As if the 2024 US presidential election was not charged with enough tension and controversy to begin with, the bullet that grazed former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump while he was on stage at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday (July 13) has taken things to an unprecedented level. The shot now seared across the former president’s ear has likely left just as lasting an impression on his voters and supporters, not exactly a calm and collected bunch even in the best of times. The image of Trump with blood smeared across his face as US Secret Service agents attempt to drag him off stage has become the latest addition to American politics’ most powerful personality cult. The assassination attempt is the first on a serving or former US president since the attempt on Ronald Regan’s life in 1981.
Critics of Trump will argue that he has played a major part in elevating tensions by injecting American political discourse with the venomous rhetoric and dangerous misinformation that has created the climate for violence to be brought into politics. This is something his own supporters have been guilty of, with the January 6, 2020 Capital Riots in Washington DC being the most glaring example of this violent insurrectionist tendency. Then there is the glut of dangerous, racist and unhinged online media personalities that Trump has elevated over the years, partly facilitating the rise of the Q Anon movement, the racist Proud Boys and other dangerous movements. And yet, it will likely be hard for most Americans to turn too harsh an eye towards a man after he was almost killed, especially when he was rather popular to begin with. His opponents: President Joe Biden and the Democrats have generally been calling for calm in the aftermath of the shooting.
Such bromides will not dissuade Trump’s fan base, more eager to see their leader elected this coming November than ever before. All that stands in his way is a man too aged to qualify for most other jobs, except for the one that matters most apparently. Apart from the toxic rhetoric now so prevalent in American politics, this attempted assassination exposes the declining institutions of the US in other ways. How was it that Secret Service agents did not secure all high vantage points around the rally? This was a rather obvious thing to do according to some security experts. How is it that the Democrat Party has managed to put forth candidates who look so beatable in front of a former reality TV star with no experience in politics twice? Why has the alienation of America’s working classes, the engine of the Trump phenomenon, been neglected for so long? Why was sending free weapons to Israel so important with all this chaos at home? Come November, many in the US establishment and liberal-centrists may well be asking themselves these questions. But by then, it might be too late for good.