Ten Thoughts About the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump
Ten is a nice round number. Let's go with ten.
Last night someone attempted to assassinate Donald Trump while he was speaking at a rally in western Pennsylvania. The shooter grazed his ear with one shot and that was that; Trump subsequently said he was “fine.” The shooter and one rally attendee are dead and another attendee is critically wounded. Everyone you care about has released the requisite and responsible statements, and everyone you dislike has issued the requisite obnoxious or clueless press release. The Republican National Convention will go on as planned this coming week.
I’m a political scientist, which means I am supposed to be able to process this stuff more quickly and astringently than civilians. So what do I think? Here’s what I think:
Threatening or engaging in political violence in a constitutional democracy is real, real bad, and those who do it should be condemned in unequivocal fashion.
The country is lucky that the casualties were not more severe.
Regarding the shooter’s identity and motivations: I. Don’t Care.
Should you go on social media to find out if there was a massive conspiracy behind the assassination attempt? No, no you should not.
Anyone reporting on American politics and writing the sentence, “The illusion of security and safety in American politics – built over decades - has been dramatically shattered” in the wake of this shooting should not be allowed to write any more U.S. coverage without first taking at least three semesters of undergraduate American history courses. FFS, one founding father killed another in a duel. Four U.S. presidents were assassinated while in office; another 13 were the targets of unsuccessful plots. In the past few years alone Gabby Giffords, Steve Scalise, and Paul Pelosi were the targets of politically-motivated attacks. Three years ago Vice President Mike Pence and the entire U.S. Congress were the target of a violent mob assault on the U.S. Capitol. There were 656 mass shootings in the United States in 2023 and another 261 in the first half of 2024. Seriously, that is the single-dumbest sentence I have read in the 24 hours after the Trump shooting — which is saying something given the idiocies being spouted on social media.
Anyone claiming that this is it, the 2024 presidential election is over because “the assassination attempt will turbocharge the persecution narrative Trump has placed at the center of his campaign” should not be allowed to write any more U.S. coverage without first taking at least three semesters of undergraduate American politics courses. Remember when Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies? That was 45 days ago. In the next week we will learn who Trump chose as his vice presidential nominee. More debates about Biden’s age will rage on. Maybe this proves to be an inflection point, but it seems far more likely it’s a blip.
In moments of stress it is useful to enjoy even the perverse laughs that such an event can trigger. For example, Elon Musk’s decision to endorse Trump in the wake of the assassination attempt was the moment of comic levity the country needed. He was already giving money to a Trump SuperPAC, so the endorsement was hardly a surprise. A fun exercise is to think about what news hook Musk would have used to announce his endorsement if Trump had not been shot (probably the VP announcement).
Relatedly, Russia weighing in that Biden had created the “atmosphere” for the Trump shooting is comedy perfection. It is similar to their claim that they had no choice but to invade Ukraine because of NATO’s atmospherics. I guess it turns out that Russians are weak-willed creatures prone to resort to violence at just the slightest atmosphere shift. It will be wild when Putin invades the Baltics and blames it on climate change.
Thank God I was not on social media when the shooting happened in real time. I can only hope to be so fortunate in the future.
I hate to say that I am numb to this kind of event but… after the last decade in American politics I am completely numb to this kind of event.
I think that’s it.
After years of Trump & the Republicans espousing violence against their political foes, it's hardly a surprise that it should finally come for them too. You can only outswim the shark so long.
All solid thoughts. Of course, Republican lawmakers also own the refusal to modify or regulate or reauthorize laws regulating, banning, or restricting guns or gun ownership. They also own Republican Supreme Court justices dismantling gun laws and in 2008 “finding” for the first time ever, an individual right to bear arms, instead of the right to form armed state militias, in the Heller ruling. How originalist of them!