committed is a cosmic crime.

OK, I didn’t think that last bit at the time, but I realized this truth later. Taking a life needlessly, especially an animal’s, our closest kin in all the Universe, does not prove what a great and powerful and brave and manly man you are, it proves something far different: just how simple-minded you are, how small you are, how shallow you are, how far removed you are from your own, and humanity’s, highest state of being. It’s more than a little creepy to think that billions of men romanticize and thrill in this domination and destruction of the innocent. And we wonder how our society can become so violent.

It took me a few weeks to process this shocking experience. The red bird incident came back into clarity. The two episodes were twins. What was this very deep, and seemingly ultra compassionate and wise force welling inside of me? Gradually I came around to recognizing that this was no alien invasion. No body-snatcher. This was the real me. Coming to rescue me from a sick “tradition.”

I haven’t hunted since. The very idea makes me sad and nauseous.

By my thirties, I was well on my way to locating a philosophy, a worldview that importantly included a healthy respect for life. But then I had a staggering relapse.

I tried out hate.

My business partner attempted to oust me from our partnership. He had put up the money, I put up the knowledge and effort to build a successful little business. Once built, he decided, who needs you? This was back in the 1980s, and believe it or not, this guy thought of himself as the “West Coast Donald Trump.”

I seethed with rage and bitterness. The thought arose. I want to kill this evil bastard. Upon second thought, I was floored. You may have heard the adage, “Hatred corrodes the container it’s carried in.” Almost instantly, I viscerally felt this truth… hatred gnawing at my very guts. That I could inhabit, even for a moment, this repulsive, ugly, utterly bereft of any morality mindset, something infinitely darker than the simple, stupid, conforming, thoughtless, culturally-approved, selfishness of the red bird and deer episodes, was a slap in my face like I had never experienced. I snapped out of it quickly, and after being brain burned by my own hatred, vowed to never go close to that again. You can dislike something. You can disapprove of something. You can know something is wrong. You can know good from evil. But to succumb to hate is a form of actual physical harm and soul suicide of yourself.

Yet it would be many decades before I stumbled upon the deeper meaning of these epiphanies. Heaven knows, popular culture didn’t lead me to it. Religion and philosophy took me only so far. Science was what provided the real breakthrough. That’s not a claim of actually understanding very well any particular science. But it only takes a glimpse, with the right perspective, to greatly enlighten. If “spirituality” is a heart-felt and honest longing to know the truth and bond with the Source of it All, science is spiritual to the core. Only after I had learned and absorbed the stunning and beautiful truth of evolution and how very difficult it is for life, any life, to arise and to survive and to thrive, and then added the piece of the wondrous and amazing evolution of the Universe, itself, was I able to orient myself to the awareness that life is the crowning creation of an already sparkling Universe. And the ability to think about that, understand that, fall in love with that… is the jewel at the top of that crown.

Life is not just precious, it is sacred. All life. This awareness opens you to great affection for the world, and the Universe beyond that somehow spawned this miraculous coming to life of basic elements and chemicals. This kind of “knowing,” communion with the very building blocks of the Universe, is nothing like the faux “knowing” that is based upon mythology, dogma and hand-me-down “belief.” It is the greatest high ever. Your reaction to the living world becomes an impulse to embrace, defend and nurture it, not harm anything you don’t absolutely have to.

None of the Abrahamic religions come within light years of this awareness. Even though they have the “Word” at their disposal. The problem is they have never taken it to its logical conclusion. They keep getting fouled in the net of wanting everything to be “about the humans.”

If love is the Word. If love is the Answer. If love is the Way. Then the highest, the best, the broadest, the deepest love can only be love for the ALL. That means all. Everything. Nothing can be despised. Nothing can be hated. Nothing can be thought ugly. Nothing can be thought useless. Everything has a purpose. Everything is a shard of the Source. Whatever that Source is, we don’t yet know. But we are on the search, and what we have discovered so far suggests that it is magnificent, even if it is so small it disappears. If you want to call it god, go ahead, though it certainly cannot be anything like the flimsy, petty and pathetic gods of ancient texts, invented by humans for humans, and humans alone.

But this philosophy and spirituality is not shared by many. Many of our human cultures are almost the opposite. Especially American culture. We have a mucho macho problemo.

We say, ‘Violence has no place in our society.” But we are just gaslighting. It is everywhere in our society. We reject efforts to change it. Many are delighted with this “society.” It’s quite profitable. We are the most gun-happy nation in the world. It hasn’t worked out well for us. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump yesterday is but the latest manifestation of a madness of mind and heart and soul. Yet another sad day in sick America. Yet another day for “thoughts and prayers.” Yet another day of doing nothing real about it. Many Americans have obviously come to accept that a certain number of unjust, unnecessary, deaths are a price they are willing to “pay” to keep their “lifestyle” uninterrupted in any way.

We don’t know much about the lone shooter yet, other than he was 20 years old and from not far away from the area where the rally took place. He was a registered Republican who a few years ago donated $15 to a progressive organization. He researched the schedules of both Trump and Joe Biden. He wore camo clothing to school, and liked to play with guns. Doesn’t sound like anyone “woke!” His classmates claim he was bullied at school. His school says he was not. My money is on the classmates being correct. Sounds like a troubled kid. There are two ways to respond to being bullied: determine you will never be the bully, or crave to become the bully. Sadly, his rage and his hate corroded his container. What a shame. A life thrown away. And he took another, an innocent bystander, with him. Corey Comperatore reportedly died shielding his family from the hail of bullets. Two others were hit and are in critical condition in the hospital. This shows how hate and rage can, quickly, go.

Trump, the subject of the shooter’s ire, was nicked on the right ear. It bled a little bit. Didn’t even need stitches. Many of his supporters believe he was saved by divine intervention. And, of course, Trump is embracing that notion. No word on why God or angels or whatever was doing the “divine” guiding of the bullet didn’t bother to deflect the pieces of metal that flew into the other three victims. Well, God works in mysterious ways, you know.

Seemingly filled with rage himself, Trump looked out to the audience, raised his fist and repeatedly shouted, “Fight!” as he was hustled off the stage by the Secret Service. “Fight” is a word he has used many times before to inflame his base, including in the speech January 6, 2021, when he urged his minions to “fight like hell or you aren’t going to have a country,” just before they stormed the Capitol. It’s quite clearly a call to violence, at least to those violently-conditioned. And, hey, isn’t that pretty much every male in America? Some can control it. Some cannot.

Trump quickly disappeared from the scene, having never looked around to see if anyone else on the stage or close-in bleachers had been harmed. He did ask for his shoes. How those were somehow lost is unknown.

It’s being called an “attack on democracy.” Ya think? It’s far more than that. All of these various sprees and cosmic crimes of the ultimate selfishness are attacks on virtue, morality and civilization.

I believe Donald Trump to be a danger to the United States of America, and the world. The actual facts brand him as a true villain. He is a pathetic failure as a human being on any scale of virtue. He should, long ago, have been tossed in jail for his continual criminality.

Yet everyone should condemn this violence. There is no place for intent toward injury or death outside a battlefield, if then. Surely one day we humans should declare that insanity forbidden.

I don’t have a scintilla of hate for Trump. I don’t like him. But my base emotion toward Donald Trump has always been pity. But then I remind myself I have to try to love Donald Trump. You don’t have to like people you love. Ask any parent or child. I won’t lie. It’s not easy to love something that you feel might be threatening you. Yet we have to try. That has to be our intention, certainly not the reverse. To not try, to give in to negative emotion, is to become unmoored from our “better angels” and subject us to being swept straight into that toxic brew of anger, which is the portal to rage, and aggravated dislike, which is the portal to hate, and/or fear, which is the portal to hysteric, terror-filled panic. None of these states bode well.

Of course, both sides are asking that Americans “unite,” “come together,” tone down the vitriol. Good luck with that. Many are feigning “shock.”

Trump, himself, posted, “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country.”

Really? How so? America is deeply divided and angry, and ludicrously prone to violence. Both sides believe the other is an existential threat. Both are correct, to a degree. Both want to impede the other’s “way of life.” My contention, which is in concurrence with the great minds and ideas of history (including Christianity), is that only one side’s “way of life” is onerously oppressive and unsustainable, and flat un-American. Only one side is routinely violent, and at the center of all of the darkest chapters in American history.

Then again. What is “American?” What is “Christian?” Is it what it claims to be, or what it proves it really is time and time again? Talk? Or Walk?

Nobody with a mote of historical awareness, can possibly be really surprised that this assassination attempt transpired. In American history, four sitting presidents have actually been assassinated, one Democrat and three Republicans, though all of them were liberal for their day. Otherwise, somebody tried to shoot Andy Jackson; the pistol misfired. Teddy Roosevelt was shot in the chest while campaigning; he finished his speech before receiving medical care. A guy trying to shoot Franklin Roosevelt ended up killing the Chicago mayor. Huey P. Long, famed and powerful southern senator, who was expected to run for president, was shot and killed at the Louisiana capitol. Two killers tried to assassinate Harry Truman; they were stopped but not before killing a policeman. Before John Kennedy’s assassination, another guy was going to blow up his car. Robert Kennedy was running for president and had just won the California primary; he was the odds-on favorite to become the Democratic nominee when he was assassinated just after giving a speech. George Wallace was running for the Democratic nomination for president when he was shot and paralyzed by a guy who had previously planned to kill Richard Nixon. Nixon was also the prospective target of a guy who intended to crash a DC-9 airliner into the White House. It’s very rare that a woman falls off the sane bus and tries to assassinate a politician, but two of them, in totally separate instances, but just weeks apart, tried to shoot Gerald Ford. Neither succeeded, and how anyone could want to kill good, old, middle-of-the-road Gerry was never adequately explained. Ronald Reagan was shot, and nearly died, but soon was back to work; his press secretary was badly wounded, as well, and never fully recovered. A guy fired multiple shots at the White House while Barack Obama and his family were inside. Pipe bombs were mailed to Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden; none went off.

And those are just the political actual and would be-crimes involving presidents or presidential candidates. Meanwhile, between 2000–2022, France had six mass murders, Germany five, Canada four, Finland three, Austria three, two each in the Czech Republic, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and UK. One each in Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, none at all in Sweden, Spain, Slovenia, Romania, Portugal, Malta, Luxembourg, Latvia, Japan, Ireland, Iceland or Hungary.

The United States had one hundred and nine. That’s over three times the mass murders in all other liberal democracies combined! Subtract the one hundred, and we still lead the world’s next most violent nation by 50 percent!

Now raise your hand if you think the attempt on Trump was a one-off, totally out of the blue scenario.

It wasn’t. It’s an ongoing trend. It was business as usual in the guns-owned and arms-dealing, cowboy-posturing, shoot-em-up capital of the world. The only thing surprising is that it doesn’t happen even more often. It’s an excellent bet it will again, soon. (Another reason to get out now, Joe!)

Religious conservatives are claiming that the Lord protected their boy (stable) genius. No word on why the Lord had no concern for the other three victims. Well, you know, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Yeah, right. A more coherent explanation would be plain, old karma. Good, old cause and effect. You reap what you sow. Refuse to help ban assault rifles, or to get them out of the hands of potentially violent individuals, and come to within an inch of being killed by one with that gun. Karma can be nasty.

Since he came down that gilded elevator eight years ago, Donald Trump has been, almost nonstop, sowing fear and disgust and hate and rage. He owns the Republican Party now, and they are onboard one hundred percent with his divisive, bombastic rhetoric. His ideology now has a 900-page manifesto describing, in detail, how it will remake America into a corporate-theocratic kleptocracy, oppressing millions of Americans. He has probably sold one hundred million guns for the IRA. He, and the movement he did not start but inherited and turned absolutely loose, remains a clear and present danger. In a sense, it is ironic justice that his over-the-top meanness boomeranged back to hit him in the head. Will Trump and his ardent supporters fully appreciate that “fight” was exactly what the shooter was doing?

Alas, this is the end of nothing.

Those who oppose him have, understandably, responded with alarm. He is no Gerald Ford. He is a wrecking ball of decorum, of democracy, of decency. They have exhibited and acted out their own fear and disgust and rage. That’s not good. That won’t work, folks. It’s now a vicious circle. It’s so easy to go there, yet WE cannot. We cannot become them. Somebody has to be the adult in the room. Someone has to stand with the Word. Love. Only one side is capable of self-restraint, and getting back to stated values. Walking the talk. Only one side is actually “pro-life,” believing in the sanctity of life. That’s the more liberal side. Will we turn away from fear and rage and stand with virtue? That question is harder to answer.

There is a very old culture war now escalating. It goes all the way back into distant history. It’s the perennial clash between conservative and liberal impulses. The impulse to oppress in order to conserve advantage, privilege and power versus the impulse to liberate from said oppression. It has often ended up in bloody conflict. It is sad, indeed, that we Americans have failed so badly in our discourse and our beliefs that we are on that precipice… again.

We true liberals hope Donald Trump fully recovers and never experiences anything close to this again. Our sympathy extends to the other folks and families harmed by this episode. They paid a very high price for their devotion to the Captain of Chaos. We would wish that all Americans, as well as people around the world, could at least agree on the sacredness of life itself as a baseline for working out our differences. As ever, we implore: NO HATE! NO VIOLENCE!

Alas, to too many people, life is not precious, or sacred; it’s cheap. Cheap as an “animal.” Like a red bird. Or a mule deer. Shoot ’em up. They are ours to use and abuse. Let God sort them out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

No Hate.
No Violence.
All Life is Sacred.
The Universe is Magnificent & Beautiful.
Love is the Way.

Copyright 2024, Rusty Reid