Logical End Point of Trump’s Fifth Avenue Shooting Boast

Monday, January 26, 2026

On January 23, 2016, Donald Trump notoriously declared, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." That statement was understood at the time as a metaphorical expression of the depth of Republican voters' commitment to him. Ten years and one day later, his administration's agents shot a disarmed man on the street in full view of the public. Perhaps we should have taken him not only seriously but also literally.

Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 06:00 AM | 2 COMMENTS | permalink

The dynamic Trump observed is that he had created a bond with his supporters that no outside facts could break, even something as blatant as a cold-blooded killing on an American street. And that is the nub of the crisis into which we have plunged over the past decade. All politicians spin and distort to some extent, of course. Trump's innovation was to grasp that, because the conservative movement had trained its devotees to ignore mainstream media and rely completely on information supplied by its own loyalists, his ability to control his supporters' perceptions effectively had no limit. And because his supporters would believe anything, he could do anything.

Comments

And, all of a sudden, possessing a firearm sets you up for kill shots? From this crowd? Chaitt nails these lying hypocrites.

Until very recently, conservative rhetoric has valorized gun ownership as a bulwark against tyrannical government, to the point of fetishization. Conservatives defended Kyle Rittenhouse as a hero for bringing a rifle to a chaotic protest in Wisconsin during the summer of 2020, as well as armed bands of protesters who marched into state capitol buildings during the COVID lockdowns.

For Trumpists to infer homicidal intent from the exercise of a right they have fetishized is a Fifth Avenue"level mental reversal. Their view of the Second Amendment turns out to be no different from their view of the First: one whose protections apply exclusively to themselves.
[Emphasis added]

#1 | Posted by Doc_Sarvis at 2026-01-26 06:05 AM