President Joe Biden is seen on a monitor in the press briefing room of the White House in Washington, Sunday, July 14, 2024.Susan Walsh/The Associated Press
Donald Trump was already set to sweep Butler County in November before his fateful Saturday rally in this hollowed-out former manufacturing hub, nestled in the hills an hour north of Pittsburgh. He won almost two-thirds of the vote here in 2020, and his statewide poll numbers in Pennsylvania had surged in recent months.
The shooting at that rally – which has, for now, made this community of 13,000 the centre of the media universe – could make his victory here this fall a mere formality.
Nor did Mr. Trump need to survive an attempt on his life to improve his overall odds of retaking the White House. Democrats had been doing an effective job of that since President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, as they squabbled among themselves over whether to dump their nominee.
What we know so far about the Trump assassination attempt
Replacing Mr. Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket may not even be an option now. And even if it were, it is not clear it would make much of a difference.
Regardless of the motives, Mr. Trump’s would-be assassin not only failed to knock the former Republican president out of contention, he may have undermined whatever chances the Democrats still had of holding on to the White House.
The race may be far from the finish line. But Mr. Trump’s defiant fist pump after being grazed by a bullet has inalterably changed its dynamics.
As news of the shooting ricocheted across the globe, Democratic politicians pulled their campaign ads and replaced pointed jibes with prayer offerings for the man they had deemed a dangerous threat to democracy.
Instead of responding in kind, with grace and restraint, leading Republicans pointed accusatory fingers at Democrats and the mainstream media.
“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that [Mr. Trump] is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Ohio senator and potential Trump running mate J.D. Vance posted on X, barely two hours after the shooting. “That rhetoric led directly to [his] attempted assassination.”
European right-wing populists jumped on the bandwagon. Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally, called the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump “a dramatic symbol of the violence that undermines our democracy.” Santiago Abascal, head of Spain’s Vox, said on X: “We must stop the globalist left that is spreading ruin and war.”
Retired lieutenant-general Keith Kellogg, who served as chief of staff to Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, provided perhaps the most politically useful comment of them all, writing on X: “I have been under fire many times. It reveals your character – when [Mr. Trump] stood up with blood streaming and fist pumped, it revealed his.”
Before Saturday, not even MAGA Republicans would have cited Mr. Trump’s character as his strongest quality. They stood by him in spite of his obvious moral failings, narcissism and vindictive nature.
Republicans now have a much better story to tell: Their nominee is not only resilient, he is also brave. For a fleeting but unforgettable instant, Mr. Trump projected an image of strength that ordinary Americans will relate to and, I daresay, admire. No amount of campaign spending could ever accomplish as much.
Democrats are left almost helpless. It will not be enough to take the high road even as Republicans go low; they will need to tackle head on the conspiracy theories, disinformation and lies that Mr. Trump will throw at them. If Democrats had not had much success doing that before Saturday, what are the chances they will now?
Mr. Biden’s call Sunday for “unity” will fall on deaf ears. Trump Republicans, who still believe Mr. Biden “stole” the 2020 election, will be more persuaded than ever that “deep state” forces will do anything to stop their candidate. Democrats will chafe at the cruel irony of seeing the vitriolic Mr. Trump benefit from a well of sympathy.
We are not in 1981 any more. An unsuccessful assassination attempt that year on then Republican President Ronald Reagan did unite Americans for a time. Mr. Reagan’s quip to wife Nancy that he “forgot to duck” reminded Americans of his fundamentally modest nature. Mr. Trump cannot do modest. Surviving an assassination attempt will do nothing to diminish his Himalayan ego.
No, this moment recalls the 2011 shooting of then Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords of Arizona by a 22-year-old Tea Party sympathizer. While Ms. Giffords survived, six of her constituents attending a Saturday morning meet-and-greet did not.
“Let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together,” President Barack Obama pleaded at the time.
If the country did not heed that call back then, before Trumpism was even a thing, it will almost certainly not heed a similar one now.