J Morley: Echoes of '63: The Trauma of Assassination Revisited

[Benjamin Cole]

The Latest From JFK Facts

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Echoes of '63: The Trauma of Assassination Revisited

The shooting in Pennsylvania triggers collective memory of JFK's death.

JEFFERSON MORLEY JUL 14

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The thrill of a presidential appearance, the sunny day, the admiring crowd, the friendly faces, the sound of gunfire, the flinching leader, the spectators diving for cover, the Secret Service agents swarming. 

The template for the American assassination attempts was imprinted in the American imagination by Abraham Zapruder’s home movie of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, which was first broadcast in 1975, 12 years after the crime. 

The footage of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, 2024 was broadcast within minutes of the shooting. Luckily, the bullet missed the candidate by inches and we were spared what Zapruder’s film captured: murder. A bystander was killed and the bloodied Trump was hustled to safety while shouting “Fight, fight, fight” to his followers. 

But the cultural reflexes engrained by the trauma of November 22 and the ensuing governmental coverup have been unleashed by the near-miss of July 13: deep suspicion of the authorities, distrust of democratic institutions, fear of a high-level plotters, and the sense of things falling apart, all turbocharged by a social media information system unknown in the 1960s and 1970s.

Liberal commentators who likened Trump’s candidacy to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power expressed gratitude for his safety, while conservative commentators who praised January 6 insurrectionists as “hostages” and ignored Trump’s call for the death of Gen. Mark Milley blasted liberals for condoning hateful rhetoric. And the gunman, shot dead at the scene, apparently fired an AR-15 which Trump once said should be banned but more recently said should not.

Fear of fascism feeds the fear of liberalism, which discredits both. Rage, incoherence, and fear vie with sorrow, pity, and sympathy in a country that has a soul-deadening tolerance for gun violence found only by nations engaged in civil war.

What Americans learned over the years after November 22, 1963 was that the government could not be trusted and the CIA could not be held accountable. The lesson stuck. One proliferating meme today shows Trump transposed to JFK’s limousine on November 22 with the caption, “Not Today Deep State.” 

Which is not to say the gunman acted at anyone’s behest. We don’t know much about Thomas Crooks save that he is dead. What is obvious is that the trust necessary for democratic politics is hard to find, at least on social media, the weathervane of our politics.

Can trust be restored? 

“We need to take a step back,” said independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. who has blamed the CIA for his uncle’s murder. "I went through this with my own family ... I know the implications that this has for our country probably as well as anybody does.”

“When my uncle was ill in 1963, there was this kind of division again. There was this kind of hatred when my father was ill. It was in the midst of a time that was probably the most divisive in American history at that time since the American Civil War, and we're back into that kind of milieu today. We all need to take responsibility for it. When we post something that is mean-spirited, that is condemnatory, that is poisonous towards somebody else, we're contributing to this atmosphere of violence.”

“We’re all Americans,” Kennedy says. “We’re better than this.” 

That’s an optimistic thought. Another thought is, “This is exactly who we are. This is what we have been becoming since 1963.”

 

[Cliff Varnell]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Which is not to say the gunman acted at anyone’s behest. We don’t know much about Thomas Crooks save that he is dead.

And he was the type of kid who'd wear a super patriotic T-shirt for a high school yearbook photo, registered as a Republican when he turned 18, sat in the front row of his honors economics class, and wore the gear of a right-wing gun website to the shooting.  Trump has spent nine years spewing violent, divisive hate speech and he doesn't bear a degree of responsibility for this?

[Benjamin Cole]

2 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

And he was the type of kid who'd wear a super patriotic T-shirt for a high school yearbook photo, registered as a Republican when he turned 18, sat in the front row of his honors economics class, and wore the gear of a right-wing gun website to the shooting.  Trump has spent nine years spewing violent, divisive hate speech and he doesn't bear a degree of responsibility for this?

In fairness to Morley, there may be more to his post, but I am not a subscriber, and I only get what comes in my e-mail. 

Morley may address some of the concerns you raise. 

The reason for my starting this thread was that Morley is one of dons of the JFK/RFK1A research community, and the image he presented, of Trump in the Dallas limo, c. 1963. 

After the WC "investigation" and other public policy disasters, we are nation without much faith in government.

In the JFK/RFK1A research community, this is the news and political environment we live in.

Some fraction of the public is already positing the Trump shooting was a Deep State hatchet-job attempt. 

Why? In part because of the WC lies, and the ongoing snuff job on the JFK Records Act.