The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump has thrown American politics into a new level of danger and uncertainty. It comes on top of President Biden’s June 27 meltdown during a nationally televised debate with Trump. Amid all the noise, here are some important points to keep in mind.  

1. We Dodged a Bullet

Whatever you think of Trump, if he had been assassinated, it would have likely initiated a downward spiral of retaliatory attacks by Trump’s most aggrieved and heavily armed supporters whose end point no one knows. Trump (and Trumpism) can only be defeated politically by a vibrant, multi-racial democratic movement. An assassin’s bullet by its very nature is undemocratic. 

2. Trump, the Master Showman

Trump is many things: A con man, a grifter, a racist, a carnival barker for the far right and a talented live performer who learned how to frame a story going back to his tabloid heyday in 1980s New York. After Saturday’s assassination attempt, his self-promotional instincts swiftly kicked in. He told Secret Service agents who wanted to hustle him off the stage to wait and then he thrust his clenched fist in the air  yelling “Fight! Fight! Fight!” to his adoring supporters. When he made his fist, he knew to pivot and directly face the press pool which was stationed in a cordoned-off area in front of the stage. 

3. Trump’s Magical Martyrdom Moment

Trump’s lead in the presidential race was already growing following Joe Biden’s debate debacle. Trump will likely get another boost following his now-iconic response to surviving an assassination attempt. Compared to Biden’s confused, slack-jawed look in the first presidential debate, Trump’s projection of strength under fire will only bolster his position in the race. 

Trump is arguably the most corrupt and self-aggrandizing political figure in modern American history. Now in this twisted new reality we’ve entered, he is going to be sanctified by his supporters as a “warrior” who was willing to “make the ultimate sacrifice.” This framing should be resisted. Hopefully, there is still enough time between now and November 5 for this myth-making to fall apart. 

4. This Week’s RNC

The Republican National Convention begins today in Milwaukee and concludes on Thursday night when Trump gives his acceptance speech. Will he give an incendiary speech denouncing his political rivals and calling for retribution? Or, will he take the high road and save his conspiratorial rants about what happened on Saturday for another time? There’s a big upside for Trump to choose the latter as he gets an unexpected chance to reintroduce himself to undecided voters who have been wary of him. If the wolf appears in sheep’s clothing, don’t believe it.

5. Second Thoughts for Second Amendment People?

Mass shootings are a regular feature of American life. They happen in elementary schools, churches, 4th of July parades. On Saturday, Trump came within inches of having his life ended in a mass shooting carried out by someone wielding an AR-15 rifle who was one year removed from teenagerdom. Trump and his “Second Amendment” people routinely glorify gun culture and shrug off the carnage. Unfortunately, this incident is not likely to cause any self-reflection in their ranks.

6. The Far Right’s Penchant for Political Violence 

Murderous political violence has almost exclusively been the domain of the far right over the past 30 years. Some of the most memorable moments include the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995 that killed 168 people, the violent 2017 Charlottesville protests, the mass shootings at a Pittsburgh synagogue (2018) and an El Paso Walmart (2019) by extremists amped up on great replacement conspiracy theories and, of course, the January 6, 2021 insurrection. It’s the far right that has repeatedly been willing to engage in lethal violence while the left at most carries out minor property damage. To the extent Saturday’s shooter had any political beliefs little is known about them. Nonetheless, expect Trump’s supporters to try and rewrite this history starting during this week’s RNC.  

7. Political Violence Is Never Acceptable Except… When We Do It  

Listening to leaders of both political parties and network talking heads intone about how we should never settle our political differences with violence, I couldn’t help but think about the bipartisan freakout this spring when peaceful pro-Palestine protest encampments emerged on college campuses across the country. The encampments were ruthlessly crushed by the police. Their organizers were slandered as anti-Semites. The same political and corporate media elites who did the slandering have cheered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza which itself is a U.S.-backed attempt to resolve a political problem – how will two peoples share one land – with unspeakable levels of violence. The hypocrisy we live under is endless. 

8. Democrats in Disarray

President Biden’s re-election campaign was already in shambles before Saturday’s events. The uphill climb has only grown steeper. The biggest obstacle the Democrats face is their aging president’s inability to effectively communicate and make his case. This could be resolved by removing Biden from the ticket and replacing him with someone younger and more energetic. After the assassination attempt, there appears to be little interest within Democratic ranks for challenging the president. Hopefully, they will revisit that calculation when we get closer to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in late August as a Trump-Biden rematch is almost certain to end in disaster. 

9.  Policies Not Personalities

Biden has planned all along to run as an anti-Trump, denouncing the former president as a would-be dictator, a convicted felon, a rapist and an insurrectionist. It’s all true, however, he will have to recalibrate that messaging while ignoring bad-faith Republican demands that all criticism of Trump be considered incitement. 

Trump has been on the national scene for nine years and this is his third presidential campaign. Most voters have made their mind up about what they think of his fitness to hold the presidency. Running the same-old anti-Trump playbook without offering anything more of substance was already failing. One thing Biden (or his replacement) could do is to talk more about his second-term goals and how he would help make people’s lives better, something Biden’s campaign has studiously refused to do for most of this election season. 

Contrasting progressive second-term goals with the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a dystopian 922-page blueprint for remaking America in a second Trump administration, could do a lot of work. For those of us on the left, this election is a shit show. However, so much is at stake – abortion access including medication abortion delivered via mail, labor rights, voting rights, the potential for a mass deportation of millions of immigrants. 

We should tune out the noise and keep our eyes on what kind of political terrain we want to be fighting on starting January 20, 2025. Down ballot races will matter a lot too.  If the Republicans win a White House-Senate-House of Reps trifecta, expect them to move quickly to dismantle much of the hard-won progress of the past 60 years, if not the entirety of the 20th century, as they seek to impose their plutocratic, patriarchal Christian nationalist governing vision on blue and red states alike. 

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