Saturday, July 13 at around 6 pm in Butler, Pennsylvania, a rural area, a gunman tried to assassinate Donald Trump at his campaign rally. Trump was struck by a bullet in his right ear. He was treated for that superficial wound and is said to be “fine”.
The federal authorities identified the gunman they said tried to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania …, a shooting that killed at least one spectator.
At least two other spectators were critically injured on Saturday in Butler, Pa., the Secret Service said in a statement. The gunman was dead after officers responded.
The attempted assassination of former president Trump immediately resulted in a bunch of online conspiracy theories with some people claiming that the attempt was staged either to help Trump win by making him a martyr or to help Biden win by taking out his political rival, or that the far right wanted to off Trump and get a different candidate nominated who is even further to the right. So far the facts support the idea that this was domestic terrorism by a lone wolf. But more needs to be learned.
The shooter fits the description of the typical lone wolf shooter we have seen commit one after the other after the other mass shootings in our country. He was a young white male, 20 years old, a “loner” who was relentlessly bullied in high school, had access to an AR-15 (thanks to his father who bought it legally). Was the motive political? What was his political affiliation? He had given $15 to a Democratic group three years ago (when he was 17). More recently, he registered as a Republican voter. His father was a Republican, a Libertarian, and a staunch Trump supporter. His mother was a Democrat. The FBI hopes to learn more about the shooter’s motives after his cell phone has been unlocked and the contents thoroughly reviewed.
As Trump was removed from the podium under Secret Service protection, he raised his fist in the air and said “fight! fight! fight!”
WHAT OR WHO ARE WE FIGHTING?
From the moment Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower and injected himself into our political world, he has encouraged Americans to fight each other and identified groups like aliens at the border as threats to America. The real threat, as identified by Chris Wray of the FBI, are miserable young American men who are lone wolf shooters, just like this would-be assassin. Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric and creates many us vs them horror stories that arouse potential voters and get them worried about their existential survival. Trump has promoted White supremacy, Christian Nationalism and other anti-democratic forces that want to end our American experiment. Thanks to Trump and the ideology he promotes, we have never been so divided as a country except at the time of the Civil War. Our country has devolved into a new civil war where we are always angry at our fellow Americans and we shout at each other online, or threaten others in the real world, with weapons of war that are easy to get thanks to the gun industry, the NRA, the rightwing Supreme Court and politicians in bed with the firearms industry.
Who benefits from this?
So far this divisiveness has helped promote the political goals of the Republican Party far more than the Democratic Party. How? By creating fear of the “other”, the “alien at the border” and the scary “leftists”. It’s called fearmongering. The gun industry benefits by selling more weapons to frightened Americans which in turn creates more carnage and fear, which sells more weapons etc. The fear being generated also creates more support for a strongman alpha male leader like Trump instead of a softer unifier like Biden. The fear and divisiveness also helps Russian interests and other foreign adversaries who want us to be divided and can’t wait to see the end of America democracy, a democracy which has created the strongest economic country in the world.
Democrats have had to respond to this divisive rhetoric by calling out the goals of the MAGA movement, Christian Nationalists and Project 2025 which include radically remaking this country into an illiberal democracy, a dictatorship, like those run by strongmen: Putin’s Russia, Chi’s China, Orban’s Hungary and Kim Jung Un’s North Korea. In this remade version of America, for example, women would have limited or no reproductive rights because the rights of the unborn would outweigh the rights of the mother even if she might die or lose her ability to conceive again without an abortion. Contraceptives would be banned. This revised version of America would force Americans to accept a president/king who demands total loyalty to him instead of the country. This revised version of America would be forced to accept the teachings and values of Christianity in our schools. Books would be banned that do not conform to the Christian Nationalist ideology. The Democrats have been forced to point this out and in the process they too look divisive.
But here’s the thing… As long as we fight each other, we lose. We are a house divided against ourselves.
WHAT IF THIS MOMENT BROUGHT US TOGETHER AGAINST OUR REAL COMMON ENEMIES?
Trump’s immediate response to the assassination attempt was… interesting. Trump said he had been planning to attack the Democrats in his speech at the Republican National Convention but, he says, he is changing his speech to call for unity. He wants to bring the country together.
Three sources who have spoken to Trump since the shooting told me they are struggling to recognize his softer tone. “He’s changed and we’re all freaking out,” said one of the sources.
The Trump campaign is racing to reprogram the convention. What was originally going to be a four-day rage-fest is being positioned as a post-shooting showcase for unity. “Trump put the word out that he doesn’t want any talk of revenge or retaliation in speeches or anywhere else,” a Republican close to the campaign said. On his flight to Milwaukee on Sunday, Trump told journalists from the New York Post and Washington Examiner that he would be rewriting his nomination speech to bring the country together. “I basically had a speech that was an unbelievable rip-roarer. It was brutal—really good, really tough. I threw it out,” Trump said. (Vanity Fair)
Did Trump have an epiphany that actually changed him? Hmm. We don’t know. When Trump was at the rally, as Trump looked to his right to comment on a chart he had brought with him (something he almost never does), the bullet intended to kill him magically missed his head and hit his ear instead. If the course of the bullet had been just slightly different Trump would be dead right now. Sometimes these shocking moments in which we come face to face with our own mortality can be life changing.
Trump has been called Teflon Don. He is the Untouchable man in many ways that have delighted his followers and demoralized his detractors. Most recently, his Supreme Court, with their immunity decision, gave Trump an amazing and almost total get out of jail free card. Any act of a president that can be colorably claimed as an “official act”, cannot be prosecuted even if it is a criminal act, and cannot even be used as evidence in other cases.
As if Trump didn’t have enough lucky breaks already, Judge Aileen Cannon gave Trump a gigantic early present on the eve of being chosen as the Republican nominee. She dismissed Trump’s stolen documents case. (Who do you think wants to be the next Supreme Court justice appointed in Trump’s second term I wonder?)
Judge Cannon claims that Special Counsel, Jack Smith, was improperly appointed. She relies on the appointments clause and the appropriations clause of Article II of the Constitution for her flawed decision. Her decision contradicts decades of law supporting the appointment of special counsels. Her move had been teed up by Justice Thomas in a comment he tucked into the immunity decision. Thomas essentially invited Aileen Cannon to make that dismissal.
Given these deus ex machina interventions by Trump’s powerful allies in black robes, I think Trump may never be tried for his criminal actions leading up to January 6th either in the case before Judge Chutkan or the Georgia case, or for stealing top secret documents. Trump has become the one man in America who is truly above the law. He probably could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it today because his attorneys would find a way to call it an “official act” connected to his presidency. He was just trying to make America safe again.
Many Americans have been waiting and hoping for Trump to have consequences. The idea that no man is above the law has been a bedrock principle of our democracy. If there is any silver lining to this unraveling of our democracy and rule of law when it comes to Trump it is this: The pressure is off Trump now. Maybe he could afford to be less divisive in his rhetoric. Trump’s greatest path to a huge victory would be to convince Americans he wants to unite the very country he has been working so hard to divide. But for anyone who fears what Trump will do once he regains the power of the presidency, (and most thoughtful people are very worried about this because they have learned about Project 2025) such a shift in tone carries even more danger. Trump might win back those Nikki Haley voters if they believe he wants to unite our country and be more moderate.
WHO DO YOU TRUST TO UNITE US?
President Biden is taking this opportunity to use his personal superpower of healing and uniting the country. Biden delivered a brief, strong message from the Oval Office calling for an end to the divisiveness.
THE REAL ENEMIES OF AMERICA
- Our national regulatory agencies would be gutted and replaced by Trump loyalists who are anti-science.
- People who are loyal to Trump and part of his inner circle, many who are currently disbarred or in jail, will brought in to run Trump’s administration.
- Corruption would run rampant and be normalized thanks to the Supreme Court decision that it is not a bribe if money is given to influence someone after the fact.
- Trump would call up the military to quell any dissent or unrest as other dictators do.
- Trump would give in to the rightwing calls for a national abortion ban and claim the decision was up to the states and everyone wanted that.
- Trump would seek revenge on his “enemies” (people who tried to hold him to account).
- The media would become a propaganda arm of the government.