Fallout of assassination bid on Trump

Twenty-year-old Thomas Matthews Crooks of Bethel, Pennsylvania, who is a registered Republican voter and who had contributed $15 to a left-leaning Democratic organisation, had fired bullets at Donald Trump at the presumptive Republican nominee’s rally in Butler.

One of the rally attendees was killed, and others were injured. One of the bullets scraped past Trump’s ear and bloodstained his face as he was whisked away by the security guards. The picture of Trump with his fist raised and a streak of blood across his face and the American flag in the background has now been described by a traumatised American media as an iconic image of the times.

The assailant Crooks has been killed in the counter-firing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that it was a bid to assassinate Trump. The motives of Crooks will forever be elusive as he is dead.

America, which is rife with violence, does not expect its leaders to be on the radar. Political violence is not an option for the oldest democracy in the world, and assassination and assassination bids on leaders are a shocking event for the Americans. President Joe Biden had immediately issued a statement condemning the assassination bid on Trump, and said there is no room for political violence in America.

There is however the bitter political context of the presidential contest in the upcoming election in November between Biden and Trump. While Trump has been harping in his own aggressive manner and idiom the danger posed by illegal immigrants, Biden has been saying that Trump poses a danger to democracy in America.

As political rhetoric it would pass muster, but the Saturday assassination bid on Trump has changed that. Rattled and aggressive Republicans have grabbed the assassination bid to say that there is an attempt to stop Trump from returning to the White House for a second term at all costs. This was reflected in the statement of J.D. Vance, Republican Senator from Ohio, who said, “Today is not just some isolated incident. 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.”

Vance is seen as a probable vice-presidential candidate of Trump. Democrats too now recognise that there will be a sympathy wave for Trump after the assassination bid. With Biden in a tight spot with many of the Democrats urging him to step down, and there is no alternative candidate in place, with Vice President Kamala Harris not a rightful presidential hopeful, it does appear that Trump gains political advantage.

The irony is inescapable that political assassinations and political violence are seen as a typical feature of Third World countries, the United States is faced with a real challenge of political violence. America did go through the spiral of political violence in the late 1960s, with anti-Vietnam protests, the Black civil rights movement, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr, Robert Kennedy in 1968 and Malcom X. It recovered from it slowly through the 1970s. The glimpse of political violence came to the fore on January 6, 2021 when Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol after Trump addressed the supporters.

Even as the echoes of January 6, 2021 seemed to be dying out, the issue of political violence bounces back centre stage with the Crooks’ assassination bid on Trump. The only way that America can pull back from the brink is for Republicans and Democrats to condemn political violence, and ask their supporters to stay calm. Trump and the Republicans would be tempted to take advantage of the assassination bid to win political brownie points.