We are all the crowd in the bleachers

Community vibe check and a novelist's many reactions to the Trump assassination attempt

Folks, how are you feeling today? The world seems to be swirling faster than usual. Events are high drama and historical. This will not be an overly political post, but by now, I’m sure you’ve seen the iconic footage and photos of Trump looking like a revolutionary war painting with his bloody ear, bodyguards, and triumphant fist pump.

And while I can’t truly imagine the trauma of being in the bleachers at this tragic event, I sense that the chaos and confusion of the crowd reflects how many of us feel watching this year’s election season unfold.

The great American political novel is writing itself in real time.

The soon to be iconic photo used in this collage that I made was taken by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Evan Vucci.

Conversely, I try to avoid writing about partisan politics in this newsletter, but sometimes current events rattle me to the point that I feel compelled to comment. The Trump rally shooting and assassination attempt is one of these times. The October 7th massacre and the start of the war between Israel and Hamas was another.¹

Disaster news is gripping and can swiftly suck us down rabbit holes and take us to places where we don’t belong, where we have no business. I want to avoid that, so I’m steering clear of any internet theories as to what prompted this act of public violence. I’m not a political analyst, a secret service official, or a person attending the rally, nor am I a journalist, so I’m going to keep this commentary to my own relevant lens: novelist, sci-fi reader, neurodivergent thinker, mother, Appalachian mythical futurist, and former U.S. Diplomat.²

I invite you to leave comments from your own unique perspectives and backgrounds.

I feel bad for all involved in the tragedy of the Trump assassination attempt, for the victims in the crowd, for Trump and his family, and I feel bad for the killer and his mother, family, teachers, peers, and friends (if he had any) as well, but as a novelist, my brain is also rabid for progress and change and imagination, so when major plot twists happen, or even events we saw coming, but are no less shocking, my mind automatically starts spewing out rounds and rounds of new ideas, of headlines, stories, and predictions.

I’m going to share these ideas in rapid, unpolished succession. Each of the headlines below could be an essay on their own. Feel free to expound on any that capture your attention. Let’s use our imagination together to process what has occurred and to imagine a better future.

If Ray Kurzweil was in charge of presidential safety

Book cover of The Singularity is Nearer When We Merge with AI by Ray Kurzweil

I’ve been reading Ray Kurzweil’s new book, The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge with AI, and I can’t help but imagine what a presidential rally or security detail might look like in the future if Ray Kurzweil’s predictions come true. Some ideas:

• We still have a president, but they are merely the human figurehead of a VALIS like AI system with God-powers and intelligence who rules benevolently in the best interest of everyone in line with our constitution, which may or may not be rewritten by the AI.

• We no longer have a president and are governed by a decentralized, pluralized AI system that makes decisions based on weighted input from experts and affected parties.

• The President only appears as a hologram at events for his own safety.

• The President holds all his events in VR for everyone’s safety.

• The President livestreams everything per public pressure for increased transparency.

• The President’s Secret Service men are autonomous robots or remote controlled humanoid robots.

• The President always speaks in public surrounded by a clear, bulletproof box that operates like a force-field using invisible microparticles and nanobots.

• Insect-sized networked AI drones monitor event security and quickly neutralize human threats with their poison-filled stingers.

• Ai-powered video surveillance drones more closely monitor all events for threats.

• All the guns of the world are networked smart objects linked to their owners and the various law enforcement agencies, so that the agency can instantly detect and geotrack the location of all guns and make sure no one has unauthorized guns near crowds, political events, or the president.

  • Yes, there will be illegal guns produced to evade tracking, but this would at least be a start in deterring random men from shooting people. I honestly don’t know why we don’t already do this! I see no reason not to.

The 2000s dream of citizen journalism is realized, but we failed to imagine the outcome

A screen capture from Ushahidi, an early platform for citizen journalism funded in part by the US State Dept

• Back in the 2000s, when I lived in Uganda and Cameroon, at the dawn of cellphones and smart phones, there was a lot of chatter amongst journalists and public officials alike for the need for citizen journalism. People created networks for this on early platforms like LiveJournal, Ushadidi, Groundviews, Global Voices, and Blogger. State Dept Public Affairs Officers waxed poetically about giving every African a camera phone to fight corruption and share information on everything from crop prices to voter fraud. The U.S. Government funded platforms to share citizen journalism news reports, including some of the platforms mentioned above.

• We imagined the Arab Spring and believed cellphones would lead to transparent government and freedom from misinformation and propaganda, freedom from dictatorships controlling journalists with violence because there would be too many journalists to control.

• Well folks, this dream of citizen journalism has come true. It’s fully realized. I saw it unfold around the Trump shooting. Rapid situational reports and loads of videos and livestreams that we could fathom 20 years ago. Tons and tons of images and videos instantly of the event and even the bullet whizzing through the air. However, the freedom-related outcomes we imagined haven’t fully materialized. There is more propaganda and misinformation than ever before and dictators are still using violence to silence citizens and reporters.

• I don’t think we ever imagined this revolution in citizen journalism would be so dystopian or Black Mirror. We forgot that people would try to manipulate every bit of the footage or film themselves pretending to be someone else. We didn’t think about deep fakes. We never imagined X or the echo chambers of conspiracy theorists or the Andrew Tates of the world.

• Still, I think it’s better to have this technology than to not have it, and efforts like Community Notes are a good start to ensuring the accuracy of citizen-driven news.

What are the statistical chances of a “prophet” predicting this assassination attempt?

Screen capture from the link below of Youtuber Prophet Brandon Briggs

• A “prophet” predicted the assassination attempt on Trump during a recent solar eclipse, including a bullet shot at his ear: Brandon Bible Prophet Predicts Trump Assassination Attempt Complete with Bullet Whizzing by ear.

• There must be a statistical likelihood of someone making this prediction. Maybe someone better at math can calculate it for me.

• Full video linked here.

• He also talks about extremely hot summer temperatures, high-powered tornados, and “microbursts” of 150 mph sudden winds.

• I’m personally agnostic when it comes to psychics and prophecies. I think it’s unlikely, but who really knows?

• He’s an entertaining storyteller.

If the Trump Rally Shooting was a Novel or Movie

• What characters would you focus on?

• What motivation would you give the shooter?

• Would there be an illuminati-type network behind the crime?

• Who would save the day? Or would anyone?

• What would be the surprise twists?

• If we had a coup, who would lead it?

• What if Stephen King was writing it? Or Margaret Atwood?

Using AI to Predict the Future by Pretending it’s a Novel

• Steps:

  • Tell ChatGPT you’re writing a novel with the following features and then put in the events and characters of real life politics, but disguise the names.

  • Ask it to generate 20 ideas about what happens next.

You know that feeling when you’re waiting on Grandpa to die?

Collage by Charlotte Dune

• Have you ever been sort of waiting for a relative to die? Like you know it’s coming and it could happen any day now, but sometimes it takes much longer than you expect?

• It’s not like you want them to die, you just feel like it’s going to happen soon and that keeps you on edge.

• I’ve sort of been feeling this way about Trump and Biden since Covid. All through Covid, I kept thinking one of them was going to die. I imagined the news headlines. President X Dies of Covid.

• Now, I have the same feeling. I feel like either of them could die any day now.

• I question why we would want our leader to generate this feeling in us?

• The most common age for a man to die in America is 73 years old.

• The most common cause of death for men in their 70s is heart disease, which accounts for a third of all deaths in men over 70. ³

• Trump is 78.

• Biden is 81.

• Are you feeling this emotion too? The anxiety and waiting on edge for Grandpa to die feeling? The sense that it could suddenly happen at any moment?

• I also kind of feel this way about our government structure in general.

More Ideas as Headlines

- Real Life Politics and Photographers are More Exciting than the A24 Movie Civil War

- Watching the men around me get alt-right radicalized in real time

- Why Don’t We Want Younger People in Charge?

- What Happens Next in America? And Will We Ever Get a GenX President?

Now You

I feel the vibes in this chaotic and confused crowd.

How are you feeling after the tumultuous events in America? What are you thinking?

For older people, how did you feel during prior presidential assassination attempts?

Is this a big deal for you? Will you remember where you were when you got the news, like 9/11 or the moon landing? Or not really?

Please share your thoughts in the comments, or in video or photo form in the Chat for this Substack, which you can find online or in the Substack mobile app. Anyone subscribed can post to the chat.

1. There were a lot of comments on this post before and weirdly they are now removed. Not sure if this is a glitch in the Substack matrix or what…

2. Folks are often shocked to discover that I worked for the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service. I did it for more than 10 years, then became very disillusioned and quit.

3. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/health/longevity/average-age-of-death/