(Milwaukee) In a country where political debate is already strident, an attack on the leading presidential candidate gives it an even more dramatic, even darker tone.
Donald Trump came within an inch of being assassinated, if not a few millimeters.
This comes on the eve of the opening of the convention that is supposed to nominate him as the Republican Party’s candidate, here in Milwaukee.
In the current strident climate, this does not bode well, as violence often begets violence.
For a year now, each candidate has been repeating that if the opponent wins, it will be the end of the republic. The stakes are enormous, each one repeats. Donald Trump speaks of the “end” of the country in the event of a Democratic victory. Joe Biden speaks of the twilight of democracy if Trump returns to the White House.
It is hard to imagine more dramatic issues, even allowing for the spectacle and exaggeration that are part of an election campaign. Everyone is talking about “existential” issues.
I began my tenure in the United States last spring by speaking to former members of far-right militias and experts on violent political radicalization. Politically motivated violent events are numerous, even if they are counted as mass shootings by “mad killers.”
Serious discussion about some form of “civil war” has been going on in the United States for several years now, even before the events of January 6, 2021.
An event as dramatic as an assassination attempt on the Republican leader, in the current climate, raises the risk level immediately. There is no shortage of guns in this country. Nor of people deeply disturbed by the apocalyptic political climate.
All this at the moment when the Republicans are opening their big party, in Milwaukee, this week. The tone and the content of the discussions have automatically just changed dramatically, and we can already predict that everything will be analyzed through the prism of the political chaos that must be curbed.
Political discussion is already very painful these years. How will it survive in this atmosphere? What will become of this election campaign, already one of the most bizarre in modern history? It has just become seriously dark.
Political debate exists precisely so that we avoid killing each other…
The question of “why” is obviously serious. While we wait to know what motives animated the shooter, the event plunges us back into the darkest moments of American political history, marked by so many violent acts.
One thinks of the relatively recent tragic assassinations, the consequences of which are still felt today, from Martin Luther King to Robert Kennedy to John F. Kennedy, the fourth American president to be assassinated.
It has been forgotten because they did not come to fruition, but there have been serious plots against every American president since Richard Nixon, Republicans and Democrats alike.
Political violence, historically, does not belong to one camp more than the other. Before we theorize about the ideology or motivations of the assassin (because he killed a bystander), let’s remember that the man who shot and nearly killed Ronald Reagan in 1981 had first tried to do it to his opponent, Jimmy Carter…
There is also the question of how a security breach could have put Donald Trump in such serious danger.
It is obviously impossible to predict everything. But having been to a few of Donald Trump’s rallies, including one just Tuesday in Miami, I am witness to the seriousness of the authorities’ security measures.
At the former president’s golf club on Tuesday, the crowd arrived at an entrance far removed from the main entrance. Everyone had to pass through security arches and searches, like at an airport. And a huge perimeter of several golf holes was cordoned off. The former president arrived by a secured path. And, of course, police, firefighters and Secret Service agents were everywhere. No one could have been in a position to shoot at the candidate.
In December 2021, I visited a village in western Kentucky that had been devastated by a tornado. President Biden had announced at the last minute that he would visit the victims.
In the streets around where I was, every second house had been razed. The terrain was very open and difficult to control. As the president walked closer to shake hands and talk with citizens, the security perimeter expanded. Secret Service agents circled the entire area, looking at people one by one, asking people not to climb trees, and facing them as Biden walked, 150 meters below. These people are not amateurs and leave nothing to chance.
A witness interviewed by the BBC said he leaned against a tree outside the perimeter to see and listen to the future Republican candidate. He said he saw the shooter on the roof of a house 15 metres away and warned the police. It was only after hearing him fire a few shots that the secret services shot him dead.
How, then, could a stand be allowed to be set up within range of a firearm outside the perimeter?
But as I write these lines, it is above all the future of this campaign already described as historic that worries me. In other words: of this country.