“I watched with glee while your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades for the gods they made
I shouted out, “Who killed the Kennedys?”
When after all, it was you and me”
– Mick Jagger
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July 15, 2024 – If you’re into doom-scrolling social media, this weekend was your Super Bowl.
Within minutes of the rifle shot ripping through Donald Trump’s ear, I received a notification identifying the shooter as Marcus Violet, a member of the extremist group Antifa. That’s how I learned there was even a rally in Butler, PA, let alone an attempt on the former president’s life.
An hour or so later, Reuters debunked the story. The photo in the X post was actually that of Mario Violi, a sports commentator for the Italian soccer club Roma.
The post opened the door to all kinds of misinformation.
At one point, Colorado State House Rep. Steven Woodrow wrote in his own X post: “The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are,” referring, of course, to Trump.
Jacqueline Marsaw, a staff member of Congressman Bennie G. Thomson (D, Mississippi), posted on Facebook that she wished the shooter who tried to take Donald Trump‘s life had better aim.
Both posts were quickly deleted. But not before journalists reported on them. Woodrow apologized. Marsaw was fired.
What journalists seem to know about the shooter, so far, is scant. Thomas Mathew Crooks was a white kid, 20 years old, from a local farming community. He had no military experience, worked as an assistant dietician at an elderly rehab center. He was good in math and science winning awards at school, but kind of a loner. He wore glasses.
Crooks’ senior yearbook photo from 2022 looks like he hadn’t quite gone through puberty yet. But photos on the roof just before he was slain by local Butler sharpshooters show him with long hair.
Politically, there isn’t much to go on. He was a registered Republican, but barely old enough to vote. November would have been the first national election he was eligible to cast a ballot. A couple of years ago, he donated $15 to a progressive political action group, ActBlue, whose mission was to encourage voter turnout.
Media reports suggest he wasn’t that into doom-scrolling himself. He didn’t leave much of an online presence. No motive has been ascribed to his actions just yet. But he did get a ladder and scale a barn near the rally site with an AR-style rifle, so something was broken inside his brain.
What do we make of Crooks and his intent?
Apparently, whatever the hell you want.
The X feed on my phone provided an endless array of motives. Even the usual fare on TikTok – swimsuit models, Corgi puppy antics, little kids making faces and mid-life anxiety jokes from house mothers — was overtaken by rifle aficionados analyzing site maps, wind speed, weapons experts identified rounds used and projectile trajectories.
A special corner of social media conspiracy advocates was reserved for the Secret Service’s second-by-second actions v. protocol. Alex Jones warned in all-caps that the United States was under attack by global elites and cautioned Elon Musk to retire to his bunker immediately… more attacks were imminent!
“Rarely are events recognized in real time as obvious historical turning points,” wrote our friend James Hickman this morning. “The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is one of them, and it will go down as a clear marker in the history of America’s decline. It epitomizes the chaos and disorder that characterize the current state of affairs. And it escalates a sharp divide in American politics.”
On this day in history, July 15, 2006 the social media app Twitter was founded.
Donald Trump popularized the app for political purposes during his successful bid for President versus Hillary Clinton in 2016. His account remained active until he was canceled by Jack Dorsey, the app’s founder, following the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. But not before it became a haven for political theories of one stripe or another. Musk, of course, amassed $44 billion dollars to take over Twitter and rename it X.
Trump went on to found his own media company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), and launched Truth Social. Musk invited him back on X. At first, he declined preferring to stick it out with his own app.
TMTG went public under Trump’s initials, DJT, earlier this year. They soared 33% following the Butler incident. Trump owns a majority stake in the company. It was valued at $3.8 billion as late as June 25.
“In my conversation with Devin Nunes, the CEO of TMTG,” our Andrew Packer recalls, “he stated that Biden would likely stay in through the convention, then pass off his delegates to, most likely, Gavin Newsom.”
“Since the Constitution prevents the President and VP coming from the same state, Kamala Harris will likely be off the ticket – probably promised a SCOTUS seat at the earliest opportunity.
“For the replacement VP, I’d guess Michelle Obama – brings back the media love for the Obamas and will be spun positively as national unity. It is also interesting that Gretchen Whitmer is holding up well on betting sites as an alternative, but Michigan is a must-win state.”
“The assassination attempt,” Mr. Packer suspects, “will dominate the news cycle for a few days … and detract from Biden’s cognitive issues, at least until the Democratic convention or his next gaffe.” Andrew adds:
“The economic data is always ‘just good enough’ to keep the market algos bullish right now. But the revisions on everything from inflation to employment aren’t pretty. If the Fed cuts rates a quarter point in September, they’ll want to take a long pause before doing anything else to see how the real data holds up.”
In other words, the things we were wringing our hands over prior to the attempt on Trump’s life still hang in the balance for this election year.
The stock market was hardly phased by the immediacy of the news. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all up about 0.5% in trading today. The noodling we’ve been doing over whether the market’s in the throes of an AI-inspired bubble continues.
“Today the markets are betting on Trump being the victor,” Ben Laidler, head of equity strategy at Bradesco BBI, told CNBC, adding that TMTG “is the tip of the spear and the most sensitive to a Trump victory.”
The online betting site PredictIt showed bets of an election win for Trump at 67 cents, up from Friday’s 60 cents. That’s an 11.7% jump in one day… against Joe Biden’s 27 cents.
If we’re looking for any signs of social, psychological or political trauma from the political violence in the 2024 race for president, social media doesn’t help much. From the evidence yesterday it’s not unlike a “pick-your-own-adventure-in-truthland” video game.
We’re scouring through Shell Game, a video we released on October 13, 2023 in which we forecast a rise in political violence for the election year 2024, including a prediction there would be an assassination attempt on Trump’s life.
Our premise is still the same economic anxiety over compounding inflation, rising interest rates, an irrationally charged stock market and a smoldering banking crisis have been egged on by social media leading to a serious decline in civil society and a dangerous political environment.
Thoughtless winner-take-all soundbyte strategies waged by nameless unaccountable campaign professionals don’t help.
After another look at what we actually published… we’ll touch base again.
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So it goes,
Addison Wiggin
Founder, The Wiggin Sessions
P.S. The Guns ‘N Roses version of Sympathy for the Devil, released as a B Side to Escape to Paris in 1994 made it to #2 on the Billboard Chart in Finland and Denmark that year. Yeah, I didn’t know they recorded one either.
P.P.S. As we were about to hit send on this email, Trump announced Senator JD Vance of Ohio will be his running mate. My son has suggested in the past I pick up a copy of Hillbilly Elegy, but I haven’t yet.
If you’re still wondering “How did we get here?” Empire of Debt and Demise of the Dollar have never been more appropriate than they are today.
For an alternative view of the financial, economic, and political history of the United States from Demise of the Dollar through Financial Reckoning Day and on toEmpire of Debt — all three books re-released in their third post-pandemic editions.
(Or… simply pre-order Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed, now available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble or if you prefer one of these sites:Bookshop.org; Books-A-Million; or Target.)
Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com
