We Must Unify Around the Wounded Body of the Dictator
Yesterday’s shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania calls on all of us to take a step back, take stock of where we are, how we go forward from here.
We all thank God that Trump is not injured. I’m sincerely grateful that he’s doing well. We hope that Mr. Trump recovers quickly and fully. God loves him.
Today, we're all MAGA.
There is no place in America for this kind of violence, or for any violence ever. Politics must never be a literal battlefield or, God forbid, a killing field. Political differences should be resolved at the ballot box, not with bullets. Violence is antithetical to democracy.
There is no place in America for this kind of violence. We cannot allow for this to be happening. It’s sick. It’s sick.
When Ronald Reagan was shot on 30 March 1981, his wound was not immediately noticed. It wasn’t until he started bleeding from the mouth that the car was diverted to the hospital.
On November 22, 1963 a gunman shot and killed President John F. Kennedy. The event traumatized the nation. A president who embodied the promise of a new generation had been slain.
The shots fired at President Trump left him bleeding from the head. The would-be assassin’s bullet made a bloody mess of Donald Trump’s right ear — and, but for the grace of a fraction of an inch, it could have done worse.
Trump recalled turning his head slightly to the right to read a chart about undocumented immigrants — a split-second move he believes allowed him to dodge a shot that would have killed him.
Trump and his backers hope to use the iconography of a bloody ear and face, raised fist, and the call to “Fight!” Blood running from Mr. Trump’s ear to his lips testifies to how close the former president had come to death. His raised fist offers a highly legible refusal to capitulate.
The American flag billowing behind Mr. Trump’s bloodied face in some of the photos may recall a Romantic tradition of bloodied national heroes. The fist had a more warlike aspect, suggesting fearlessness and indomitability. The photos say “I am safe; I am strong.” The horror of the attack was translated into embodiments of authority, defiance and near martyrdom. This is some real Iwo Jima shit right here.
There is going to be a lot of pressure now for Democrats to tone down their rhetoric about Trump as a ‘dictator’ and ‘despot’. It is incumbent on political leaders of both parties, and on Americans individually and collectively, to resist a slide into extremist language. Extremists on the left and on the right.
In 2020, extremists on the left hijacked anti-police protests with their own violent tactics. The form of extremism we face is a new phase of domestic terror, one characterized by radicalized individuals with shape-shifting ideologies willing to kill their political enemies. The history of the 1960s should remind us today that unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important than that right now — unity.
The Trump rally should have been conducted peacefully without any problem. The idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of. Everybody must condemn it. Everybody.
Mr. Trump’s political agenda cannot and must not be opposed by violence.
The above was collaged together from a number of opinion pieces, speeches and public statements about the shooting from President Biden, The New York Times, The Atlantic, MSNBC, CNN and The Spectator. Sources here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here