The assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was a chilling and terrifying moment in the country’s history, which has seen a rash of similar mass shootings.
Of course, we are all grateful that the former president was not more seriously injured and to the Secret Service agents who protected him.
I am especially grateful that in his call with President Trump on Saturday night, President Biden, President Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and many other Democrats came together in declaring that political violence is completely unacceptable, wishing President Trump well, praying for him, and immediately setting partisanship aside.
That Trump had the instinct to pump his fist repeatedly to reassure his supporters that he was OK, despite the blood streaming from his face – an image that may have transformed the campaign – is, of course, part of the story.
Attempt to assassinate President Trump at Pennsylvania rally leaves two injured, including the shooter, two dead
The image of former President Trump being escorted defiantly off the stage, fists raised and blood streaming from his face, redefined the image of the entire election campaign. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
However, the shot fired by the dead 20-year-old man sparked horrific events that also need to be strongly condemned.
I am tired of the cynical attempts to exploit tragedy for cheap political points, to blame horrific shootings on the left, the right, or public figures who had nothing to do with the incidents.
Trump was lucky to escape with only a graze on his ear and perhaps an inch of wound, but one person in the Pittsburgh-area crowd was killed.
People who promote the spiteful “he has blood on his hands” theory, especially in places like X, should be ignored. The media should not take the bait, even if it gets clicks and ratings. Blame shifting is harmful and misses the point.
Even people who hate Trump condemned the attempt to kill him, and I hope that brief honesty and humanity would remain the same if the target had been Biden or VP Harris.
President Biden speaks out the day after assassination attempt on former President Trump
In both mass shootings and targeted shootings, the only people to blame are those who pulled the trigger. Our country has lost four presidents to assassins: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and JFK. Two other presidents have been wounded by assassination attempts: Teddy Roosevelt and, more than 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan.
The common denominator here is that the murderers and would-be murderers are crazy. Opening fire on innocent people and closely guarded leaders and risking the death penalty or life in prison is insane. Unless there is evidence of a wider conspiracy, these madmen acted alone.
And I don’t really care how angry or disgruntled they get in the inevitable profiles, which is why I stopped using their names a long time ago, to not encourage others to seek such notoriety, as was the case in this case.
Former presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump survived assassination attempts in 1912, 1981 and 2024, respectively. (Getty Images)
The killer, who also had explosives in his car, was a Republican but had donated $15 to progressive groups, leaving his motive unclear.
After the shooting, Trump said we needed to “stand together” and “stand up for what we believe in and stand up against evil.” President Biden called the violence “sick” and said “this is unacceptable,” adding yesterday that “this is not America.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said “we have to de-escalate tensions in our country.”
Those are welcome words, but such pleas did not stop Rep. Lauren Boebert and Sen. J.D. Vance from blaming Biden’s comments for the shooting.
Johnson asks parties to refrain from commenting after Trump assassination attempt
If the president wanted to capitalize on the shooting, he could have pointed out that just hours earlier he had called for gun control and accused Trump of playing to the NRA. But some Trump supporters blasted Biden for calling Trump a “target,” a clear political metaphor.
It is ironic that Trump would be so close to the victims, as he himself has often been accused of inciting violence with his harsh rhetoric at rallies.
But it is also true that for nine years, and especially since January 6, Trump has been subjected to fierce media attack, denounced as a would-be dictator and a danger to democracy, even to the point of being depicted on the cover of a recent New Republic magazine as resembling Hitler’s face.
The irresponsible portrayal of former President Trump as an insurrectionist fascist and a looming threat to democracy appears to have provided easy fodder for would-be assassins. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
This demonization can easily lead mentally unstable people to believe that the world would be better without them.
The left has certainly adopted this tactic: After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton criticized Rush Limbaugh from the presidential podium, decrying “reckless rhetoric” and saying that radio broadcasts are too often used “to make some people as paranoid as possible, and to tear the rest of us apart and destabilize us.” I reported in a front-page article that radio talk show hosts were accusing liberals of trying to stoke “national hysteria” against the conservative movement.
The 1981 shooting of President Reagan was perpetrated outside the Washington Hilton by a madman wanting to impress Jodie Foster. (I had to knock on the door to find the phone after I was rushed into the hospital, where paramedics later reported that President Reagan had lost a lot more blood than the White House had admitted.)
Trump assassination attempt brings back memories of similar attack on President Reagan
The 2011 shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in Tucson sparked irrational attacks against Sarah Palin’s campaign after she released a political map with crosshairs drawn through the Democratic district where the shooting occurred.
I wrote an article calling this absurd, and my critical colleagues ultimately concluded that I was right: the madman who wounded a then-Congresswoman and killed six others had never seen a map before the massacre. Palin sued The New York Times for reviving the slander with a sloppy editorial, but lost the case.
Republican candidate Donald Trump was seen being escorted off stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, his face bleeding and surrounded by Secret Service agents. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
And in 2017, a gunman opened fire at a Republican baseball practice in Virginia, nearly killing House Republican Whip Steve Scalise. The shooter was an avowed liberal and Rachel Maddow fan, which sparked outrage on the right and left claims the tragedy had nothing to do with ideology.
When it comes to the motivations of the shooters at Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Buffalo, Uvalde and countless other mass shootings, consider the utter callousness and detachment from reality required to murder large numbers of strangers, including children, in ballrooms and classrooms.
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Donald Trump’s miraculous survival has enthralled this week’s Republican National Convention, but it also serves as a stark reminder that flesh and blood are involved in what we euphemistically call political warfare.
But history shows us that the blame game and gun control debates will soon resume as many wonder why political violence in our society is an insolvable problem.
