He missed.
One shot to make history and he missed his shot.
Now in all fairness he didn’t entirely miss as the supersonic 556 round tore through the top of president Trump’s ear and he’ll still go down in history as a terrible murderer.
But all that training and planning and borrowing Dad’s gun and buying the ladder and ammo and walking to the rally and taking his range finder through security and standing around measuring the shot and oh so cunningly outwitting the secret service and climbing up on the roof and crawling across in broad daylight rifle swinging around for everyone to see, all that to miss his shot.
As they say you miss 100% of the shots that you never take and you also miss plenty that you do.
Trump misses
Even Trump has had many misses, this perhaps his gravest.
In business. In life. In his influence. In losing the last election.
But one thing that you always see from this man is he gets back up and takes his shot over and over again.
Some missed shots you never stand back up like the terrible shooter knew the snipers wouldn’t miss.
Yet outside of worst cases nearly always you have the chance to stand again.
Standing again
His ear clipped off.
Shoes forcefully knocked off.
Grazed and confused what does president Trump do?
He stands right back up in the line of fire and defiantly raises his fist.
Mouthing the words “fight, fight, fight” we all got to witness a person with unstoppable resolve standing for what he believes.
Some people wished he hadn’t stood back up and as Trump well knows it’s the reality of that game and what’s at risk to keep standing again and again.
Would you?
Stand
I mean, look, obviously I get how polarized and divided our best nation has been but I know that every person can at least appreciate what it takes to stand and risk it all, can’t we?
I’ve learned my lesson the hard way that I’ll never wade back into divided political waters like the book I wrote on Trump’s winning influence thrashing the GOP in 2016 thinking that you can just talk about influence and winning without being pulled into divide and rule.
But if I were to write another book on Donald Trump it would be on his limitless mindset and unstoppable resolve.
Again, I totally get that many people hate the guy and I’ve been hated plenty just for writing about his influence yet everyone can appreciate how bulletproof your mindset must be to keep standing again and again, right?
To believe in yourself this much to stand and just keep standing even when most the media and half the world is screaming at you to stand down.
For no matter what comes at you to win, lose, take a bullet and just keep getting back up again.
Standing out
From the moment that Donald Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower and announced his presidency he was unrelentingly attacked, arguably, deservedly.
Of course he’s been a somewhat controversial and larger than life figure who has courted and attracted attention most of his life, but like his show The Apprentice he had mostly been celebrated.
Now entering this terribly divided world of politics on the wrong side of the liberal media that used to promote him he perhaps had no idea how savagely they would attack.
From day one the media mocked and even labeled him a sideshow refusing to cover him as politics, instead branding his run for president as entertainment.
In those first few months nobody even gave him the slightest chance of winning and for nearly 10 years now he’s been counted out even as he kept winning.
If this was your path, would you keep standing?
Standing in line
Trump has been in the crosshairs since he first stood up and frankly it’s surprising it took this long for a trigger to be pulled.
You can never expect to take on the most powerful forces in the world and avoid being put in the firing line.
Keep in mind that when he first stood it was more or less accepted that the 2016 presidential election would be a dynastic race of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton.
Some of the most powerful forces in the world were behind those candidates and Trump just stood and blasted them from the world stage.
The book I wrote was on how he beat 16 of the GOP’s finest without breaking a sweat like the way he easily dispatched Jeb Bush.
Then he did the same with Hillary Clinton, one of the toughest competitors to stand on that stage.
Standing to lose
President Biden is getting his stoning these days.
But one must remember that out of dozens of democrats who stood to take on Trump he beat them all.
After some 50 years in politics with a long history of success and failure and standing over and over again he took his shot and beat Trump too.
Trump once famously said that if he ran for president he wouldn’t be doing it to lose, yet that’s what president Biden served him.
Even today with declining mental faculties Biden has kept standing and one step ahead of them all.
Standing to win
Again, I’ll never wade into partisan waters and write this book but love or hate him anyone can appreciate just what it takes to keep standing.
Yes we all accept that different sides of the media and population have different takes on things like January 6 and the Trump trials and all of the propaganda yet looking through the noise to signal you see that no matter how many times his legs are cut out Trump gets back up and keeps standing.
Can you imagine having the will to keep standing with all that he has been through?
The hatred, the public derision, mockery, now taking a bullet?
Would you stand and keep standing?
Keep standing
It’s perhaps sad to think that we Americans haven’t produced a presidential candidate who isn’t 80ish.
But president Biden said it well about a month ago where he welcomed anyone else to come take it from him, which they are perhaps going to do.
A tenet of warfare is that if you try to kill the king you’ve gotta finish him.
Because as these two king-like personalities have shown they will just keep getting back up and forging forward again and again.
100%, absolutely, we can look at what is happening in our politics as a terribly divided and messy phase of American history, but when hasn’t this been the path of our divided and united states?
Our greatest strength is divided united and these old warriors keep showing the world just what it means to be American.
Still standing
If they want to take this away from Biden they’re gonna have to rip it from him, that’s how far he’s pushed to keep standing.
Maybe that’s not a good thing for lots of reasons but it’s a free country and they must put up someone who can beat him.
Can you imagine that for yourself?
You’ve got some 50 years in this game, you’re losing your ability to even construct sentences, your own party and tons of “friends” are coming out publicly screaming for you to stand down, but you still keep standing?
Putting aside politics and whether he can win and the obvious lies and deceit of the political game you’re seeing a masterclass in what it takes to stand and keep standing.
I’m yet to take a bullet and still I know how hard it can be to stand at all.
Stand?
I stopped.
Not just because my back was busted and I couldn’t stand for half a year.
When I saw that I wasn’t able to stand in the right ways for the things that I stand for, I stopped standing publicly.
I don’t yet know whether that was the right move but it was the right move at the time because you must be careful of being put in a position of standing for things that you can’t stand for.
Even writing this is a fail, I just no longer care because it’s what I stand for.
Everyone knows that politics is a game of divide and rule and there’s no middle ground to talk about bringing us together for the best of all.
The things I stand for have cost me just about everything and I see little yield in standing publicly for these things now.
But I want to live in our best world and this demands us all standing more.
You?
You know the phrase that if you don’t stand for something you fall for everything?
That’s what I see so much in our world.
It’s hard for me to talk about these topics without offending people but what I’ve been trying to say for so long is that you see so much wasted potential in our world.
There are so many people I know with so much potential who are playing small and failing to unlock much of their potential at all.
I totally get that it can be near impossible to do anything other than play an obvious role but building our best world demands that we are capable of doing more.
Nearly every person you meet is operating at a tiny fraction of their potential which means that they and humanity can be so much more.
And if more of us were to stand for unlocking our full potential it would massively benefit all.
Standing for all
We are in dangerous times, my friend.
Us Americans have been so divided and polarized that for the first time in decades one of us has been pushed to the point of taking a shot at a president and killing and wounding others and getting killed.
Around the world right now you see calamity that is causing great human suffering and could escalate into collapse and full blown world war.
As presidents Biden and Trump show you now is always the time to take your shot.
And you’ll forever miss if you never take your shot at all.