A near miss . . .

The assassination attempt on Trump should be roundly condemned, not just for the act itself but also for the consequences it may have unleashed had it been successful. Had Trump been killed, the worst wave of violence in America since the Civil War could easily be imagined (and perhaps was in the recent film Civil War, which I haven’t seen yet). On a parochial sort of note it seems incredible that the FBI didn’t have their own people on the roof where the shooter was—after all, Trump is odds on to win the presidency in November. An unnamed person in the crowd told the New York Times that this event makes that outcome a certainty. The way Trump will milk it can only assist. In the same New York Times article it was reported that in an opinion poll 10% of Americans wouldn’t object to Trump being assassinated. Perhaps in a country whose government has assassinated or plotted to assassinate foreign leaders aplenty there is a flexible morality at play. I wonder how many Americans may feel that Kennedy’s assassination was perhaps no bad thing? Personally I think that when it comes to Trump it would be better to let nature take its course as it does for many men of his age (not least in a country where life expectancy is falling). In the meantime it will be interesting to see if he expresses any humility or regret over his encouragement of the January 6th riot, when calls were made by his followers to dispose of Mike Pence. I doubt it.