It has been nearly two months since presidential candidate Donald Trump dodged a bullet, for real. I’m no conspiracy theorist, and I’m not about to start now, but it strikes me that, as a nation, we seem far too inclined to dismiss what happened that day as a lucky miss and leave it at that.

The glaring fact: A premeditated and surprisingly well-executed assassination attempt very nearly murdered — gruesomely and on live TV — the former U.S. president, and the shooter took one life and left two others badly wounded. Surely, to preclude recurrence, we must understand both the particulars and the broader context of that horrendous event.

At this point, there are more questions than answers and remarkably little curiosity. Among the loose ends:

• The shooter was a 20-year-old male named Thomas Matthew Crooks. He had no criminal record, and his motivation remains unknown. It could be that he was just a dangerously mixed-up young man wrestling with his own demons, perhaps aspiring to be his generation’s Lee Harvey Oswald. Or maybe there was something much deeper…

• So far, the FBI has found no evidence of accomplices. But Crooks’s preparation was focused and meticulous: scouting Trump’s rally venue, developing his shooting skills, purchasing ammunition, assembling two explosive devices, acquiring a range finder, gaining entry with his weapon into the rally, and climbing to his rooftop perch and setting up for the shoot — all in all, a lot for a one-man job.

• Meanwhile, on the U.S. Secret Service side, there were shocking inadequacies in the planning, preventive, and protective measures essential to ensuring Trump’s safety. Subsequent congressional inquiries have teased out damning details, such as staffing shortages, failure to surveil the nearby rooftop used by the shooter, and completely ineffective coordination and communication between federal and local authorities. Apparently, reported observations by rally attendees of a “man with a gun” on the nearby rooftop either were never passed on or were actively ignored by Secret Service personnel.

• Perhaps the most important contributing factor is that Crooks’s target, Donald Trump, is among the most hated men on the planet, constantly reviled by political opponents and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). In my opinion, the level of derision of the former U.S. president that is expressed regularly by influential voices in media and government — including that of the current president of the United States — is appalling.

How might these pieces fit together?

Certainly, the assassination attempt COULD fit the default explanation: Secret Service negligence makes it possible for the amateur assailant to come far too close to success in achieving his objective, but he is ultimately stymied by Lady Luck — Trump’s extraordinarily fortuitous last-moment head turn. On that basis, outrage over the security lapses is appropriate. U.S. Secret Service heads should roll (and they have). But is that the whole story?

The Trump assassination attempt COULD be far more insidious, a well-planned mission by hostile powers to take out an American leader whom they consider a threat. Reportedly, however, FBI investigators have thus far found no evidence of foreign involvement. But far worse, COULD it have been an inside job? A plot by political extremists, possibly including elements of our own government, to eliminate the presidential candidate whom they consider to be their single greatest political threat and/or threat to our nation’s future?

Far-fetched as that may seem, keep in mind the actions taken already (and continuing today) by the incumbent administration to prevent a Trump election: engaging our own legal system to indict and convict him of various civil and criminal allegations to bankrupt him, to jail him if possible, to interfere with his campaign activities, and to keep him off the ballot in several states. These are extraordinary and unprecedented measures, supposedly motivated by the bizarre notion that, once elected, the former president would become a dictator and destroy our nation. In that context, even more extreme measures seem not so far-fetched.

And one more possibility. COULD IT BE that the wholly inadequate protection of presidential candidate Trump was a flagrant example of malicious neglect prompted by the widely held disdain for Donald Trump within our government? Could the Secret Service mindset have been to provide the bare minimum in protection, maybe adequate, maybe not? After all, it’s just Trump. Again, that’s far-fetched — but we saw another example of precisely that mindset evidenced by the Biden administration’s earlier refusal to provide Secret Service protection to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another unwanted political threat to their incumbency.

No doubt, there will be some readers of this column who will consider even the suggestion of possible U.S. government complicity, overt or negligent, in the Trump assassination attempt to be unwarranted and offensive. My response: We must leave no stone unturned in finding — and correcting — all aspects of this scandalous event. Until all facts are in, everything should be on the table.

And one thing is for sure: In each of the possible assassination scenarios outlined above, the relentless vitriol targeting Donald Trump is a contributing factor, directly or indirectly. After the shocking assassination attempt, there were momentary resolutions to “turn down the heat.” The heat has not been turned down by either side. Let’s not wait for yet another tragedy to remind us just how dangerous that is.