(Miriam-Webster’s dictionary)
assassination
noun
1: murder by sudden or secret attack often for political reasons : the act or an instance of assassinating someone (such as a prominent political leader)
2: treacherous destruction of a person’s reputation
character assassination
Saturday June 13th found me taking a breather from some weekend chores around our house. Normally, I park my cell phone on its charger and studiously avoid news and most entertainment channels on the television. This is my land, my castle, my sanctuary and I don’t lightly invite strangers in-especially strangers that want to lie to me, depress me or attack the things that I believe in. Such is current popular culture, network news and the hurricane of voices on the internet.
As I took a moment to appreciate the cleanliness and order of the refrigerator something prompted me to pick up my phone and open the “X” app. Posts were flowing in like an avalanche speeding down a mountainside. Post after post were showing a photo of Donald Trump, blood trickling from his ear down his cheek and onto his lips. Each post had a variation on the news that he had been shot or shot at. The news was just breaking and no facts were available for confirmation except that everyone posting from the event or being interviewed on site agreed that shots had been fired at the former president’s campaign rally.
As the proverbial dust began to settle and order returned from chaos, the horror of the moment was beginning to be realized; someone tried to kill Donald Trump. That person was dead on a roof 130 yards away.
A rallygoer in the bleachers behind the speaker’s podium was dead. Two other people in the bleachers had been wounded. An emergency room doctor on scene, his white t-shirt soaked with blood and perspiration described, on camera, to a reporter how he tried to save the man that died.
So many thoughts rush through my mind at these moments of unfathomable evil. And, oddly, they usually begin with asking myself; “When did this first seem like a good idea to this person (the perpetrator)?”
I recall my stint in rehab and a point brought up by a psychologist who shared with us the cycle of use of an addict. He said (paraphrasing) “Everything begins with a decision and is followed by planning.” For alcoholics like me that hit home. Drinking always involved the decision to drink on any particular day and ended with a plan to make it happen.
The same thing happened with the the assassin. For whatever reason-under whatever influence-he made a decision to shoot Donald Trump dead. The last days of his short life were consumed with planning.
According to a paper published on PubMed Central by A Verdejo-García, M Pérez-García, and A Bechara,
“Similar to patients with orbitofrontal cortex lesions, substance dependent individuals (SDI) show signs of impairments in decision-making, characterized by a tendency to choose the immediate reward at the expense of severe negative future consequences… One of the important characteristics of human drug addiction is the continuous consumption of abused substances, despite a rise in negative consequences, including medical, social and legal problems.”
What substance was the shooter abusing? That is not known. What can be clearly extrapolated is that he was consuming something-whether drugs, alcohol or ideas that filled his brain with the notion that killing Donald Trump would solve his problems.
He was, like all addicts, consuming a product that was torturing him and seeking a way to ease the self induced pain.
According to a paper titled, “American Presidential assassins and would-be assassins by S. Cain published in PubMed, “…revealed substantial evidence to suggest that most U.S. assassins have been psychotic at the time they attempted to kill their victims and that the most frequently rendered diagnosis was ‘paranoid schizophrenia’. It was also reported that many of the assassin subjects had either sent threatening correspondence to their victims prior to the assassination attempt or had recanted the justifiable nature of their ‘heroic deed’ in letters or personal diaries which were recovered shortly after the assault.”
If, indeed, the shooter is found to have been a paranoid schizophrenic but free from chemical substance abuse he surely was a consumer of ideas that made him believe that the death of a complete stranger would quell the demons in his mind.
From WebMd, “Schizophrenia is the most common example of this mental illness. It is a kind of psychosis, which means your mind doesn’t agree with reality. It affects how you think and behave. This can show up in different ways and at different times, even in the same person. The illness usually starts in late adolescence or young adulthood.”
I keep returning to what the shooter’s mental diet consisted of. Was it a steady diet of character assassination in print and broadcast form? Because of this moment I recalled old friends who no longer will speak to me because I voted for Trump. In fact they wouldn’t visit our mutual dying friend or attend his funeral because he also voted for Trump. Their derangement is nearly inexplicable except that they were huge consumers of left wing media and found soul mates for their failures in life. Like the Nazis and modern day Iranians it’s easier to have a pretend enemy in Jews instead of facing their own shortcomings and working to improve them.
I mentioned earlier I’m very protective of what enters both my home and my mind. There was a time when I was mentally unstable due to alcohol consumption and the loneliness that it brings along with it as a playmate. I knew paranoia and delusion and I was open to nearly any kind of stupidity that wafted into my brain. Fortunately, violence against someone else was never an option. I physically only punished myself-but by extension punished my family and friends.
My deluded mind that said I was fine did not agree with the reality that I wasn’t.
So the question begs, what rot was filling this 20 year old mind? What images of Donald Trump had he conjured because of the media he was consuming? How great a threat was Trump to him and how heroic a figure would he have been (in his own mind) if he had succeeded?
It’s clear that the man was not an acquaintance of Trump’s. He had no personal interaction with the former president so he really did not know him. Rather he formulated an opinion based on the thoughts of others. He necessarily had reinforced his hate on a steady consumption of opinions that lead him to believe that Donald Trump posed a large enough threat that he needed to die.
Bottom line: Donald Trump lives on. A brave firefighter named Corey Comperatore, by the act of protecting his family, is dead. A sad, sick and confused young man is dead.
The Holy Bible says in the book of James Chapter three paragraph 16 through 18:
” For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
My prayer is that good fruits will come of this tragedy and the voices of hate that poison young minds will find peace.
