Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD), a lone gunman tried to enter the ballroom where President Trump and much of the higher administration were having dinner with journalists. He was stopped before could enter the room, but did exchange gunfire with the security services before being subdued.
For context, the WHCD is an annual event that started in 1921. The journalists host a dinner with the sitting president where the atmosphere is meant to be light and humorous. Presidents usually make funny speeches, often written by professional comedians.
Pres. Trump refused to attend during his first term because of his tense relationship with the press. It should also be remembered that in 2011, Pres. Obama used much of his speech to make fun of Donald Trump. Many have suggested that this was the moment The Donald decided to run for president. So he has a history with the event.
It is hard to get a sense of the size of the event. There were over 2,500 people gathered for a sit-down dinner with many of the most famous and powerful people in the country. Security was tight, but clearly not tight enough.
It takes place in the Washington Hilton, which is an active hotel and has a massive ballroom in the basement. It is also the hotel Pres. Reagan was leaving when he was shot and almost killed in 1981. The assassin was able to book a room in the hotel soon after the President announced that he would be attending the dinner. This gave him access to most spaces in the hotel. He traveled by train from California, apparently doing so to avoid TSA because he was carrying several guns with him.
Do you remember the problem with funding for the Department of Homeland Security? Still going on. TSA and the Secret Service are both funded through DHS, so the agents that subdued the assassin are getting paid (we hope!) on an emergency basis only. This ongoing funding problem will no doubt become a point of contention when talking about this security lapse.
What we know of the shooter so far is that he was a 31 year old SAT tutor and teacher, highly educated, and of mixed race. In something of a manifesto, he cited the usual charges against the President that one might find in the New York Times, on CNN, or anywhere on social media. It is important to note that his ideas are not particularly out of the mainstream of even the moderate left. His actions were, but…
Look at the survey result below:
The younger and more liberal the respondents, the more accepting they are of supporting violence. 1/4 of young liberals is not yet a majority of the population, but as we’ve seen with this and the other two assassination attempts, it does not take more than a small number of radicalized (and radicalized by “mainstream” ideas, if that makes sense) to try to kill a president.
As the saying goes: they don’t kill you because they call you a Nazi, they call you a Nazi so they can kill you.
From I.C.E to N.I.C.E
There is a meme on the internet in which a science fiction author writes a novel about some world-destroying machine as a warning to everyone, only to be followed by an announcement by engineers who are proud of having made this same world-destroying machine. It’s funny because it keeps happening. And it’s not funny.
Now, for fans of C.S. Lewis, he is getting caught up in this. That Hideous Strength is one of my favorite novels, but as a warning not a how-to document.
In steps Pres. Trump.
In an effort to change the image of immigration officers, he has suggested adding “National” to the name of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He said he wants to force journalists to use the word “nice” when they refer to it.
There is another meme on the internet, inspired by a photo of an exhausted and discouraged Ben Affleck standing outside smoking a cigarette. That’s as background to the image below. If you’ve read the Lewis novel, you get the joke.
