A young man shot at the presidential candidate at an election rally. Trump is mostly unscathed. But American democracy is bracing for yet another battering.
Ok, tell me about the shooting…
Here’s what happened: Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Loud noises were heard in the crowd around 6.13 pm. Trump ducked down behind the podium—and appeared to be bleeding from his ear. Secret Service personnel surrounded him—and escorted him to safety—into a waiting car. But Trump appeared to slow them down so he could shake his fist to his supporters, yelling ‘fight, fight’—in a gesture of defiance. You can see the entire sequence of events here:
About the shooting: He was positioned on a nearby roof—and likely used an AR-style rifle. He appears to have fired a total of eight bullets—in two rounds. Both New York Times and Newsweek have a similar map of the relative location of the sniper, Trump and the Secret Service:
The casualty count: One spectator was killed and two others critically injured—after "multiple shots" were fired—though it isn’t clear by whom—the shooter or the Secret Service. The shooter himself was shot and killed by security. As for Trump, he later said on social media that a “bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
Something to see: A New York Times reporter captured the bullet whizzing past Trump—which you can see here.
Ok, who shot him? A Democrat?
Well, he’s registered as a Republican—but that doesn’t mean anything. He also donated $15 to a liberal group—so read ‘em tea leaves. What we do know: Thomas Matthew Crooks was a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania—who lived an hour’s drive away from the location of the rally. There is no evidence of his political leanings—or ideology—on his social media accounts. He seems to fit the typical ‘lone wolf’ profile—a quiet kid who was bullied at school.
Point to note: According to law enforcement, he had “rudimentary” explosives in his car—though no one knows what he intended to do with them.
The biggest losers: of the day—other than the Democrats—is the Secret Service. Republicans have summoned its chief to Washington—and an in-depth investigation is a given:
“The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site,” said Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director. “And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”
That said, agents on the ground are being praised for moving very quickly to ensure Trump’s safety.
So Trump’s 100% going to win, right?
Assassinations tend to play well at the ballot box. See: Rajiv Gandhi who won a landslide after his mother, Indira, was gunned down by Sikh extremists. And as we said, Trump certainly seemed to be aware of the potential for a once-in-a-lifetime photo op—which looked something like this:
There’s even a Van Gogh meme doing the rounds:
And, of course, Matrix:
Hell, why not Jesus—shared by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, no less:
The bigger picture: This is no longer a presidential race between two old men. There is only one senior citizen left in this fight. The election will now be defined by old-fashioned machismo—which has always been winning terrain for the GOP:
Images of the former president, bloodied, with an upraised fist are sure to become a rallying point in Milwaukee. The Republican Party was already planning to make strength and rugged masculinity a central theme, and Saturday’s incident will give that a jolt of new energy. “This is the fighter America needs!” Eric Trump wrote on social media, accompanied by a photograph of his father after the shooting.
A Republican party: House Republicans are already celebrating.“Trump’s chances of losing just went to zero,” Representative Dan Crenshaw tweeted. Another said: “This will energise the base more than anything. And he, you know — with his fist in the air and he didn’t want to leave. And he’s yelling, fight, fight, fight. That’ll be the slogan.”
Point to note: Republicans now expect to win not just the White House—but also both houses of Congress.
It’s going to get a lot more nasty, right?
Given Trump’s base is already paranoid, it’s hardly surprising that eyewitness accounts such as these are fueling dark theories:
But it’s not just isolated supporters promoting the conspiracy talk:
Some congressional Republicans, like Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), spread unfounded conspiracy theories that Biden had “sent the orders” for the shooting, referencing Biden’s figurative remarks saying that Democrats needed to put Trump “in a bullseye.”
The more subtle version looks something like this:
“Today is not just some isolated incident,” [Senator JD] Vance wrote on the social media site X, owned by the right’s favourite billionaire, Elon Musk. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Even the Russians: are jumping in. But the Kremlin spokesperson drew the line at pointing the finger at Biden:
We do not believe that the attempt to eliminate and assassinate Trump was organised by the current authorities… But the atmosphere around candidate Trump...provoked what America is confronting today… After numerous attempts to remove candidate Trump from the political arena—using first legal tools, the courts, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit and compromise the candidate—it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger.
As for the Democrats: They are raising their hands—in peace (or perhaps surrender). Biden’s campaign has pulled all campaign ads—and no one is going to say a word against Trump for a long time. In his speech to the nation, the president called for a ‘ceasefire’: “disagreement is inevitable and American democracy is part of human nature, but politics must never be a literal battlefield or, God forbid, a killing field.”
As for those billionaires: The big announcement came from Elon Musk—who officially endorsed Trump for president. But it’s notable that even Jeff Bezos chimes in to express support—declaring “our former President showed tremendous grace and courage under literal fire.”
So what does it all mean?
Everyone is talking about the big ‘P’—polarisation—and the prognosis is dire. Pundits agrees American politics is becoming nastier, no-holds-barred war. The assassination attempt is of a piece with the Capitol Hill riots. Trump himself has led the charge in calling for violent retribution against his detractors:
The former US president sparked fury last year when he implied that the country's top military officer should be executed, and joked about the Pelosi hammer attack. Trump's exhortations to violence are nothing new — he suggested that protesters should be "roughed up" at a rally in 2016, and that looters should be shot during the 2020 racial protests over the police murder of George Floyd.
Others see this as a tipping point for American democracy. Some of the rhetoric out there is pretty dramatic:
The United States.. is riven by what might be its greatest internal divisions since the Civil War. The gravity of that particular comparison should underscore both the dangers here and the uncertainty. A gunman’s bullet has just sent the country hurtling into an abyss. The only question now is how far we fall.
Big data point to note: In a recent poll, 47% of Americans “considered a second civil war likely or very likely in their lifetime”—which is kinda insane.
But, but, but: Americans have a long and storied history of killing their leaders—or at least doing their best to achieve the feat. The most recent attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 was unsuccessful. But lone wolves have assassinated at least two sitting presidents—Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy. Women tried to kill President Ford—Nixon’s successor—on two separate occasions. FDR was shot at as president-elect—as was Teddy Roosevelt.
The bottomline: US politics have often been fiercely polarised. The sixties may now be remembered as the ‘summer of love’—but in fact, they were characterised by unprecedented, relentless violence on both sides. Over the span of 64 years, the nation lost JFK, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. And let’s not forget that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate man—just days after the end of the Civil War. This is hardly the worst America has witnessed—or endured—or overcome. Let’s not forget that—even as we make cracks about those crazy Americans.
Reading list
CNN takes a look at the backgrounds of the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as well as the sole civilian killed, Corey Comperatore. Wall Street Journal analyses how the assassination attempt is the US Secret Service’s biggest failure in decades, while Reuters reports on the scrutiny surrounding apparent security lapses. Politico interviews congressional Republicans on how the shooting will impact Trump’s chances of winning the election. New York Times (splainer gift link) breaks down how the incident played out on social media—the first of its kind in US history. AFP (via The Hindu) provides two good pieces—an indictment of violent rhetoric in US politics, and a history of presidential shootings in the US. Vox warns of the uncertainty of what’s coming next. Jacobin argues for the need for gun law reforms as the correct way to politicise the crisis, while ABC News reports on how the Republican National Convention will still allow guns but ban tennis balls. Washington Post (splainer gift link) interviews photojournalists who had the thankless task of capturing moments amid the chaos.
