This is not something you train for. And when it happens to you, your immediate reaction is necessarily visceral, and therefore indicative of the strength, or weakness, of your character. Donald Trump’s reaction to the first attempt was remarkable in every way. Shot in the ear, he crouched down to protect himself from other potential projectiles. Then, when he received the signal from his bodyguards that he could move, he didn’t duck behind the officers, as they themselves would have preferred. Instead, he stood as straight as he could, dominating the scene. With blood on his cheek, he raised his fist in defiance and shouted, “ Fight, fight, fight ! » It was perfect. He created for history a moment of strength, of defiance, of determination to emerge greater from the obstacles placed in his path. And what photos!
It is not impossible that this performance by Trump was the element that finally convinced Joe Biden to pass the torch. How could the old man that he was seriously campaign against the survivor of the attack, invigorated by destiny?
Of course, it’s easier to be a braggart when the bullet only took off a piece of your ear. In 1981, Ronald Reagan was shot in the left armpit, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing internal bleeding that could have cost him his life. He was bundled into the limousine. The photo was not politically usable.
In fact, of all the attempts to assassinate American presidents, only two others have resulted in the victim gaining political advantage, as in the case of Trump.
Andrew Jackson was walking out of the Congress building in 1835 when an unemployed house painter pointed his two pistols at him. For some reason, both pistols jammed. Jackson, who was walking with a cane, began beating his assailant, who was quickly arrested. Jackson was applauded for his composure and manly response.
No one was more admirable than Theodore Roosevelt. He was campaigning for re-election in 1912 and was leaving a Milwaukee hotel when his assassin’s bullet entered his chest. The assailant was grabbed by officers and the assembled crowd shouted: “ Kill him! » Roosevelt, a force of nature, stands up and demands to see the man with the gun. He questions him as to his motive, but gets nothing out of him. “Officers, arrest him and see that he is not harmed.” He thus saves his life.
Aware that the bullet had lodged somewhere (in the muscle) but that he was not coughing up blood, Roosevelt refused to go to the hospital, because thousands of people were waiting for him to speak. He did not want to disappoint them. “I don’t know if you know this,” he told them at first. “But I’ve just been shot. It takes more than that to kill a bull moose.” The English expression ” Bull Moose » will become one of his nicknames – along with “Teddy Bear”, already common.
Before entering his body, the bullet passed through the text of his speech, folded in his inside pocket. “Luckily,” he told the crowd, “I had my text. So you see I was going to make a long speech. And there’s a bullet—that’s where the bullet went through—and that probably saved me from going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so I can’t make a very long speech, but I’ll do my best.”
The papers he holds on the podium are therefore stained with blood. He had previously made a habit of throwing the papers of his speeches into the crowd as he delivered them. Precious souvenirs for his fans. This time, the papers bear his blood, and are all the more precious. His speech, aptly titled “A Progressive Cause Greater Than Any Individual,” is delivered in full, over 50 minutes, even as the spectators watch, under his jacket, the growing size of the bloodstain on his white shirt.
It is unlikely that any other speech in history has stirred such emotion among the audience. After the applause, Roosevelt was taken to the hospital, where the doctors decided that it would be best for their patient to keep the bullet where it was. Removing it would do even greater damage. He kept it in his chest for another seven years, his death apparently unrelated to its presence. He did not win that campaign, for a third term and as a third-party candidate, but his entire life, expertly recounted by Edmund Morris in a gripping trilogy that has unfortunately never been translated into French, is made up of bravura moments.
Having an excellent response to an assassination attempt is therefore no guarantee of success at the polls. It was not the case for Jackson, who did not run in the next election, nor for Roosevelt, who came in second. Polls indicate that Donald Trump does not seem to have benefited from his admirable response either. For now. Five weeks to go.