The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was an extremely unfortunate event for many reasons.
1. Political Violence. The U.S. stands on the precipice of a civil war. Any prominent act of violence could propel the nation into an armed conflict. If Trump had been seriously wounded or killed, it would have launched his supporters into a frenzy. By literally a centimeter, the U.S. avoided a complete disaster. When political violence begins to become part of a nation's landscape, it is a dire development and presages more violence to come.
2. Trump as a Folk Hero. Trump's escape from harm and his dramatic defiant fist pump while bloodied will become a permanent iconic image in U.S. history. People are already talking about how he's a strong, almost mythic person, especially when compared to the doddering Biden who spent the day before the assassination attempt mistakenly referring to the President of the Ukraine as "President Putin."
3. Trump as Protected by God. Already many of Trump's Christian supporters are saying that Trump wasn't killed because he is under God's divine protection. The event, they say, was a sign that God is placing his favor upon Trump. Why God would want to provide special protection to a rapist, felon, adulterer, serial liar, and fraud is a mystery to me, but as the old saying goes: "God works in mysterious ways."
4. The Event as a Catalyst for False Conspiracy Theories. Within minutes of the assassination attempt, right wing extremists were spreading insanely ridiculous theories about the event saying that Joe Biden was responsible for the assassination attempt, that the "Deep State" was responsible, even Antifa. Unfortunately, falsehoods circle the world a dozen times before the truth even has time to get out of bed and put its pants on (to paraphrase a famous quote by Winston Churchill).
5. An Excuse for More Right-wing Subversion. The extreme, Trumpist right will now use this event as justification for increasing its subversion of our political system through taking more illegal control of the electoral process. "The liberals are out to get our hero, so we need to fix the system in our favor," is a sentiment we are already hearing.
Thankfully, the attempt on Trump's life was unsuccessful, but I am afraid this is just the beginning of an extremely volatile political season. A couple days after Trump's election in 2016, I made a presentation to the University of Central Asia community on the election results saying that the unthinkable--civil war, the destruction of American democracy, and societal disintegration--was suddenly a real possibility in America in the years that would follow. I remember a couple of know-it-all Central Asian professors scoff at me afterward, telling me I was sounding a false alarm of hysteria. I wish they had been right and I had been wrong. But the events of 2024 are starting to make a prophet of me, much to my increasing horror.
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