I hate to waste my time on this silly ‘assassination’ story, which is going nowhere. Social media is focused on whether it was ‘staged’ or not, but I believe that misses the point.
Let’s suppose for a minute that the assassination attempt was real. Even if so, the spinners might have immediately recognized the opportunity to spin the event into a plug for Trump’s ballroom. I want to focus my remarks on just how ridiculous this spin is.
Trump and his ballroom
First, even if the ballroom is built, almost all events like this one will be held elsewhere. You are not going to hold the Superbowl or a UFC fight in the ballroom. If you held the Press Club gala in a hotel across town, a ballroom next to the White House is not going to protect the President. Why wasn’t the assassination attempt in Butler used to justify a ballroom?
Second, the President was never in real danger. The shooter never entered the main hall, and in fact he was on a different floor of the hotel. He was nowhere near enough to shoot the President. If the event had been held in Trump’s ultra-secure ballroom, the shooter would again be outside the ballroom, no danger to the President. The ballroom would have no effect on someone outside.
Third, and most importantly, the Trump team are flogging the ballroom itself as a protection for the President, but the real security apparatus will be UNDER the ballroom – military electronic equipment not specifically designed to protect anyone in the ballroom. Why not just build an underground fortress and forget about the ballroom on ground level?
I saw a good joke on Faceebook, where a man steps on a rake and it hits him in the face. He cries, “We need a ballroom.” That’s where the real dishonest spin comes in. Trump is asking the media and the public to believe that the ballroom itself will protect the President in the ballroom, while at the same time he asks Congress and the courts to consider only the military apparatus underground, so he can claim the ballroom is for ‘national security’. The ballroom itself has nothing to do with national security.