it was staged. cnn and other media outlets had long since stopped covering trump rallies, but this time they had a heavy presence, with a famous photographer up front having set his camera to just the right settings for capturing a bullet. the plan was to have trump's head explode, get the picture, and plaster it everywhere possible to traumatize the nation, similar to jfk.  further, their patsy shooter was someone they could paint as a right wing nut and trump voter himself (and they tried to do this anyways) because they wanted to say that he was killed by his own supporters, that his own rhetoric had killed him. this would achieve several goals: killing trump, revenge for saying obama was kenyan traumatizing his voters, people they absolutely loathe isolating the blame to his own voters, no loss of apparent moral high ground, a cultural bludgeon to continue using against them and most of all, a severe example to show the next guy who thinks he can mean tweet and propose even mild populist ideas.  it didn't work the first time, they tried to dial it back a little and try again - guy shoots at the president and still manages to escape to his suv, and only gets caught by local cops? what are the odds? and they'll try again too, and again, and again. they want the image of trump dead so they can shove it in your face, and whoever does it will be somebody they can then call a trump supporter.
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