The first questions are all about the incident itself, of course – the perpetrator, the motivation and method. Not forgetting: how on earth could this have happened?
It’s scarcely believable for anyone who has attended a Trump event and witnessed the security firewall that separates the man from the masses. The agents charged with Donald Trump’s protection, Secret Service or otherwise, face a grilling on a failure in the fundamentals of the job.
Allowing a former and, possibly, future president to be caught in the cross-hairs of a sniper’s bullet puts them in the firing line and they will have to account for actions that ended in fatality, albeit not of the prime target.
In the wake of the shooting, one eyewitness told the media microphones he was surprised it hadn’t happened before now. He’s not alone in a country that feels the persistent undercurrent of political violence.
Time will tell if, and how, anything changes.
In a statement, President Biden referred to “Donald” as he called the attack “sick” and said there was “no place for this kind of violence in America”. Democrats pulled anti-Trump campaign ads, for now.
The benevolence didn’t synchronise with a post on ‘X’ by Republican House member Mike Collins shortly after the assassination attempt. He wrote that the president had “sent the orders” for the shooting, referencing a statement in which Biden had said: “We’re done talking about the (TV) debate. It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
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The House member’s post was subsequently deleted. A recognition that he’d gone too far, like the rhetoric of violence generally? Perhaps – it was a single post by one politician, withdrawn.
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The US, certainly, is a country in need of a reset around its politics – laced, as they are, with division and malevolence.
Will an attempted assassination change the tenor?
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In the aftermath of events in Pennsylvania, there were reminders from Trump opponents about how, in the past, he had joked about the brutal assault on the husband of former Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Likewise, his downplaying of a kidnap plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer wasn’t forgotten.
No one’s claiming that anything justified an assassination attempt but the clear suggestion is that Donald Trump played his part in changing the rules of engagement and recklessly drove hostility in US politics.
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It needs a reset. The shocking events of Saturday provide an opportunity for all in America’s political establishment to assess the value of change as they head into an election campaign proper.
The US political picture is one that needs reframed – it’s all too evident in the pictures emerging from Butler, Pennsylvania.
