The world has been disagreeing about Donald Trump since 2015, but this is beyond dispute: The former president is a very lucky man.
Wounded in his right ear during an assassination attempt on Saturday, the former president was only an inch or two from being killed by a 20-year-old gunman, who fired from a rooftop about 430 feet (143 yards) to the side from where Trump was speaking.
A Secret Service team on another roof behind Trump returned fire and killed the gunman, but legitimate questions remain about how someone armed with a semi-automatic rifle got within firing range.
So far, there is no apparent explanation for why the would-be assassin took action. Investigators have found no record of political activism. There were no indications of mental health problems, no threatening social media commentary. It may be that, like several presidential attackers before him, this young man simply sought attention or notoriety and decided the best way to do it was to shoot at a politician.
Some Trump supporters reflexively blamed the media and President Joe Biden for creating a situation where political disagreements tip over to violence. The president, just last week, trying to right his ship amid concerns that he’s too feeble for a second term, told donors in a phone call that “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”
He was referring to publicizing Trump’s campaign pledges. Only the conspiracy-minded will think that Biden meant someone ought to shoot Trump. Besides, there’s no getting around the fact that Trump has spoken approvingly of extreme actions himself in the past few years.
In the 2016 campaign, he said presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should be in jail, and when demonstrators nationwide protested the death of George Floyd in 2020, he reportedly asked his staff, “Can’t you just shoot them?”
Saner voices after Saturday’s shooting lamented the state of American politics and said both parties should turn down the volume. But who among us seriously believes that’s going to happen?
Here’s what a Trump fundraising letter sent out last week said: “Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their Big Government Socialist pals are spending billions of dollars in an all-out effort to buy the election and seize total control of our government. Their continuous attacks — aided by the liberal fake news media — are ruthless and misleading. Their on-the-ground paid operatives are bulldozing through neighborhoods all across America, armed with incendiary rhetoric aimed at pressuring undecided voters to cast a ballot for a Democratic ticket.”
That doesn’t sound very toned down. The three-page letter is all about stopping Democrats, with not a word about what Trump would do in a second term. And you can be sure that Biden’s team has sent out similar fundraising appeals warning of Trump’s ruthless and misleading attacks, and incendiary rhetoric.
There’s too much money involved in national politics, and the partisan divide is too severe, to think that either side would have the courage to call a truce. In their view, to step back from the extreme would be to concede defeat.
Thank God that Trump’s injury was not worse. He literally dodged a bullet. But this was truly a tragedy: One man in the bleachers between Trump and the gunman was killed, while two other people were seriously injured.
It’s sad to predict that the political temperature won’t cool off, but America’s recent history gives no indication that our politics is headed in a saner, tamer direction.
Jack Ryan, Enterprise-Journal
