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What was the more shocking assassination: Lincoln or Kennedy?

Most shocking assassination

  • Lincoln

    Votes: 29 9.3%

  • Kennedy

    Votes: 283 90.7%
  • Total voters
    312
Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,316
It's strange. Both of them died nearly 100 years apart from each other and both were assassinated. Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald (allegedly, I definitely think there was more than one shooter)

Both of these events shook America to the core, but which was perhaps felt the most?
 
Musubi

Musubi

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,620
Kennedy for sure. There is just so much mystery surrounding the events of that day.
 
Thordinson

Thordinson

Banned
Aug 1, 2018
18,129
Kennedy, I think. It was on film and people love to speculate on it.

Visiting Dealey Plaza and the book depository is a bit surreal.
 
The Unsent

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,439
I'm not an expert, but I imagine Kennedy because of how young he looked, and Lincoln was killed during the civil war period.
 
HMS_Pinafore

HMS_Pinafore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,156
Straya M8
Kinda related, but I only learnt recently that 4 American presidents were assassinated. No one ever talks about the other 2. Poor James A. Garfield and the other guy.
 
BassForever

BassForever

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
29,943
CT
What would the argument even be for Lincoln over Kennedy? Open invitation because this feels like a no brainer for Kennedy.
 
Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
29,954
Kennedy was younger, it wasn't at the end of a war, it was televised, all the conspiracy stuff, etc.

Kennedy's was more shocking but Lincoln's was more impactful, in terms of the political ramifications
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
43,033
Uzumaki Goku said:
Both of these events shook America to the core, but which was perhaps felt the most?
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This is a different question.

If you're asking which shocked the public conscious more, well then it might be Kennedy since it was on film. It can forever be shown to future generations.

If you're asking whose death was felt more by history, then the answer is unquestionably Lincoln.
 
meowdi gras

meowdi gras

Banned
Feb 24, 2018
12,679
After putting down the Confederacy, I kinda feel like Lincoln's assassination was a near-inevitability. Booth merely carried out what millions of aggrieved Southerners (and many Northerners, too) wished to do themselves at that time.

I'm less confident there were a similar number of Americans desiring or planning Kennedy's murder when it happened.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
93,020
here
subpar spatula said:
Not really. Oswald acted alone. And Ruby acted alone. There wasn't a second gunman either. The assassination isn't a mystery. Conspiracy nuts just don't want to believe the government.
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to be fair, the government royally fucked up the investigation and helped create more conspiracies through their own ineptitude

the first major conspiracies surrounding the jfk assassination were about the Warren Commission
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
Member
Oct 26, 2017
22,152
Fat4all said:
to be fair, the government royally fucked up the investigation and helped create more conspiracies through their own ineptitude

the first major conspiracies surrounding the jfk assassination were about the Warren Commission
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Any normal individual would go, "Yep, that's mishandling" and not go, "Maybe... the CIA? The mob? ALIENS! JFK WAS A LIZARD PERSON!"
 
nenned

nenned

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,099
subpar spatula said:
Not really. Oswald acted alone. And Ruby acted alone. There wasn't a second gunman either. The assassination isn't a mystery. Conspiracy nuts just don't want to believe the government.
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This right here. The JFK movie really took some liberties with the facts to tell a story. Unfortunately, some people take this movie to be factually accurate, when it is not. Oswald acted alone.

Remember, John Hinkley basically walked right up to Reagan and shot him while he was president. I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept a lone gunman can be in a position to assassinate the president.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
93,020
here
subpar spatula said:
Any normal individual would go, "Yep, that's mishandling" and not go, "Maybe... the CIA? The mob? ALIENS! JFK WAS A LIZARD PERSON!"
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the problem, again, is the Warren commission left the door open for a lot of things, and they did so because it was an unwieldly mess of an investigation

too little time, too few people working on it, LBJ wanted that shit done asap

lots of language made it in that shouldn't have been there like "Well, the mob did have beef with Kennedy, and there were mob groups in the city at the time, but... ehh..." (paraphrasing)

it created distrust and confusion, which is easy to market and sell as books or tv specials
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
Member
Oct 26, 2017
22,152
nenned said:
This right here. The JFK movie really took some liberties with the facts to tell a story. Unfortunately, some people take this movie to be factually accurate, when it is not. Oswald acted alone.

Remember, John Hinkley basically walked right up to Reagan and shot him while he was president. I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept a lone gunman can be in a position to assassinate the president.
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People just don't realize that protecting someone from everything is a ridiculous feat. This happened in 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_White_House_shooting. It took them 4 days to realize someone did indeed shoot at the white house.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
43,033
subpar spatula said:
Not really. Oswald acted alone. And Ruby acted alone. There wasn't a second gunman either. The assassination isn't a mystery. Conspiracy nuts just don't want to believe the government.
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Yep.

I always enjoy that King of the Hill episode where Dale realizes the copy of Warren Commission report he'd been reading all the years had the map upside down and once he flipped it correctly everything about the assassination made perfect sense. This, of course, causes a complete breakdown of his personality as he becomes a trusting citizen of the government and stops believing in all conspiracies, briefly.

EDIT:

LOL, found it:

 
OP
OP
Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,316
Ponyboy said:
and history has shown Kennedy to be a pretty lousy president. Doesn't change the context of when each was killed.
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Really? I thought Kennedy was one of the good ones.

I remember his brother Robert, watched his speech when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Very famous speech.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

Woke up, got a money tag, swears a lot
Member
Oct 25, 2017
93,020
here
BossAttack said:
Yep.

I always enjoy that King of the Hill episode where Dale realizes the copy of Warren Commission report he'd been reading all the years had the map upside down and once he flipped it correctly everything about the assassination made perfect sense. This, of course, causes a complete breakdown of his personality as he becomes a trusting citizen of the government and stops believing in all conspiracies, briefly.
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dale-gribble-0024.png
 
Ocean Bones

Ocean Bones

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
4,725
Kennedys kinda came from no where, Lincoln was killed during one of the most tremulous times in US history.

So Lincolns death was maybe not as shocking but for sure more devastating and impactful to the future of the country.
 
WedgeX

WedgeX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,215
Lincoln. No President had yet even been assassinated. Plus the US had just won the Civil War and people probably thought it'd be slightly celebratory.

Oh hey we won the Civil War - oops Lincoln got got.
 
bremon

bremon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,899
I imagine Kennedy's was more shocking to the nation but Lincoln's did far more damage to the country in the long run.
 
Lord Moriarty007

Lord Moriarty007

Member
Nov 21, 2017
958
Its JFK because of the mystery behind the whole thing. We never get real motive expansions from Oswald. Lincoln's assassination is a well-documented event. The cabal of the Booths gang was only successful with the killing of Lincoln but failed to kill both Vice President Andrew Johnson(would been a good thing in the long run) and Secretary of State William H. Seward. The sad fact is that the first woman executed by the U.S was Mary Surratt, who's the son John Surratt escaped to Canada and to Europe.
 
tormented

tormented

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
698
Lincoln's may have been an inevitability, but I think the circumstances are pretty shocking. John Wilkes Booth was a very famous actor. Nearly every other wannabe president assassin in U.S. history has been a total loser. Can you imagine a TV star these days successfully scheming to execute Trump? The ramifications would be ridiculous.
 
The Albatross

The Albatross

Member
Oct 25, 2017
39,052
Kennedy by far. Lincoln had been threatened... thousands of times, half of the country seceded from the Union on the day he was inaugurated and entered into open war.

Kennedy's assassination was one of those 9/11 like moments for generations prior to us, where you knew exactly where you were when you heard Kennedy had been shot. My mother still remembers it vividly as a kid.
 

Deleted member 11413

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
22,961
tormented said:
Lincoln's may have been an inevitability, but I think the circumstances are pretty shocking. John Wilkes Booth was a very famous actor. Nearly every other wannabe president assassin in U.S. history has been a total loser. Can you imagine a TV star these days successfully scheming to execute Trump? The ramifications would be ridiculous.
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This is a really good point actually
 
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