But we shouldn’t run too deep into the rabbit holes of Trump’s supporters’ logic. He is himself a vortex of instability and violence. As his supporters like to put it, he likes to “stir the pot.” And he does. Attention, in his vision, is the only real currency in business or politics or media. So he keeps upping the ante and pushing new limits to get it, like a heroin addict he has to keep upping the dose to get the same fix. The externalities of that behavior have been lapping up, splashing onto countless other people for almost a decade. Now they’re also splashing up onto him. Trump’s supporters ask rhetorically, if it’s not Biden and Harris who are doing it, are you really saying that Trump is inciting people against himself? The answer is actually yes. He’s now twice almost been consumed by the fires he himself is lighting.
This lines up with people being stunned but largely unsympathetic after the first attempt. It was a suprise, although not an unprecedented one, but also it was totally understandable.
You don’t use violent and hateful rhetoric everyday for a decade to a national audience and expect nothing to ever happen to you, especially in a country with non existent gun laws.
The fact that so far it’s been two nutty Republicans lines up because these are the people he’s been preaching political violence to for 10 years. Of course some of them are going to sour on him, but still believe the violence he preached was the right answer.