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People who are security-minded have a natural instinct to prepare for the worst case scenario. This leads them to imagine their enemies to be highly capable, murderous, colluding, nameless and faceless cabals. This is a good and correct instinct for preparing your defenses - you want to be able to defend even against this worst case scenario.

However, too many people use this same rubric wrongly when trying to assess actual events. The odds that an actual adversary is the worst case scenerio, is highly capable and in collusion with others who are highly capable, in any given actual event is very low. Incompetence is far more widespread than people realize. And parallel action (similar minds acting similarly) explains the vast majority of things that appear to be conspiracies.

To believe that Trump was shot as a false flag you have to believe that there was a shooter so perfect that he could perfectly clip Trump's ear even while Trump was gesticulating and rotating his head back and forth. You have to presume that they are murdering, willing to kill members of the audience to make it appear more real.

Just because that case is possible doesn't mean you should default to it. People who default to the belief that this was a false flag to garner sympathy for Trump, based entirely on the fact that an ear-clip is quite a lucky circumstance for Trump, do not have IMHO very good judgement. But they all probably make very good security-minded people because they are defaulting to the worst case scenario which is the right way for a security-minded person to think.

bu5hm4nn 1y ago

Hard to say with limited info. But right now it is not impossible to rule out a shooter shoots audience behind T, T lies down and one of the onrushing staff pops some theatre blood on his ear and face. It's either this or they really wanted him dead, no other explanation for such a blatant security blunder.

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Discussion

Mike Dilger ☑️ 1y ago

I don't rule it out, so I agree with you.

But I think the kinds of reasoning people go through that leads them to even speculate such a specific thing happened absent evidence is flawed due to a lack of considering Bayesian priors.

Take the fist pump. People see that as evidence that Trump wanted a photo-op. But my Bayesian priors are that (1) Trump will always fist pump, and (2) If someone on a stage falls down and is ok, they will signal to the crowd that they are ok. Given these priors, this 'fact' gives NO weight to the theory.

Take the flag in the photo. People see the flag in the image as evidence Trump wanted a photo-op. But my Bayesian priors are that Trump rallys are so heavily plastered in flags, that it is hard to point a camera in any direction and not have a flag in the shot. Given this prior, this fact gives NO weight to the theory.

As for explaining the 'blunder' of missing, when good snipers never miss at 100 yards, you can consider that people were calling out the sniper to the security, yelling about him, and he probably felt rushed. And anyone would be nervous knowing this might be their last few moments. So while a calm sniper can take that shot, a nervous 20 year old who is being called out probably doesn't have the nerves of steel required to make the shot. Also Trump turned his head at the last minute (that mattered by half-an-inch, it wouldn't have mattered if it was a good shot though).