Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Posted a hot take on the Trump assassination attempt in a subscribers chat on substack
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Insightful read. I am more agnostic than you about the really-long-term prospects of the US republic, because its capacity to reinvent and self-correct itself out of doomsday trajectories and dire predicaments is second to none, and usually ends up defeating many a pessimistic expectation. Of course, this only works until it doesn't. In the medium term, I would add a point about Trump himself, at the risk of undeservedly embellishing his character and reading too much into events far removed from me (as I am neither a US citizen nor resident). If you remember that election night in 2016, there was this idea that Trump himself had neither expected nor wanted victory (see https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html for example). Trump was, after all, living a very comfortable Manhattan life, being wealthy beyond measure and free in his agenda and movements. That all changed when the punishing exigencies of the POTUS role befell upon him. 1/2
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
Is it possible, then, that he is different person now than he was then? Not that he merely got attracted to the prestige and addicted to the power; it's clear his ego is entirely capable of that. But that he perhaps became more... dignified by the burden of responsibilities, and grew a calling? Call it a messiah complex, or a genuine belief in some personal vision of his for the country, which many argue he was devoid of in 2016, when he was perceived as a mere grifter. 2/3
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Thomas
@aviationdoctor.eth
If you contrast his appearance from the 2016 election evening to that of last night, raising his fist and mouthing "Fight!" despite a bloody face and a narrow brush with death, he seems to have grown a gritty resolve to win, and he now has (literal) skin in the game, which he didn't have back then. Maybe I'm just giving him too much credit, but it's hard for me to attribute to just clever showmanship the defiant brandishing of his fist, mere seconds after a failed assassination, when most of us would just cower beneath the thick pile of agents. Whether a grittier Trump makes for better or worst outcomes going forward is a second-order consequence I haven't yet thought about. 3/3
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
He’s learned to present himself better but I have zero doubt he’s the same asshole he’s always been This round he’s always been all in as the literal get-out-of-jail-free card among other things
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