Democrats may regret their demonisation of Donald Trump

The attempted assassination has thrown Joe Biden’s re-election strategy into turmoil, as extreme campaign rhetoric comes back to haunt the Democratic party.

US President Joe Biden speaks after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has thrown Joe Biden’s re-election strategy into turmoil, as extreme campaign rhetoric against the former president levelled by the White House and other top Democrats comes back to haunt the Democratic party.

The failed murder attempt on the former president, which left him injured and one rally attendee dead, has triggered a frenzy of attacks on the Democratic party by prominent Republicans who have sought to turn Democrats’ warnings about supposed MAGA extremism against the ruling party.

Republican senator JD Vance, rumoured to be among Mr Trump’s top candidates to be his vice-presidential running mate, blamed Democrats for “rhetoric that led directly to Trump’s assassination”, echoing a deluge of similar criticism that will reverberate until the November poll.

“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,” he said in a statement.

Donald Trump assassination attempt: how it happened

President Joe Biden himself, who has frequently claimed the former president was an existential threat to democracy, a week ago told Democrat donors on a conference call that it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye”, according to contemporaneous reporting by Politico.

Former two-time Democrat senator Claire McCaskill has likened Mr Trump to Hitler on MSNBC, as has former Democratic party leader Hillary Clinton as recently as November last year.

The Washington Post a month later ran an article by lawyer Mike Godwin titled “Yes, it’s OK to compare Trump to Hitler, don’t let me stop you”.

The Biden campaign in a statement soon after the shooting said it was “pausing all outbound communications and working to pull down our television ads as quickly as possible”. Republicans nevertheless now have rich array of mat­erial to politically capitalise on from Saturday night’s incident.

Democrat congressman Bennie Thompson, who was chairman of the January 6 committee, in April along with half a dozen other Democrats moved legislation to remove secret service protection for former presidents who were convicted of a felony, a move aimed at the former president, who was found guilty of breaking New York State law over hush money payments in May.

Ronald Reagan enjoyed a significant poll boost after a failed assassination attempt on him in 1981, the last time a current or former president was shot at.

Political betting markets have witnessed a pile on, pushing Mr Trump’s chances of re-election up to 64 per cent from 55 per cent before the attack, the highest so far in the campaign.

Mr Biden’s chances flatlined at 14 per cent and Kamala Harris’s halved to 10 per cent.

Republican chairman of the House of Representatives oversight committee James Comer has requested US Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle appear before congress on 22nd July in what appears to be an attempt to blame.

American mainstream media also came under attack for obscuring what was for most observers a clear assassination attempt for up to more than an hour after the shooting. CNN’s online headline read “Secret Service rushes Trump off state after he falls at rally”.

Washington Post headlines included “Trump was escorted away after loud noises at Pennsylvania rally”.

The New York Times main headline was “Trump rushed off stage after loud chaos at rally”.

In recent weeks, high-profile MSNBC hosts including Rachel Maddow have warned without evidence that they would be incarcerated if Mr Trump were returned to the White House.

Journalist Tucker Carlson was mocked as a conspiracy theorist last year for predicting the US was “speeding towards assassination [of Trump], obviously”. “No one will say that, but I don’t know how you can’t reach this conclusion.”

The shooting will likely prompt significant changes in rhetoric from both campaigns, and additional secret service protection for all candidates, including independent candidate Robert F Kennedy, who has been repeatedly denied secret service protection even though his uncle and father were assassinated in the 1960s.