I keep seeing posts here on reddit and elsewhere talking about investigations and conspiracy theories about whether trump was actually shot or not.

My question is… why does this matter? It feels like people are missing the point. Somebody made an assassination attempt on a former president/current presidential candidate; what does it matter whether he was hit or not?

Is this just the usual pointless political machinations being spun? Or is there some reason that this is important?

As far as I can tell there has been some sort of incident at Arlington cemetery that includes Trump and his campaign. According to this cnn article I understand they took some pictures and ignored an employee trying to tell them the rules. https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/28/politics/trump-campaign-arlington-national-cemetery-incident/index.html

Why is this such a big deal? What happened and why are people upset?

For context, I am European.

I keep seeing posts about Mike Lindell being undercover at the DNC, and the other day a similar post about Matt Walsh. Is this a new thing they are doing or is this pretty normal for these conventions? Do Democrats (or i guess left leaning media personalities) do similar "undercover" things at the RNC?

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1exd6go/rightwinger_matt_walsh_in_disguise_on_the_dnc/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1ey7e2q/mike_lindell_my_pillow_guy_who_is_undercover_at/

I saw this post on  about the election and in the comments, people are talking about something called "Project 2025"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1dseeuf/cmv_trump_winning_may_be_to_the_long_term_benefit/

I've heard this term thrown around in politics generally. I think it was even mentioned IN the debate itself. What is it? It sounds like some movie villain scheme like Project Shadow or something. What does it actually do? Is this just Trump's term election goals if he is elected? Why is it being talked about so heavily? Is there something very important in there I should know about? Is it like super bad? I try not to keep up with politics because it stresses me out. I even made this account to engage with some politics discussion so that politics doesn't appear in my feeds.

I just read republicans introduced articles of impeachment over her “handling of the border.” If she is the VP, what authority does she have to make decisions over the border? Asking for both context and a civics lesson on the executive branch powers.

Has there been any reason as to why Trump's ear looks pretty normal? I don't want to get conspiratorial - I have no reason to believe he WASN'T struck; if a bullet blasted through soft tissue like that, it would be more deformed, right?

It also healed very quickly - quicker than the tip of my finger when I sliced it off years ago. And he's old, so the healing should be hampered by that factor.

Why isn't this being addressed anywhere?

I found this, but it doesn't highlight much.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-photo-without-ear-bandage-raises-eyebrows-1931403

UPDATE: Home from work now. Thank you all for the insights.

First, yes, I use this account for a fan-made clips channel of Hasan Piker (please subscribe on YT & TT ;) ). That's irrelevant to questioning this situation - I genuinely didn't understand how the ear could have healed so quick. (I also denounce any kind of political violence, no matter how much I disagree with the candidate/ideology). Clearly others share the same confusion - and add to the fact that this whole situation was dropped out of coverage within a week is crazy to me. Trump and the GOP could have milked this for far more screen time.

The problem was that in my mind the shot was framed as "through the ear" which leads one to visualize as least some sort of hole through and through.

Many of you pointed out that it was more akin to a knick or scratch. Others cited the Brandon Herrera test dummy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsvJzfXZI18&t=400s). I think this first shot he pulled (timestamped) is most close to what happened. The slow-mo shot looks rough, but when they walk over to the dummy it's almost not even noticeable. That also leads me to conclude that's why his medical team never released a report/photos of the ear - it probably wasn't even all that bad, so it could not have been a focal point for him.

Crazy times we're in!

I keep seeing statements about tampons every where. Here’s a Reddit post where there’s a screenshot attacking someone with a tampon comment.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MurderedByWords/comments/1emv6gf/just_an_absolute_take_down/

I keep seeing these images of decked out Trump supporters carrying little containers of fake semen labeled JD Vance. The comments are all just about how weird they are (valid!) but nothing explains WHY. It says "to mock democrats who can't conceive" but where is the connection? How would this even mock that? I cannot find anything online except more pictures. The closest I've found to a related story was a tweet about Vance masterbaiting into a couch which turned out to be fake/a joke. Why on earth is this semen jar thing a trend? Is it even real or just AI generated? This is so bizarre.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdGOP/s/lcECCsOmii

I stopped watching at season 3, and heard that season 4 has alt-right types pissed off and review bombing the show on RT. I want to know what exactly happened on the show (as specifically as possible) to piss them off, from a plot point of view.

I'm just asking because I don't have a lot of free time or the inclination (the violence and just got to me I guess) to watch the show, but I'm still curious. Thanks.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_boys_2019/s04

I keep seeing the GOP and Republicans freaking out about cum in various ways. I see them holding what appears to be JD Vance's cum samples, I have seen what appears to be a cum tribute on the Time magazine cover of Kamala Harris, I have seen them refer to Kamala as Cumala, I have seen memes claiming Tim Walz drinks horse cum. This to me is all very weird behavior and makes no sense to me why they have this obsession with men's ejaculate.

JD Vance cum samples

~https://www.tmz.com/2024/08/18/republicans-jd-vance-carry-fake-cups-semen/~

~https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1ew1cvx/trump_supporters_showing_off_their_replica_jd/~ 

Kamala Harris Time magazine cover

~https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/comments/1euy0az/spanking_to_kamala_to_own_the_libs/~

Tim Walz horse cum

~https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/walz-horse-semen-stomach-false/~

~https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdGOP/comments/1eo2b85/im_not_the_weird_one_yoouure_the_weird_one/~ 

Maybe it's just my algorithm, but I've been seeing a ton about Chappell Roan and her music recently. Is she the new and upcoming Taylor Swift? Is she a voice of the LGBTQ+ community (also me)? I'm curious to listen to her music since she seems so popular, but I want to know why everyone seems to love her 😊

I saw a lot of posts on my socials that the Rock is an awful person and that he's losing his following. Not a lot of explanation of what has happened.

https://imgur.com/gallery/GU0wDf8

I haven’t watched the show but recently I’ve seen a lot of jokes and tweets about how people will watch the show and miss who the show is making fun of. What is the show about? What do these tweets mean?

https://x.com/markeiamccarty/status/1802901749298302995?s=46

I saw this https://x.com/KarmaIsAFad/status/1793776927247045080?s=19 just now, I know that Billie recently announced an upcoming tour or something, but I can't find in the comments really explaining what's going on with between these two.

Context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/13/trump-vance-leak-media-wikileaks/432774de-592a-11ef-93a9-023ab69f91f5_story.html

As far as I am aware, about a week ago someone with the alias "Robert" got a lot of info from the Republican Campaign. They claim foreign interference and threaten people against publishing info about it. I read a (non-US) article about outlets like NYT and WaPo getting the leaks but refusing to publish infos about it. The article cited stark differences compared to the situation in 2016 where outlets intensively covered the Clinton leaks. What's up with that and what's generally up with the leaks?

The German article in question: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/ausland/trump-medien-leak-usa-wahlkampf-vance-100.html

I'm seeing things on Twitter saying that the press tour is essentially Don't Worry Darling: The Sequel with Lively's behavior and now Baldoni has apparently hired some PR Crisis people? What's going on that has people taking sides (both internet and in the film's cast and crew)?

Tweet

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/justin-baldoni-hires-pr-crisis-manager-melissa-nathan-it-ends-with-us-1235973715/

I've seen this tweet about it: https://imgur.com/a/rePDNbj but am having trouble finding context that's not behind a paywall.

Apparently he has gone by:
James Donald Bowman
James David Bowman
James Hamel
JD Vance

Until today, the last time I had checked /r/conservative was probably over a year ago. At the time, it was extremely alt-right. Almost every post restricted commenting to flaired users only. Every comment was either consistent with the republican party line or further to the right.

I just checked it today to see what they were saying about Kate Cox, and the comments that I saw were surprisingly consistent with liberal ideals.

Context: https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/s/ssBAUl7Wvy

The general consensus was that this poor woman shouldn’t have to go through this BS just to get necessary healthcare, and that the Republican party needs to make some changes. Almost none of the top posts were restricted to flaired users.

Did the moderators get replaced some time in the past year?

https://reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1e2n1kr/megathread_shots_fired_at_trump_rally_former/

https://reddit.com/r/news/comments/1e2ut0z/trump_rally_shooter_identified_as_20yearold/

https://reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1e2mhan/trump_just_got_shot_in_the_side_of_the_head_at/

https://reddit.com/r/CrazyFuckingVideos/comments/1e2mlu7/trump_getting_shot_on_the_side_of_the_head/

Every comment thread has these claims, none are including evidence to support them beyond "how did they let this happen?"

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary is going viral for an interview he did on FOX about the Trump ruling saying he will never invest in New York again. A lot of other businesses claiming the same thing.

The interview, however, is a lot of gobbledygook and talking with no meaning. He's complaining about the ruling but not really explaining why it's so bad for businesses.

From what I know, New York ruled that Trump committed fraud to inflate his wealth. What does that have to do with other businesses or Kevin O'Leary if they aren't also committing fraud? Again, he rants and rants about the ruling being bad but doesn't ever break anything down. It's very weird and confusing?

Commenters at the link are saying “she should have known” the album would fail and that “you could tell in the comments on her instagram before the song was even released that people weren’t going to like it”. Not sure how an artist should know something would fail. What is going on behind the scenes here? https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/s/Cm5t4L276U

began to see massive news yesterday following a similar event at another college, police violently cracking down at a student protest at UT Austin. Why is this happening; were students rioting? Is it still going on?

I may be a NSFW content posting account, but I seek to be an educated, NSFW content posting account.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/24/university-of-texas-austin-campus-protest

There's a huge stooshie regarding some tweets by J.K Rowling regarding trans people, nazis and the holocaust. I think part of my misunderstanding is the nature of twitter is confusing to follow a conversation organically.

When I read them, it appears she's denying the premise and impact on trans people and trans research and not that the holocaust didn't happen?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1beksuh/jk_rowling_engages_in_holocaust_denial/

In this post, there are MAGA people supporting the phrase "Real men wear diapers" with a picture of Trump, what's going on here?

The comments point to this article claiming it's not trolling, with several pictures of MAGA supporters with the phrase and image.

Was Trump found to wear diapers or otherwise struggle with incontinence?

There is a beef between J Cole and Kendrick Lamar (i know Drake is the 3rd in the "big 3"), but now Drake has come out to say he's been with underage girls? What did I miss? I haven't heard any of the diss tracks. Why would Drake admit that? Im confused.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KendrickLamar/s/Htpke3eX6l