M: How many known assassination attempts were there on Barack Obama? Please go online to find out. Then check on Joe Biden too.
G: Here’s the cleanest way to answer this: there is no single official “count” of assassination attempts for modern presidents, because most incidents are plots, threats, or disrupted attempts, not direct attacks. So the best you can do is count known, documented plots/attempts.
Bottom line:
A compiled list of presidential plots includes at least 13 separate incidents targeting Obama between 2008–2023. citeturn0search10
Examples (not exhaustive):
Important nuance:
Interpretation:
Bottom line:
From compiled records and reporting:
Interpretation:
| President | Approx. documented plots/attempts | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Obama | ~13+ | High number of plots; very few got close |
| Biden | ~3–4 | Fewer documented cases so far |
| Both | Many more threats | Most never progress into actionable plots |
So if your mental model is “how many times did someone almost kill them,” the answer is:
The Secret Service treats credible threats and plots almost the same operationally, which means:
If you want, I can narrow it further to only “physically executed attempts” (people actually showing up with weapons), which gives a much smaller—and more comparable—number.
M: Okay, for context, a conversation led to the thought, or rather the query of, Donald has had like three or four major assassination attempts, except that's not the entire set of information that would be necessary for that to be any kind of notable situation. What the conversation led to was the question of whether or not this was a higher count than you would expect, indicating some sort of distinct degree of unpopularity to the point of making some sort of crappy decision like that, or if it's just that Donald always finds some way to yell about how a lone nutcase is somehow tied in to whatever he's been complaining about at the moment. Because my suspicion is that there is no indication that there have been a significant number or a significantly higher number of attempts on Donald, just that he is so loud about it, while in the past it has been thought of as almost a, not an embarrassment, but something that you don't advertise in case it, you know, is the... that one extra bit that makes someone else think, hey, yeah, that's right, I wanted to try that too.
G: Your instinct is basically right: the raw number by itself doesn’t mean much, and it’s very easy to misread it without context.
Let’s ground it first.
There have been a few high-profile, widely reported incidents:
That lands you roughly in the “3–4 notable incidents” range, depending on how strict you are about what counts as an “attempt.”
Not really.
So purely on numbers:
There is no clear signal that Trump has faced an unusually high number of attempts.
This is where your second hypothesis matters more than the numbers.
Trump tends to:
Historically, presidents:
So you’re comparing:
That alone skews perception.
So modern attempts feel:
People casually lump together:
into “assassination attempts,” even though those are very different tiers of seriousness.
If you’re trying to read meaning into it, the real drivers are:
Not:
There’s a copycat / contagion effect around high-profile violence.
Which means:
This is why institutions traditionally kept it quiet.
What’s different isn’t the frequency—it’s the volume and framing of the narrative around it.
M: See, just from your start, that's my point. The reason it's high profile is partly because it keeps happening right in front of cameras, but also because afterwards, he amplifies it into the high profile level thing. I mean, people actually took shots at the White House and everyone has forgotten it, including me. Someone rammed a truck at the White House and everyone has forgotten because there was no attempt to stick it into the public consciousness as some sort of incident that could be used for leverage. Stupid leverage on occasion, such as saying that because somewhere else was vulnerable, therefore people should pay twice as much as the original estimate that was supposed to be a private donation in order to build a place that Donald can spend the next couple years, which won't even fucking happen in that amount of time. And make sure you check online for your information, because some of that stuff does not sound like you've got a citation for it.
G: You’re not off base—and the concrete example you brought up actually proves your point more than it undermines it.
In May 2023, a man deliberately rammed a rented truck into White House security barriers. citeturn0search1
So objectively:
This does qualify as a real plot with violent intent, not just random noise.
And yet…
You’re right:
Most people barely remember it.
Compare two categories:
The truck incident never crossed from intent →
proximity.
That alone dramatically lowers its staying power.
Same pattern with older incidents:
Because:
You’re right that there’s a difference in how these get used.
Historically:
With entity["politician","Donald Trump","45th U.S. President"]:
That doesn’t mean they’re fake.
It means:
They’re kept alive in public memory instead of allowed to decay.
Even without Trump:
The 2024 rally shooting attempt:
That automatically:
locks it into collective memory in a way a perimeter crash never will
You’re noticing a real distortion:
People casually equate:
as if they’re all the same thing.
They’re not.
A cleaner hierarchy looks like:
Most incidents—including the truck crash—sit in #2 or #3, not #1.
“Does the number indicate unusual unpopularity or something unique?”
No.
What the evidence actually supports is:
So the signal you’re picking up isn’t:
“more attempts”
It’s:
different treatment of the same underlying phenomenon
M: What would you call... Something... Okay, I'm trying to find a terminology here. What would you call it when something is not organized enough to be a conspiracy, but seems to be within a group at least, just kind of the way that everyone thinks to the point that from the outside, it looks like there's some sort of collusion involved, when really it's just everyone seeming to follow more or less the same thought process. I'm trying to think of a non-volatile example. Okay, this isn't a perfect one, but say hypothetically, that someone who doesn't know anything about America, watched... Including the name of the... That someone who didn't know anything about America, including the name of the restaurant they were at, was at a California pizza kitchen or whatever it's called, and started to realize that despite the menu having all kinds of food on it, that a disproportionate number of people were ordering pizza. With just that observation, they might suspect that there's some sort of conspiracy, when in fact, it's more of just everyone going in there thinking, I went to a place named pizza. I'm probably going to go with something pizza-related unless there's a really good reason. What would you call that situation where the conspiracy, or rather the idea that it's a conspiracy is understandable, but in truth, it's more of simply a contextual likelihood due to the population involved.
G: You’re circling a real phenomenon, and there isn’t just one term for it—there are a few overlapping ones depending on what aspect you want to emphasize. I’ll give you the cleanest fits first, then sharper variants.
People independently arrive at the same action or conclusion because they’re operating under the same incentives, information, or context.
Your pizza example fits this almost perfectly.
The behavior isn’t caused by people influencing each other—it’s caused by a shared underlying factor.
This is the most precise “technical” description of what’s happening.
From the outside, it looks like people are working together, but they’re not.
This describes the observer error, not the behavior itself.
Group-level patterns arise from many individuals following simple rules or instincts.
This is the broader systems-level version of what you’re describing.
People lean toward what seems expected or typical for that environment.
This adds a feedback loop to your scenario.
If you want a phrase specifically for:
“It looks coordinated enough that a conspiracy explanation feels plausible”
You’re basically describing:
That’s not a formal textbook term, but it’s a very accurate plain-language label.
What you’re describing is:
Independent decisions converging due to shared context, producing a pattern that resembles coordination.
There’s a spectrum here:
People often collapse all three into “conspiracy,” which is why this confusion happens so easily.
If you want a single phrase that carries most of what you’re aiming at without sounding academic:
“Convergent behavior driven by shared context.”
M: Okay, yeah, thank you. Just the description convergent behavior was enough to start settling it down. Like taking it away from the violent stuff but keeping it political. It's like how Donald's administration keeps being stupid about how it talks about protests and things like that, because they keep calling it some form of, like, conspiracy and using that terminology. When really, it's not people... It's not conspiring. It's multiple people independently going through the same thought process of, God, this sucks, what can I do? I need to show it. Hey, look, we can go here. Terminology really helps with how you think about things, or it can fuck it up if it's the wrong words. It's like if everyone in a relatively small town was in the mood to go out and enjoy the weather and some live music. That's not the same thing as saying there is a conspiracy to support a music festival.
G: You’ve landed on the right frame, and the terminology shift you made is doing real work.
What you’re describing is exactly the difference between:
When those get blurred, interpretation goes off the rails.
In many protest situations, what you actually have is:
That naturally produces:
lots of people doing the same thing at the same time
without needing a central organizer.
That’s classic convergence, not conspiracy.
There’s a useful concept that sharpens this further:
These are obvious “default” choices people gravitate toward without coordination.
Examples:
So even without talking to each other, people cluster in the same place, which from the outside can look organized.
There are a few reasons this keeps happening:
Humans see:
synchronized behavior
and instinctively infer: someone must be directing it
That’s a cognitive bias, not evidence.
Calling something a “conspiracy” or “organized effort”:
Whereas “a lot of people independently reacting” is:
This part matters:
So you often get a hybrid:
a small amount of coordination sitting on top of a much larger layer of convergence
People then misattribute the whole thing to the smaller, visible organized part.
“People want music + good weather → they show up”
That creates:
From the outside, it can look like:
“someone must have planned this turnout”
But really it’s:
shared conditions + predictable human response
If you want a quick mental filter:
Most real-world mass behavior sits much closer to the second than people think.
Even without coordination, convergence can still:
So people aren’t wrong to treat it as significant—
they’re just often wrong about why it’s happening.
You’re basically correcting a category error:
Mistaking independent alignment under shared conditions
for
intentional coordination
And yeah—once you’ve got the right term, the whole thing stops looking mysterious and starts looking… predictable.
M: Okay, now, what would it be called if you were halfway between the conspiracy-level thing and that convergent behavior idea? Like, if there are a couple people with a definite end goal and plan, but it relies in execution more on that convergent thinking or the attitude of a certain population and being able to read with high degree of accuracy what they are likely to do in a certain situation, whether it's reacting to your plan or, depending on the situation, perhaps even getting involved with it without actually being part of the plan.
G: You’re describing a real middle zone, and there are a few terms that map onto it. None are perfect alone, but together they triangulate it cleanly.
A small group sets conditions or a trigger, then relies on predictable crowd behavior to do most of the work.
This is basically your idea in one phrase.
A planned spark that produces a largely unplanned but predictable spread.
Emphasizes: trigger + environment
A smaller group shapes what people are thinking about, not what they explicitly do.
Emphasizes: influence without direct coordination
Define a situation in a way that nudges people toward a predictable response.
Emphasizes: guiding interpretation
This is the manipulative version:
Not always applicable, but sits in the same space.
Think of three levels:
Pure convergence
Catalyzed / orchestrated convergence ← your case
Full coordination (conspiracy)
It leverages something simple:
Human behavior is predictable enough that you don’t need full control to get a desired outcome.
So instead of coordinating everyone, you:
There are two versions of this middle zone:
Both look similar from the outside, but the second is more deliberate and closer to manipulation.
The most direct way to say what you mean:
A small amount of planning that relies on large-scale predictable human reactions to achieve its effect.
If you want a short label that captures it well:
Orchestrated convergence or catalyzed emergence.
M: Okay, let's use a hypothetical, not something that I believe is necessarily happening, but probably has been used once or twice. Sorry, I'm rambling there. So, what would you call like an FBI or CIA kind of thing where there might be one or two main people who know the entirety of what's going on, who then use either their position or vagueness or something vague that sounds specific in order to incorporate other people in a way that, you know, would be conspiratorial if they knew the entire state of the thing, but which knowing only what they do seems legal and legitimate, if kind of, you know, arguable in terms of whether it should be done or not by the American people. Like, for example, and this one is purely hypothetical, like if, for example, you could show that three people definitely, I don't know, started Vietnam in a desire to take over drug operations there while convincing everyone else that it was for the good of the American people or something, even if the American people didn't agree.
G: You’re now describing something more intentional and hierarchical than the earlier “convergent behavior” idea. There are established ways to name this pattern, depending on which aspect you want to emphasize.
A small number of people understand the full plan, while everyone else:
This is standard in intelligence/military contexts.
It’s not inherently illegal—it’s how sensitive operations are often
structured.
Higher-level actors:
So subordinates act in ways that:
People are given a stated reason that is:
They’re not necessarily “in on it”—they’re operating under a constructed narrative.
This is the more analytical way to describe what you’re getting at.
Associated with entity["people","Noam Chomsky","linguist and political analyst"]
(Not a strict textbook term, but useful shorthand)
What you described would be framed as:
That combination is what creates:
participation that feels legitimate locally but contributes to something different globally
There’s a spectrum:
Your example sits toward #3.
The tightest way to describe your scenario:
A compartmentalized operation using pretext and plausible deniability to guide partially informed participants toward a concealed objective.
That captures the structure without jumping straight to “conspiracy,” while still acknowledging intentional design.