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Donald Trump wasn’t the only one to dodge a bullet. A half-inch to the left would have made him a martyr as the bullet grazed his ear. We don’t know what caused his death.
As things stand, a reprehensible assassination attempt on Trump would have serious repercussions for American democracy. Seconds after he was surrounded by Secret Service agents, Trump was yelling at the crowd, “Fight, fight, fight.” The photo of him with his fist raised against the backdrop of the American flag would quickly become a household name and an icon of his election campaign.
A high-trust society would wait for the facts about the shooting before jumping to conclusions. By that standard, America is on the brink. Two of the Republicans auditioning to be Trump’s running mate accused Democrats of stoking hatred for Trump. Front-runner Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said the Biden campaign’s rhetoric “directly led to the assassination attempt on President Trump.” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said Democrats’ “inflammatory rhetoric is putting lives at risk.” Elon Musk, owner of “X,” the site where those remarks were published, quickly joined the conspiracy theories about how the shooter got so close. “It was either extreme incompetence or deliberate,” Musk wrote.
Many on the left have also been quick to claim that the shooting was staged or a false flag operation to boost Trump’s electoral prospects. But it’s notable that Democratic officials have not yet fueled these rumors. The identity of the suspect, a 20-year-old man named Thomas Matthew Crooks, was of little help: he was a Republican and an avid gun owner, but he made small donations to Democratic groups. Like the majority of US assassins, Crooks was likely acting alone and delusional. That won’t stop political entrepreneurs from blaming the shooting on their ideological enemies.
The biggest question is what Trump will do about it. Any honest assessment of America’s stench climate cannot ignore the fact that the former president himself is the country’s most influential promoter of political violence. Trump called those who stormed the U.S. Capitol with knives and nooses on January 6, 2021 “incredible patriots.” He mocked the attack on former Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, after one of his own supporters hit him over the head with a hammer. And he called for extremist militias to “stand by” just before the 2020 election. In a more moderate democracy, a deadly incident in which a party leader was nearly killed by an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle would lead to bipartisan calls for gun control. There is no chance that Trump’s party will change its mind on this one. It is estimated that there are 44 million AR-15s in the United States, a comparison with previous periods of American political violence.
Whether Trump will gain lasting sympathy remains to be seen. But three conclusions can already be drawn. First, his crushing defeat will dominate the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week. The Trump campaign is very adept at using visual effects to underscore its message. Images of the candidate’s iconic raised fist, rising bravely from the brink of death, will fill the convention stage. Trump is expected to nominate his running mate over the next two days, likely on Monday. We can expect the nation to be transfixed with admiration or horror at how the Republican Party has exploited Trump’s near-death. At Trump’s first presidential convention in Cleveland in 2016, the roads around the main hall were filled with militias brandishing weapons. Policing Milwaukee’s streets this week will be an unusually difficult challenge, even by American standards.
Second, Joe Biden will be relieved, at least temporarily, from the debate within the Democratic Party about whether he should resign as the party’s nominee. It may seem like much longer, but the 17 days since Biden’s botched CNN debate with Trump have seen an increasingly heated exchange of insults between Democrats. The passion behind that debate — who is best positioned to beat Trump in November — remains relevant. But the focus will now return to Trump. The Biden campaign announced on Sunday that it would cease anti-Trump attack ads. I would be surprised if that lasted more than a few days. There are still five weeks until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. I would also be surprised if calls for Biden to resign do not reignite.
It is too early to speculate, as some were quick to do, that the prospect of an already buoyant Trump election is now anything but inevitable. In 1981, viewership surged after Ronald Reagan was shot by a lone gunman. That surge evaporated within weeks. But it is fair to say that an election that was already on existential alert is significantly more tense than it was before. Violence was already implicit in much of the rhetoric. Now it is obvious. It is always tempting to point out that guns and political murder are staples of the American Republic. That is true relative to other democracies. But the situation in 2024 is unique. A man who has vowed to retaliate if he returns to the White House nearly died from a gunshot wound. A desire for revenge plagues America.
edward.luce@ft.com
