Attempt on Trump’s life to pressure-test US democracy

From Abraham Lincoln’s fatal shooting in 1865, assassinations and attempted assassinations have long been an ugly underside of US presidential politics and campaigning. Donald Trump escaped death by a few millimetres at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening, US time. His survival was “nothing short of miraculous”, as The Wall Street Journal noted. And “the former president can’t help but think that providence played some role in sparing him, as Ronald Reagan is said to have thought after he was shot and survived (outside the Washington Hilton) in 1981. The country was spared, too, from what could have been a furious cycle of retribution”. Yet a bystander was killed and two others critically injured at a rally that was supposed to celebrate their political allegiance and democratic participation.

The alleged assassin, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, believed to be a registered Republican, fired five shots before Secret Service agents “blew his head off”, one witness said. Why the gunman targeted Mr Trump, whether he acted alone and who might have influenced him are yet to be determined, if possible. More than 60 years after Lee Harvey Oswald murdered John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, major aspects of that mystery are still unsolved.

What must be investigated, and acted on without delay, is why the Secret Service allowed a would-be assassin to be in a position to fire a high-powered rifle from atop a building adjacent to where Mr Trump was addressing his rally. Security officials say the gunman was outside the “security perimeter” set up to guard Mr Trump. That is no excuse. It beggars belief that the officers did not look hard enough to notice the man. Witnesses claim police were told several times that a suspicious man was on the roof. One man, wearing a “Trump 2024” cap, said he was standing outside the event when he saw the gunman crawl up on to a roof about 17m away. “We could clearly see him with a rifle,” the witness told the BBC.

After the shocking incident, Americans will be looking for stable, reassuring leadership. The image that will echo through the campaign is Mr Trump, 78, bleeding from near the ear after being grazed on the side of his head, but pumping his fist in defiance, determined to stand tall after getting up from the ground as Secret Service agents crowded around him. Compared with Joe Biden’s inability to finish sentences in the recent debate, Mr Trump showed impressive strength, flying on to another engagement in New Jersey after leaving hospital. “Though nothing is certain, it’s likely that this incident will strengthen Trump’s candidacy,” Greg Sheridan writes from the US. At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, Mr Trump will accept his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate. He will be greeted by Republicans as a heroic survivor and reveal his running mate, a crucial choice given his age, looming lawfare still hanging over him and the horrific possibility of another attempt on his life. That grim possibility cannot be ruled out, especially in a nation in which the National Shooting Sports Foundation reports firearm ownership in the US stands at more than 120 guns per 100 people. That is the equivalent of about 394 million guns, a situation Mr Trump and most Republicans support, and Mr Biden and other Democrats have been unable to change. Security around Mr Trump and Mr Biden, if he stays in the race (or whoever might replace him), will be tightened. Without a totally different style of campaigning, however, it would be impossible to guarantee their safety.

As Anthony Albanese writes, the attack was an affront to democracy, the essence of which “ is that we can express our views, debate our disagreements and resolve our differences peacefully. We do so with respect for each other and in the spirit of a shared love of our country”. It will deepen the vast political divide in a chaotic campaign. Mr Biden, who phoned Mr Trump after the attempt on his life, said political violence was “just unheard of, it’s just not appropriate, and everybody, everybody must condemn it’’. It was one reason “we have to unite this country”, Mr Biden said.

Both the President and Mr Trump have a responsibility to ensure that in a bitter campaign, this event is not the precursor to more violence. The quality of US democracy is at stake, as it was when violent pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Turning down the heat would help and the Biden campaign has said it will pull its anti-Trump campaign bumf in an effort to calm emotions. Mr Trump would make a mistake if he blamed Democrats for the incident. His opportunity is to present himself as someone who can rise above an attack on his life and unite the country.