When narratives have holes you can drive through, the excuses to keep your base together get cobbled up fast.

Here is a sampling:

What’s wrong here?

Plenty.

First, as someone who went through off-site Secret Service screening at a much larger venue, I know the protocols. They are thorough.

Second, after Trump’s near-miss in Butler, Pennsylvania and Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Orem, Utah, there is no way security wouldn’t be tightened.

We can argue Donald Trump stacked important posts with people with zero experience or expertise, but not in places overseeing security.

They have to convince the flock that it was someone else’s fault.

Are you telling me that Trump, who commandeered the Kennedy Center, who imposed illegal tariffs, who otherwise does whatever he pleases to his own personal benefit in every nook and cranny of the White House to the point of making the House and Senate useless appendages, just simply let this big event he was crowing about slide?

Seriously?

It’s Susie Wiles’ fault! No, it’s not. She’s undergoing cancer treatment long before then. Kash Patel just stood around! Sure, he left his superhero cape in the car, but then couldn’t remember where he parked.

None of these excuses add up. There are only two explanations: incompetence and malice.

But there is much more to dig.

The MAGA flock are being humiliated at every turn of this sad, pathetic story.

Do I believe there is a “conspiracy”? No, in desperate times, there is panic, and some very dumb choices people make to try to salvage a sinking ship. Even people on X, who usually sided with their favorite narcissist, seemed to have had enough, making #staged the top trending hashtag.