Details are starting to emerge about the guy who tried to assassinate Orange Man. And once again, it’s the ‘smart, quiet loner’. I hate it. That was literally how people described me growing up—’smart, quiet, keeps to himself.’ Over the years, I’ve had more than a few people joke, ‘You’re like a ticking time bomb, aren’t you? You’re just gonna go off someday?’
I pose zero threat to anyone. Just this morning, I swerved to avoid hitting a fucking turtle. It’s maddening to be lumped into the same category as monsters like this who commit violent acts simply because of a fairly common shared personality type. We’re not all cut from the same cloth. Some of us are just quietly trying to live our lives with kindness and empathy.
And that means that yes, I’m fucking shocked over the assassination attempt, despite my disgust for the person it was attempted on. As many people have said, violence just shouldn’t have any place in American politics. Even if they’re an authoritarian threat to democracy itself, we have to do it another way unless we’re defending the country against actual violence. That’s why assassinating Bin Laden wasn’t a thing for us to be ashamed of, but this one absolutely is. Babbitt at the capitol? Yeah, more understandable, it was a violent break in, but still sad that an American veteran was so deeply radicalized and that ended up being her fate.
