The 2024 election campaign now has an iconic image: Donald Trump, moments after narrowly avoiding serious injury or death from an assassin’s bullets, standing with his fist raised, blood streaking across his face, with an American flag billowing behind him.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the former president declared, as some supporters, who moments earlier had feared for their lives, began cheering.
The bloodshed in Pennsylvania will leave a lasting mark on the American psyche, puncturing the veneer of security around the highest levels of presidential politics – despite magnetic screening, bulletproof limousines, and heavily armed Secret Service agents. This incident shows that even former presidents are not insulated from the violence that can erupt in everyday American life.
It was also a dramatic moment in American political history, sure to be replayed in video clips, still photographs, and testimonial accounts throughout this presidential campaign and in campaigns to come.
In a rare address from the Oval Office Sunday evening, President Joe Biden called on Americans to cool the temperature around political debate.
“[It] must never be a battlefield and, God forbid, a killing field,” he warned. “No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend into violence.”
The attack has already begun coursing through America’s partisan dialogue, with numerous Republicans condemning President Biden and the Democrats for creating a rhetorical environment conducive to violence. They point to dire warnings about the former president becoming a dictator and threatening democracy as examples of the overheated language that could inspire an assassin.
In particular, they highlight leaked comments the president made in private to donors just last week about increasing the attacks on the former president’s record and putting a “bull’s-eye” on him.
“They’ve tried to take him out in so many other ways, financially, they’ve tried to throw him in jail,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a television interview on Sunday. “It’s almost as if they would love for this to happen.”
