In the minutes following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, social media was ablaze with predictions (not without irony) that he had just achieved the status of an unexpected hero. They could not have predicted better. The “new Trump” – who delivered a (start of) hyper-controlled speech on Thursday (it had been announced with great fanfare that he had rewritten his text but he quickly descended into a long speech where his naturalness returned at a gallop) – gripped the crowd as he left, delivering a tear-jerking description of the incident from which he was miraculously saved (thanks to divine intervention that seemed to whisper in his buried ear that he had not finished repairing America!). Another politician would probably have started his speech with a thought for the collateral victims and their families (there were still deaths and injuries) but we were here in the land of Narcissus where this thought necessarily came second. A detail, perhaps, but a detail that quickly made me leave this litany of watered-down words, so much did the substance betray the form.
What is convenient with religious notions is that they allow us to cast a wide net and to bring out virtues where they are often trampled or downright non-existent. How can we not juxtapose, in front of this pumped-up crowd and this messianic atmosphere, Joe Biden’s statement when he said that only divine intervention could make him decide to leave the presidential race? When a criminal becomes the savior of a nation and his rival is shown the exit by his most faithful allies, we wonder by what miracle this new America will be saved or if the gods have not fallen on their heads…
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