The mainstream media is being lambasted for suggesting that the shooter who tried to assassinate Trump was not politically motivated. Such a claim seems absurd—how could shooting a presidential candidate not be politically motivated? The left-wing biased media is desperately trying to find any excuse to not be culpable for their own inflammatory rhetoric, comparing Trump to Hitler all these years and possibly inciting violence against him. Don't get me wrong, I think the media is culpable for their extreme anti-Trump rhetoric, and they are responsible for raising societal tensions and increasing the chances for political violence against Trump and his supporters. However, in this particular case, the mainstream media might be more correct than it would initially seem. I hate to defend them, but the would-be assassin may have been less politically motivated than it appears on the surface.
The Trump shooter was most likely the typical mass shooter who would go on to shoot up his school. It has happened countless times over the previous couple of decades—too many to count—almost none of which have been politically motivated. Instead, what they all point to is the failure of society to care about the plight of young white men, who are constantly blamed for all of the world's problems and receive no sympathy from the public, particularly the mainstream media. So many young men are completely alone with no friends or social support and no religious community to guide them. Affirmative action and DEI are designed to directly oppose them. Their minds are warped by atheism and nihilism, believing nothing matters. I suspect that if and when the full story about Trump's shooter comes out, it'll be discovered that he was not some progressive political ideologue who cared too much, but rather he was some depressed nihilist who didn't care about anything at all. He just wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.
As depressing as it may sound, school shootings have become too rote and common. The shooters themselves are just another footnote in a long line of copycats. None will ever be as famous (or rather infamous) as the Columbine shooters. The Sandy Hook shooter was perhaps the only one who came close, by targeting younger children to be more depraved, horrific, and memorable. But many of the other mass shootings became just another event in a long line of similar shootings—they dominated the headlines for a couple days then disappeared. Arguments about gun laws become more pronounced than the shooter himself. The blur of mass shootings has become too common for any one shooter to truly stand out.
So what does the aspiring mass shooter do to rise above the rest? You go after a more high-profile target. Well, there is no one more high profile than Donald J. Trump. He is literally the most famous person on Earth right now, and quite possibly the most famous person in human history (considering the current population). If the shooter had been successful in blowing Trump's brains out on live TV, he would be remembered forever in infamy as the most notorious assassin ever. It would be a terrible thing he was known for, but a nihilist like him wouldn't care if he was hated so long as he was known at all. Even still, for the failed attempt, he will be remembered for quite some time.
I think school shootings themselves are a sort of social contagion. The Columbine guys started it, and the following wave of school shooters got inspired by the massive amount of media coverage those shootings and the shooters themselves received. This is not necessarily to say that the media is to blame for the school shootings, though they probably could cover the shootings better, in such a way as to not glamorize the shooters. A good start would be to limit publicizing their names and faces (just as I have not used any of the shooters' names in this essay). I am not suggesting to keep their identities secret—the public needs to know who committed these crimes and why—but the names and faces should not be plastered everywhere all over TV and newspapers. Rather, it should be something you have to dig a little for (at least turn the page or scroll to the bottom). The information about their identities should be publicly available, but do not spread their names and faces when not necessary (as in this essay). Try to limit "fame" as an incentive for would-be mass shooters.
We live in an attention economy. Fame and attention are valorized more than anything else, even wealth itself—for with massive attention comes massive wealth. If one has no social charisma or expert skills, there is little hope to gain attention, social capital, and success in life. The easiest way to get attention is to kill a bunch of people. If you hate society for rejecting you all your life and have no other better prospects for the future, why not? (Of course, I'm not condoning this behavior, just trying to get into the head of a mass shooter.)
Adding to the fame factor, the shooting itself was being broadcast live on television and the internet. If the assassin was successful, and Trump's brains got blown out on live TV, that would have likely become the single most-watched video in history. It would be re-watched by people forever. The shooter would have been responsible for the most famous murder and the most viral video in human history.
We have stories about Lincoln being shot and Caesar being stabbed. Even with JFK, the video is old and grainy—plus it was not broadcast at the time when people would have been most eager to watch it—it was only released decades later, mainly watched by those who weren't even alive at the time. But Trump being assassinated would have instantly gone viral and it would have remained viral forever. Instead of the instantly iconic image of Trump raising his fist below the American flag, there would be a screenshot of Trump’s head exploding that would become iconic (a very different timeline). That viral fame had to partially be the motive of the shooter, not merely trying to stop the "next Hitler." Though the media's incessant coverage of Trump, making him out to be the "next Hitler," is also partially what made Trump so famous that he became the most high-profile target for a fame-starved mass shooter.
If indeed mass shootings are a social contagion with subsequent shooters being mimetically inspired by previous shootings, what we could be witnessing now is the spawn of a new type of mass shooter: those that will start to go after high-profile targets. Killing ordinary school children, as depraved as it is, simply doesn't draw as many headlines as it used to (or clicks on the headlines). If school shootings were inspired by previous school shootings (which I think is undoubtedly true, at least to some degree), I think we will see a similar contagion take place in the future. New mass shooters will be inspired by Trump's assassin to go after celebrities, including politicians—but not for political reasons, more for attention—and historical infamy.